While IM might be one of the most revolutionary tools that the Internet has given to the world in terms of communication and time-wasting, I continue to share a bitter-sweet relationship with MSN Messenger which is the IM client most of my friends and colleagues use.
I find Messenger looks like a Christmas tree at times, with all the adverts it displays, and it’s overloaded with features that nobody uses (like webcam integration and ‘packs’!?). The extra advertising and email/my space integration also kill my Internet quota as the app. needs to connect to remote services all the time.
This morning when I plugged my laptop into our network, this is what my MSN spewed out:
Before
This was the final straw, so I decided to do some Googling and came across an ingenious piece of freeware called mess patch which allows you to customise every ounce of MSN, even removing the Microsoft logo if that tickles your fancy.
After a quick installation (make sure you get the right version of mess patch for your MSN build), and a few minutes customising all the options, this was the end result:
After
Much better eh? More streamlined, less advertorial, and a whole lot nicer to look at. I also customised other things like the chat window, removing unnecessary “features” and adding a few of my own (such as a shortcut to “My Received Files”).
So… go ahead and join in the quest for MSN emancipation!!!
1 Vincent Maher May 30th, 2006 at 3:44 pmYeah this is the way forward dude
2 Gregor May 30th, 2006 at 5:27 pmWorks like a charm! Thx Colin!
3 Dominic White May 30th, 2006 at 5:33 pmCheck out Gaim, it works with MSN perfectly and is:
* more stable
* more customisable
* open source
* cross platform (windows, linux, Mac etc.)
In addition it supports multiple protocols:
* MSN
* ICQ
* GoogleTalk
* Jabber
* IRC
* AOL
and loads more
It is my central IM client and has been for years. Try it out at:
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
4 matt May 30th, 2006 at 7:03 pmok have just installed it. muuuuccch better
5 Colin Daniels May 31st, 2006 at 8:41 amNice pitch from the Open Source guy. If I were to install gaim, I’d be jumping straight back into the trap I was trying to avoid – the reason I customised MSN was to avoid all the extra features and protocols that gaim supports and stick to a barebones client with only the features I need… and it works just how I like it at the moment
6 Cat Jun 2nd, 2006 at 5:05 pmThanks so much dude…
what a pleasure!
7 Sarah Nov 8th, 2006 at 11:27 pmI don’t get it