What's wrong with MSN Messenger 5.0
Today we have a lesson in how to screw up a good thing. I've been a long-time user of instant messaging. It started with ICQ, and though it was mostly a novelty at the time, it was clear that this was a major shift in online communications. I still use ICQ primarily, but sneaking in as a default install with XP, MSN Messenger was slowing winning me over. I would have switched completely, but the lack of an archive of messages was a deal breaker.
This was MSN Messenger 4.x. When Messenger 5.0 became available, I updated. It was a mistake. Here's why.
- Tabs that are really hard to eliminate.
In 4.x, turning off the annoying tabs (that I presume no-one uses) was easy. Go to the Tools menu, and toggle the Show Tabs option. In 5.0, I didn't think it was possible until I stumbled across an obscure setting in the Privacy tab (?) called "This is a shared computer so don't display my tabs". I'm not using a shared computer, but this did exactly what I wanted. - Popup Advertising!
Everyone knows the world is going to hell - old people have been telling us this for centuries. I plan to tell young people this when I get old. However, I didn't realize how bad it was until Messenger 5.0 gave me pop-up advertising when it loads (screenshot). This is not a trivial annoyance. Consider that for most MSN Messenger users, the program loads at start-up. This means a pop-up ad every time you boot your computer; totally unacceptable. I've since learned that you can turn this off by un-checking the "Display MSN Today when Messenger signs in" option; still totally unacceptable. - New sounds.
I've always thought the audio in Messenger 4.x was some of the best audio design in any application. The default 'user-is-online', 'message-sent', and 'message-received' sounds were subtle, distinctive, hard-to-miss, and easy-to-ignore. Perfect. The sounds may grow on me, but it feels like the like the new sounds are the audio equivalent of the visual changes between Windows 2000 and Windows XP; from sharp and subtle to soft and a bit garish. Of course, the real test comes in every day use, but for a quick comparison, here are the sounds of both versions (links are WAV files): - Icons - branded to death.
The icons in Messenger are important, as they are one of the new icons that are always on the screen. The new 5.0 icons include the MSN Butterfly. For the record, I'm not totally anti-butterfly. The full-size MSN Butterfly icon included in system32/shell32.dll in XP is absolutely beautifully rendered. However, the tiny butterfly added to the 16x16 pixel system tray icon is too easily confused with the offline or away status indicators. It is too small to decipher, and just adds clutter. - Easy to dismiss items
In 4.x, you could right-click on the alerts (the boxes in the bottom-left corner of the screen that tell you a user has signed-on), and dismiss them quickly. It is an obscure feature, but totally non-intrusive and handy for those who use it. This doesn't work in 5.0
I'm a confessed upgrade junkie. Sometimes it burns me.
Microsoft's UI design teams seem to need to implement an entirely different interface scheme for every product line. Take a look at this comparative screenshot of version 4.7 and 5.0 (also note one of the new improvements in v5.0 - the better layout of the My Status area at the top of the Messenger window). Office and XP look different and all of the MSN stuff seems to be happening in a bubble somewhere (a heavily bevelled bubble, I would imagine).
This reminds me of the politics and positioning that takes place between federal, provincial/state, and municipal politics. There is only one tax payer. There is only one user.
It's too bad really, that the designers and programmers think that slapping a new interface on and old horse makes it a better application. It usually doesn't, it's just cosmetics that englighten users to the flaws of their upgrade.
History archiving is a big one but being able to send messages when users are offline is even better. I don't need to open my email to send a simple URL link when I can just open icq and send them that way. It is much easier to send small icq messages rather then a few emails with one or 2 lines in each.
Another thing that ICQ dominates over MSN is that incoming messages appear in the system tray and not a new tab flashing at the bottom of my screen (a new one for each user).
For the past year and a half I've come close to typing more words using various instant messagers than I have spoken works on the telephone (or, shockingly, in person). I started the year as a diehard Jabber user, with occasional use of MSN Messenger (version 3, under Windows 2000).
Since Apple released Jaguar (aka Mac OS 10.2), I've switch entirely to using the integrated iChat application, which uses AOL's protocols and thus allows me to communicate seamlessly with both AIM and iChat users.
iChat is a very nice application: it's fast, it stays out of the way when you don't need it, there's no pop-up advertising of any sort, and it doesn't try to be an MSN-style "connect with cell phones and buy things the MSN Shopping Channel" uber-app. Even the cartoony "bubbles" that I initially thought I'd turn off (you can make iChat look like a regular IM via Preferences setting) become addictive and make following IM chats easier.
But [my] children are another story. They run AIM and MSN Messenger constantly and know every nuance, technical and commercial. There's an adult growth edge for IM -- newly online grandmothers drunk on the InterWeb, I guess -- but the major IM platform-providers only underwrite it as a marketing vehicle. If there's downward pressure on email spam there's none on IM spam. Users clearly opt-in; the resources expended are more clearly owned by the IM provider.
IM, then, will saturate with commerce and those inured to it, and probably won't interest me. Too bad: it's a clever technology. Maybe Jabber (and AOL/MSN over-reach) will propel IM into an understood public realm, where users are thought to have discretionary rights. For now, I think, it's just noise getting noisier.
IM is not ours, it's theirs. They mean to keep it.
That being said, iChat is king for me. It will be interesting to see how apple goes about adding video conferencing and VOIP to it in the near future. I'm sure they will be very careful.
- logs history
- send messages while user is offline (only for ICQ users)
- send files
The email checking plugin is available in the pro version and the inegration of my MSN users with my ICQ users is great. I'm going to keep using it for a few more weeks and then maybe buy the pro version.
One major problem with Messenger is that it bugs you so often about upgrades. I used to say no on upgrades, but I got tired of saying "no" about two upgrades ago, and just do it pretty much automatically now. Now I'm stuck with 5.whatever that I don't like. MS forced upgrade path.
Trillian is good, but has its issues. It's not 100% compatible (yet) with all the protocols (I get contact list issues on ICQ where people don't show when they should) and at times seems to have a lowest common denominator approach to what you can do (ICQ has very fine grained privacy controls). The mail indicators aren't as smart, but all of the above can be fixed in future versions.
The biggest problem with Trillian is fundamental to it's design. It's the way it handles skinning. It's not just appearance skins - which can be bad enough trying to explain what to do when the appearance is unknown up to a point - but skins that change the way the app operates. I hate that, it's behavior is inconsistent, it depends on what skin you run. There are buttons that only exist in certain skins. There are certain actions that can only be done in certain skins. So now, instead of just downloading the app, I have to see which skin I like to see what actions I like taking. I've only downloaded the .74 version, I don't know how skins are with upward compatibility. Mozilla and it's XUL chrome have a lot of the same probblems, but they actually seem more consistent in design (though that's probably mostly by luck at this point).
It is an extremely configurable application. This sounds like a good thing, but consider this: I didnt change ANY settings while I used MSN Messenger it was all default. Trillian took me over an hour to get configured to a point that I was happy with it, and Im still finding other settings I need to change. I doubt many people will be willing invest that kind of time.
That said, I do have it working well now, and I will continue to run it as my primary IM client.
They're at it again. This time the Office division is reinventing the visual style of the interface. See screenshots from the Office 11 beta.
Just one gripe as a messenger 4.x user who refuses to upgrade: the "WOULD YOU LIKE TO UPGRADE?" prompt can never be permanently shut off. At most, you can ask it not to ask you for a week.
Every week, the same routine. Why won't they just leave me alone?
They both shit me to shreds, no tabbed messages make tom goo craaazzyyyy. Get gaim, get enlightened, feel the freedom :) http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
I also have another problem I was just designing my site using corel presentations and then suddenly itfroze and I had to turn off the switch from the electricity to restart the computer, you know how annoying that is!!! There's really something wrong with my computer and the MSN internet service, can someone help me with this?? and yes evertime I go on it disconnects from the internet in every 15 minutes or more. I really need some help 'cus I can't go on with this.
i m not sure if it is the NEW IE 6 that I have installed.
I have 3 hotmail accounts
I can login using 2 but on eof them recently started to play up
I login but it just waits and waits and waits and then i lose my connection
with my ISP.
I do not have this problem when i login using the other 2 accounts
yesterday my 2 good accounts became 1
meaning now I can only login into one of my accounts and the 2nd one is gone
where the 1st one has gone a week ago.
I deleted temp files on IE6 , cookies , histories but no luck...
It cannot be the connection setting cos I have no problem with login in
using my 3rd account.
Somehow there is a history on the HRAD disk that knows it has failed last time and will not proceed
I uninstalled and reinstalled but NO luck.
The funny thing is I can login to all 3 accounts using a different PC (net cafe)
If you think you know what the problem is please drop me an email
with the subject 'MSN' to saeedr at hotmail.com
Thanks
