Tag: msn messenger

Yahoo Emoticons for MSN Messenger..

This is a long overdue post 😛 .. I was busy with CCNA and some other things so I could post it earlier.. Anyways, Here it is.

Being a Yahoo Messenger user for years, I am used to Yahoo Messenger emoticons. And after some of my friends decided to shift to MSN messenger, I had to become a regular on MSN Messenger too .. But I missed Yahoo’s emoticons. And add to it that MSN Messenger’s emoticon looks ugly to me. So I decided to utilize MSN Messenger’s Custom Emoticon feature to add Yahoo emoticons to MSN Messenger.
I have released it as a custom emoticon pack, and if you want to import Yahoo emoticons to MSN Messenger, you have two choices. The first is to manually copy and paste custom emoticons to your messenger folder OR Use MSN BackitUp. I’ll explain both methods one by one:

  • Method 1: Manual Copy Paste:
    1. Download and extract the archive. You will get a folder called CustomEmoticons with around 80 .dat files. Right Click on the folder and select Copy.
    2. Now in your Windows drive ( C: on most systems), navigate to Application Data folder. For ex: C:\Document & Settings \ YourUsernameOnTheComputer \Application Data\ Microsoft\ MSN Messenger\ ARandomNumberString\.
    3. There may be more than one folders in your MSN Messenger directory if you have multiple MSN IDs on the same computer. You have to open the folder which corresponds to the ID that you wanna have Yahoo Emoticons.
    4. Paste the CustomEmoticons folder here that you downloaded.
    5. Run MSN Messenger .. 😛 .. You have YMSN Emoticons as your custom emoticons.

  • Do NOT use this method if you already have many custom emoticons as this may overwrite your existing Custom emoticons.

  • Method 2: Use MSN BackUp:
    1. Download and extract the archive. Note that this one is different from the archive above.
    2. Download and install MSN Backup. Its a great program to backup your MSN Messenger settings. We’ll use it to import custom emoticons.
    3. Run the program and enter your MSN Id in the textbox given. You will need to be running MSN Messenger too.
    4. In the right hand pane, navigate to the folder where you extracted the downloaded archive.
    5. It will take a while to load all the custom emoticons. After they have loaded, Enable the checkbox next to Emoticons in the right side pane.
    6. Click on the Install Objects button. The custom emoticons will be imported within in a minute.
    7. You may get one or two errors and two or three emoticons out of total 82 wont be imported. (I have no idea why some of them does not get imported..)

  • Most emoticans use the same format as Yahoo Messenger but for some emoticons you will need to put an extra : to make them work. For example use ::| for 😐 .

    I’ve tested it with Windows Live Messenger and I hope they work with previous version of MSN Messenger too. I hope you will like it. 🙂 …

    And yeah .. These emoticons are copyrighted by Yahoo. So you should agree to their terms of use if you wanna use these emoticans. ….

How to write in Hindi without any IME

This text written in Devnagri (Hindi).. You will need Unicode support in your Operating system and browser to view it. So If all you get is boxes after this text, your system is Unicode non compliant.

Chatting in Hinglish has become a normal routine for Hindi speaking people.. And with advent of Unicode support in most operating systems and browsers, it has become easy to write in Hindi easily.. The recent versions of MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger support Unicode so now you can chat in Unicode with your friends easily ..

Earlier the only way to do this was either to install an IME on both ends and then communicate or write the text in a transcripter program such as Baraha and copy paste in your IM window .. Well … No more such troubles now .. Now you can directly write in your favorite program in Hindi .. and no fonts installation required .. (Well some installation is required though 😉 .. )

हिन्दी में लिखने के लिये आपको जिस software की जरुरत है वह है HindiWriter Keyboad Map. ईसे आप इसके डेवेलपर के वेबसाईट से डाउनलोड कर सकते हें। इसको इन्स्टाल करना काफ़ी आसान है। ईस कमाल के सोफ़्टवेर को बनाया है देवेन्द्र पारख ने।

So, to use HindiWriter, you’ll need to install complex script support on your computer. On Windows XP, you can do so by going to Control Panel and opening Regional and Language options applet. On the Language tab, Enable the option of Install files for complex script and right to left languages. Click on Apply. You may need your XP Cd to complete the installation. Here is a screenshot :
Screenshot of XP Regional Options

For Windows 2000, Goto Control Panel and click on Regional Options. Click on General Tab. Enable ‘Indic’ Click on Apply. You may need your Windows 2000 cd for comleting the installation.

Now the tougher part is over. Just download HindiWriter and install it. Now to type in Hindi, just run the program and press Shift Pause. Hindi keyboard map will be activated and whatever you will type will be converted to Devnagri automatically. It’s a phonetic font so if you want to write श , you can do so by typing sh . So if you can type in Hinglish, you can type in Hindi too .. We are using it successfully with MS Word, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger too .. And you can write in Hindi on Unicode compliant browsers such as Maxthon, Firefox or Opera too …

तो जनाव, इन्तेज़ार किस बात का है ? आज से हिन्दी में बात करना शुरु कर दिजिये !

[Update as on 28 May 2008] Seems like Devendra Parekh’s original website is no more. I’ve updated the download link to SoftPedia now.

Windows Live Messenger 8 Beta Reviewed

Its raining Betas everywhere .. Soon after Microsoft announced that new version of MSN Messenger will be called Windows Live Messenger, they released the program for Beta testers .. The download size is huge, double the size of previous versions but I still decided to test it. So I downloaded it and installed it.. Here’s my experience with it …
Whats New ..?

  • The interface: It clearly says “The Future of MSN Messenger” in the main window. They have redesigned the interface yet again .. I said “Wow ..!” when I first looked at it ..! Its more colorful (You can customize the colors) and its more sleek.. You can find most of the common task in the main interface without right clicking .. Just hover over a contact and most useful tasks are visible ..
    Windows Live Messenger Main Interface

Continue reading Windows Live Messenger 8 Beta Reviewed

A User’s Guide to Instant Messengers – II

To continue with my earlier post , Now I will discuss what I want to have in the Instant Messenger of my choice .. Though some proceedings made me to modify my original post. Earlier I had decided that I will point out features separately for both messengers, but now as both Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger will start supporting each other’s networks, I guess the ultimate messenger program they will release around June 2006 will support both program’s features . . .So I will make an ambiguous list that is relevant to most clients. 
A disclaimer: People like me usually chat on text mode. This partly due to chatting with many people at once, being a fast typist and, not wanting to appear as I am talking to my computer for that matter :D..
So, most of the features that I want are related to text conversations …
Continue reading A User’s Guide to Instant Messengers – II

A User’s Guide to Instant Messengers – I

It looks like a long time I posted last .. I was in a hectic schedule and thats it .. Anyway, I have decided to write about Instant Messengers this time, After my reviews of Yahoo Messenger and Msn Messenger, I got some very good responses .. So I start about Instant messengers, comparing the features of Yahoo Messenger and Msn Messenger , what I like and dislike in them .. I will conclude in the second part in which I’ll write what I want to have in the Instant Messenger of my choice .. So here we go ..

A preliminary

 

The instant messeging has been around for quite a long time now. What started with Unix’s chat program and slowly matured into IRC and then ICQ, was soon to become big business. I wont talk about the Irc’s history or how it matured but come straight to point .. The instant messenger users can be
classified into two types.. First, who are new to instant messeging, or email or the Internet itself and the second one who have been here for a long time . ..
The first type of people- who have just found out chatrooms, take pleasure in chatting in open chatrooms … Where they meet new people, befriend them, flirt with them, flame them and et all .. They are in process of increasing their contacts over the net .. Now the second type , since they’ve been around for some time now, they have many contacts on their lists .. Most of the time when they come online, they talk to their contacts and create closed chatrooms where the participants are invited and not everyone can join .. They may occasionally goto the open chatrooms for time pass but more often this is the case ..
My journey with Internet started long time ago .. Those days they had Yahoo’s Java chat and a program called Cheetah Chat for people not using Java chat .. As I enjoy chatting, my contact list soon grew big enough .. And now these days, for most of the time I am online, I am conversating with my existing friends and I seldom get time to goto chatrooms and flirt and all that .. So you see these closed chatrooms or just “Conferences” from here on (in YIM’s syntax) are as important as Open Chatrooms (Chatrooms from here on) …

Continue reading A User’s Guide to Instant Messengers – I