Import Hotmail contacts to Gmail

Last week my daughter came over and showed me how to use Google Talk. I've fallen in love with this program - never knew it would be so easy to communicate with people. I was thinking of shifting my email address from Hotmail to Gmail (already have an account) and wanted to know if:
(a) Can I still use the old email address?
(b) How to transfer the extensive Hotmail contacts to Gmail service?
Still not good with computers and request some detailed assistance.
Thanks, Sandy Malone
Getting a new email does not mean that you have to let go of the older address. So yes, you can use both the email accounts. In fact, you can have as many emails as you want.
And as for shifting the email address to another service (read that article to know more), you not only need to import the Hotmail contacts to Gmail but also move all the messages from one account to the other.

Import Hotmail contacts to Gmail

To import Hotmail contacts to your newly created Gmail email, the first step is to get hold of all the information. Thus, login at your Hotmail email account and export the Hotmail contacts list - please refer that link for step by step instructions with screenshots. All the contact data will be downloaded and saved on your computer in a file named WLMContacts.csv. This Comma Separated Values file that can then be uploaded and imported into your Gmail account.
Though populating Gmail contacts with contents from a CSV file stored on your computer (Hotmail contacts, in your case) has been detailed in how to move address book to Gmail account, here are the steps anyway:

• Log in at your Gmail account.
• Load the Gmail contacts section from the "Contacts" link located in the left column.
• Now click "Import" and then hit the "Choose File" button in the resultant page.
• Move to the folder that has the WLMContacts.csv file you had exported from the Hotmail email account.
• Select this contacts list file and upload it to the Gmail account.
• Click the "Import" button to get Hotmail contacts into Gmail.

With these simple steps you shall be able to move all the Hotmail contacts data into the Gmail email account. However, as I mentioned at the very beginning, you still need to do something about all the messages lying at the old email account. Ideally, you should transfer them too, right? Please refer how to get Hotmail email on Gmail account for step by step instructions.