Main/News >> News Archives > The week of January 01 (2006) (you are here)

 3rd WLM invites giveaway: Mess with the Green WLM Buddy

dwergs says ( 06 Jan 2006 ):

Want to legally test drive Windows Live Messenger 8.0 and receive an invite to authorise your account for the closed BETA? Good news! Here's another chance to win such an official invitation. This time, we want you to show off your Photoshop skills and "mess" with the new Messenger mascotte: the grass green buddy. And we're not talking about applying an "Invert" or "Blur" filter and then sending in your entry. No, we want you to turn the green buddy Display Picture into celebrities, characters, parodies,... Just for inspiration (please be as original as possible), we'll give you some ideas: a Mr. T buddy, a disco buddy, an Einstein buddy, a Superman buddy, a Kill Bill buddy, a tux buddy, etc. Just as long as your design is based on the following 96x96 pixels template (make sure it's "somewhat" recognisable): You can send in as much remixes as you want. Quality is more important than quantity, but the more stuff you send in the higher you chances of course! One address: livebuddymess.be. The best six will each receive an official Windows Live Messenger invite. And along with selected honorable mentions, these MSN Display Pictures will be added to CustoMess as a free downloadable pack! The six invites for this compo were donated by two Mess.be staff members: Zero1 and Timothy! Thanks guys! Finally, some other examples we like but still based on the old buddy:

 Ladies Night: Hundreds of female MSN Display Pictures

dwergs says ( 06 Jan 2006 ):

Mass-uploader lpchick has contributed over 300 new MSN Display Pictures during the past week, with even more avatars still in the pipeline. As usual, they heavily feature famous people from the movie or music business. And in today's case it's an all ladies match, so here's one for the fan boys and girls: >> Browse 133 Angelina Jolie MSN Display Pictures. >> Browse 375 Hilary Duff MSN Display Pictures. >> Browse 173 Mariah Carey MSN Display Pictures. >> Browse 356 Ashlee Simpson MSN Display Pictures.

 Microsoft delivers WMF vulnerability patch 'early'

dwergs says ( 06 Jan 2006 ):

Via Microsoft's MSN Messenger security alerts I was notified of the early release of an official patch for the "Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution (912919)" we mentioned on Wednesday. Appropriate patches for specific Windows versions can be found here. We suggest you apply ASAP.

 Bill Gates announces two Windows Live Messenger phones

dwergs says ( 05 Jan 2006 ):

In his keynote speech at the international Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Bill Gates introduced two dual mode Internet phones exclusively designed for the upcoming Windows Live Messenger. Uniden's WIN 1200 Digital Cordless Phone and the VOIP433 by Philips both serve as a traditional landline phone, but take calling to the next level by also enabling customers to make and receive Internet calls via Windows Live Call, a feature nestled in MSN Messenger's successor. Customers will have three calling choices: free PC-to-PC incoming and outgoing calling, low-cost PC-to-phone outgoing calling, and standard incoming and outgoing calling via traditional landline phone service. The cordless plug and play phones allow you to see your contact list (including statuses) from virtually anywhere in the house and place calls to those contacts. The VOIP433 will debut in Europe, Asia Pacific (Autralia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore) and Latin America (Argentina, Brazil) and be available for purchase in the spring of 2006. No release date for the WIN 1200 yet, but the retail price is set at $99.99. >> Watch Bill Gates' CES keynote speech: 56k, 100k or 300k speed/quality (fast forward to +-50 minutes through). >> Press releases: WIN 1200 and VOIP 433.

 WTF?! WMF!!

dwergs says ( 04 Jan 2006 ):

You might've read elsewhere about the Windows Meta File (WMF) vulnerability discovered on December 27th. It didn't last long at all for the first worm exploiting it to make its debut on MSN Messenger. The worm spreads using a link to a file named xmas-2006 FUNNY.jpg. The image is in fact an HTML page linking to a malicious wmf file (Exploit.Win32.IMG-WMF), which will download and execute a vbs file which is detected as Trojan-Downloader.VBS.Psyme.br... which in turn will download an Sdbot (Backdoor.Win32.SdBot.gen). Are you still following? Anyway, check these sources out to be on the safe side: Search Security, Viruslist.com, CNET News.com and ZDNet.com (about the unofficial existing and upcoming official Microsoft patches). Finally, check out the Suggested Actions in here's Microsoft's Security Advisory updated yesterday.

 Updated: MSN Messenger 7.5.0322 for Windows 2000

dwergs says ( 04 Jan 2006 ):

Posted by Ahmad on our forums a few weeks ago, here's a Windows 2000 compatible installer for the latest MSN Messenger 7.5.0322 release which normally only works with Windows XP. If you run the Audio Tuning Wizard in MSN Messenger 7.0 before upgrading with this one, there's a higher chance you can get the voice functions "talking". >> Download MSN Messenger 7.5.0322 for Windows 2000 (English, unffocial and unsupported).

 Sneak into the Windows Live Mail Beta

dwergs says ( 03 Jan 2006 ):

Just before the end of 2005, a simple trick was discovered that turns your Hotmail into the Windows Live Mail Beta without the need of an official invitation. The "exploit", which allows almost everyone to actually test and use Microsoft's nextgen e-mail service, has been posted all over the web and has still not been fixed yet. This leaves us with the impression that the company doesn't really mind tens of thousands of extra Beta users. On the other hand, Microsoft could decide to push a few buttons anytime soon and transform all these accounts back to their original state. At this time we do not recommend applying this trick, but here it is anyway for the daredevils: 1) Log into your Hotmail account. 2) Make sure your country (Options > Personal > Profile) is set to United States and your language (Options > Personal > Language) to English. Save the settings. 3) Right-click here and copy the link. 4) Go to the browser window where you're logged into Hotmail and paste the link in the address bar. Hit enter and go to the URL. 5) Accept the agreement by clicking Join Mail Beta!. In most cases, you'll be redirected to the brand new Windows Mail Beta interface (or try logging in at mail.live.com). Do not complain if you aren't. It worked for two out of the three accounts I "upgraded". And for your information, I did not take the risk to apply this to my main Hotmail account. [Reported by: Spooky, XxRebelSeanxX, shawn84, vid_88 & Satyricon]

 Delayed Santa: Christmess Round WLM Invite Winners

dwergs says ( 03 Jan 2006 ):

Over a hundred Messers participated in our second Windows Live Messenger Invitation Giveaway by sending in their messed up Christmas pictures. I must say that some of you really have impressive Christmas decorations, like Georgie for example, who owns probably the tallest Christmas tree in whole Cyprus! Another Messer made his little brother/nephew or kid eat their tree... we do not support child molestation, dude! ;) Yeah, we received a lot of crazy stuff. Fulvio from Italy messed with his grandma instead of his Christmas tree. The poor lady! And Nuno sent us this wacky e-card. The adorable Tania addressed her e-mail to "Christ"... is she taking this contest way too religiously? Now let's get to the point and (finally!) announce the winners: - Jamie P.: ChristMESS... .be - Antonis J.: Ehm.. your tree is browsing Mess.be! - Victor B.: A lot of detail on this one. - Will I.: Ace wallpaper featuring Misses Santa!. - Morten S.: Hardware makes good tree decoration! Congratulations! All five of you will receive an invite to officially use Windows Live Messenger BETA, donated by Corey and Tails! All others... Stay tuned for the third round!

 Happy New Mess Year!

dwergs says ( 02 Jan 2006 ):

You might think the string of emoticons above doesn't make much sense, but in fact those are just the letters from "happy new year" in standard MSN Messenger (e)(m)(o)(t)(i)(c)(o)(n)(s). And that's what I'd like to wish all 25 million* of you who have visited Mess.be in 2005! We love you long time, Messers! 2006 is going to be most important for us. In the year that Mess.be turns five, it will finally go through a metamorphosis that we planned for a long while now. If MSN Messenger changes its looks so should we (don't worry, in our case it won't be ugly). And no, it's not just a vanity thing: structural changes are of an even higher priority. Because your daily visits are what drives us, we hope that you'll stick around and enjoy all the MSN and of course Windows Live Messenger news and content we'll bring you! (*According to Extreme Tracker. Yay! Our busiest year ever!)

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