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 Explanation for the outage on Thursday
Explanation for the outage on Thursday

dwergs says ( 11 Jan 2003 ):

 

Adam Sohn, a spokesperson for Microsoft, said Thursday's outage was absolutely not related to the one on Monday. Instead, it was the ironic effect of changes made by AT&T in order to add more capacity and better routing of traffic between AT&T's network and Microsoft's services. For a brief period, about 40 percent of Internet users were denied access to some MSN services. [Source: PCWorld.com]



 MsgPlus! 2.00.16
MsgPlus! 2.00.16

Johnny_Mac says ( 11 Jan 2003 ):

 

Forget whatever you read yesterday, a new day seems to bring a new Plus! version. Patchou released the new version because a bug was detected in the use of the IRC commands and Emoticons. Therefore, the latest version of MsgPlus! is now 2.00.16 and you can get it from here. Only a few mirrors are up at the moment, one is here and the other can be found here. [Source: MsgPlus! Forums]



 mirrors - 2.00.15
mirrors - 2.00.15

Johnny_Mac says ( 10 Jan 2003 ):

 

Patchou's post on the Plus! forums announced that the automatic update, which should occur on Plus! versions, didn't on the latest beta version. Therefore to upgrade, you must download the BETA new version. Mess.be has put together this list of mirrors for you.

North America: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2
United Kingdom: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2
Netherlands: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2 | Mirror 3 | Mirror 4 | Mirror 5 | Mirror 6
Belgium: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2
France: Mirror 1
Australia: Mirror 1
Israel: Mirror 1
Denmark Mirror 1

These are all the newly updated versions, and more likely to come. Thanks to Sock for the list of MsgPlus! mirrors on his website.



 Plus! 2.00.15
Plus! 2.00.15

Johnny_Mac says ( 10 Jan 2003 ):

 

A new MsgPlus! version with a tons of bug fixes was released from Patchou today. Including contacts' e-mail addresses are now encrypted in the registry, no false 'You must have 4.6 installed' messages and NEW events will be logged in the Event Viewer. You can find more fixes listed in Patchou's post on the Plus! Forums. Otherwise you can now download MsgPlus! 2.00.15 from here.



 MSN Down.
MSN Down.

Johnny_Mac says ( 10 Jan 2003 ):

 

The .NET Messenger Service - Status Page is still showing minor difficulties. However the problem doesn't seem to be too widespread, I know quite a few people who are signed in and some who are still reporting problems. Although you'd think everyone was off with the amount of reports over on the Microsoft Newsgroups. As yet, no word from Microsoft why the problems have occurred. [Update: Link fixed - Thanks Muss]


Update: All systems go! ;)



 Microsoft Watch
Microsoft Watch

dwergs says ( 10 Jan 2003 ):

 

Microsoft introduced a hi-tech watch that will be able to communicate with your computer as well as Microsoft's new FM-based national wireless data network. The built-in Smart Personal Object Technology ("SPOT") will allow the watch to identify where it is, the local time (duh!) and the local weather forecast. More interestingly: it will receive the wearer's personal calendar sent from a PC... AND instant messages sent through MSN Messenger. The subscription fee might be $5 to $12 or maybe it will be included in the price of some watches, but not with the simplest versions of less than $150. Availability: somewhere, sometime in 2003. [Illustration: Bill says it's time for Wireless Messaging (Yahoo! News)] [Source: NYTimes.com]



 .NET Status
.NET Status

dwergs says ( 09 Jan 2003 ):

 

The .NET Messenger Service status of 1/9/2003 - 2:11 PM PST is showing Minor difficulties again... ofcourse, right when I need to be on MSN Messenger badly. I hope this is not becoming a habit.



 Away Messages Updates
Away Messages Updates

dwergs says ( 09 Jan 2003 ):

 

We've already gathered over 200 away messages... but aiming for 1000, so please keep submitting! Pay attention to your spelling & grammar because it's very hard to correct -and easier to reject ;)- them.

(Remember you can use these messages as your Personalized Status Message in Messenger Plus! 2.00!)

We will be giving away the first 5 free license keys for DirectTalk for MSN Messenger by JDSoft in the next couple of days so hurry up, submit and maybe you're one of them!



 Plus! 1.4 virus
Plus! 1.4 virus

dwergs says ( 08 Jan 2003 ):

 

Watch out for an opportunistic worm hitting your e-mail accounts parasiting on the release of Plus!. The message goes something like:

************************************* ** Messenger - Plus! Extension ** ** Version 1.41c ** ************************************* Thank you for trying this little piece of software. I've worked hard on it and I sincerely hope that you'll enj

Please mind that the latest Plus! is v2.00 (as if you didn't know by now) *AND* it's over one megabyte in size, so a tiny attachment of 40kb with an extension like .scr is certainly not it. It's safer to download it from the mirrors presented below, but remember to ALWAYS SCAN DOWNLOADED FILES for viruses! [Reported by: DrEaMiNgWeB]



 Visual change
Visual change

timothy says ( 08 Jan 2003 ):

 

Microsoft updated MSN 5.0.543 a while ago, the only change in it was that they updated the normal Rich-Edit control to a so called Ink-Edit control. This showed that MS probably updated its Messenger client to be compatible with Tablet PC's and Smart Display Devices.
That has now been confirmed by microsoft with some visual prove.



 Message Outage thnx to human fault
Message Outage thnx to human fault

timothy says ( 08 Jan 2003 ):

 

A simple human mistake was the cause of the MSN outage on monday. Some technicians were installing routers to upgrade the .net server to make the service more reliable (how ironic). The only problem was that they did it the wrong way causing five hours of downtime on the server. [Source:Internet Week]



 MP2 Bugs
MP2 Bugs

Johnny_Mac says ( 08 Jan 2003 ):

 

I urge everyone to check their version of MsgPlus! 2. Quite a few bug reports flooding in for the Alpha version, which are already fixed. If you're unsure whether or not you have the latest version, get it off mess.be from one of the links posted by Timothy below.



 MP2 Mirrors
MP2 Mirrors

timothy says ( 08 Jan 2003 ):

 

Looks like the official Messenger Plus 2 beta download site is down. But have no fear, there are already mirrors up and running for you.

North America: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2
United Kingdom: Mirror 1
Netherlands: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2 | Mirror 3 | Mirror 4 | Mirror 5 | Mirror 6 | Mirror 7 | Mirror 8
Belgium: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2
France: Mirror 1
New Zealand: Mirror 1
Australia: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2
Norway: Mirror 1 | Mirror 2
Israel: Mirror 1

This should do it for a while, Thanks to GZ for giving me the info and iiez for listing the mirrors.



 Messenger Plus! 2 Official Beta is out!
Messenger Plus! 2 Official Beta is out!

Patchou says ( 08 Jan 2003 ):

 

It is my privilege to announce to everyone on mess.be that the official beta version of Messenger Plus! 2.00 has been released! My web site is down because of the popularity of this add-on so I’ll give you the main link right here…
click here and enjoy!



 MSN Plus 2 update
MSN Plus 2 update

timothy says ( 07 Jan 2003 ):

 

Patchou is still planning to release Messenger Plus 2 today (well, seen from his time-zone). But due the amount of visitors on his site, his web host suspended his account. So please do not visit it any-more until it is back online. If you want to get real-time information visit his forum that is still running.



 Plus! Beta Leaked.
Plus! Beta Leaked.

Johnny_Mac says ( 07 Jan 2003 ):

 

Another leaked version of MsgPlus! is making it way around the usual suspect sites, this time a BETA version. No comment on whether or not it's a final BETA version, however it all seems a little trivial now MsgPlus! is to be released today anyway.

Patchou is expected to release the new version via the Plus! Forums and his Website. Although, the massive server load on the forums at the moment might not be the best place to find it. :P

No one knows the actual time MsgPlus! will be released, however we do know Patchou is in Canada, so it might be Wednesday for a few of us. ;)



 New Poll: Connectivity Problems on Monday
New Poll: Connectivity Problems on Monday

dwergs says ( 06 Jan 2003 ):

 

Time for a new, quick poll and guess what, it's about the MSN Messenger connection flaw on Monday, 6th of January. It would be interesting to see how many out there actually noticed something wrong and how many people were affected. Please vote here.



 All Systems Go
All Systems Go

dwergs says ( 06 Jan 2003 ):

 

LMAO at the All Systems Go statement on the .NET Messenger Service Status page. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one that hasn't been able to sign into MSN Messenger today!

Update #1: All the Messenger servers seem to be down at the moment, even the status page.

Update #2: The status page now states that the .NET Messenger Service is temporarily unavailable... just when I've finally succeeded at logging in! And gradually, people are appearing into my contact list again.

Zero1 pointed me to a funny screenshot posted by unique over at the Neowin forum.

Final Update: All problems seem to be solved now. Bob Visse, MSN's director of marketing, said that the source of the problem was as yet undetected, but the outage was "fairly widespread."

Due to overwhelming traffic to the Microsoft support site and the .NET status page, the pages were unavailable as well. [Source: CNET.com]



 Windows Messenger + DX 9 Fix
Windows Messenger + DX 9 Fix

timothy says ( 05 Jan 2003 ):

 

Spyder, from the Neowin forum has found out the reason why Windows Messenger could freeze if you have Direct-X 9 installed: Windows Messenger doesn't like the built-in XP Firewall after the DX9 upgrade. Every time Messenger freezes, it adds a new service entry in the Firewall advanced properties list. For some reason it keeps opening up ports.

This also brings 2 ways to fix this problem:
1) Disable Windows XP Firewall completely.

2) Step by step solution:
- Disable the firewall
- Completely exit Windows Messenger
- Run Windows Messenger
- Turn the firewall back on

This should fix this little bug for now until microsoft has fixed it.
[ Source : Neowin ]



 Plus! 7th Jan
Plus! 7th Jan

Johnny_Mac says ( 05 Jan 2003 ):

 

An official announcement made by Patchou on the MsgPlus Plus! forums has reveiled that the long awaited MP2 will be available to download as a public BETA version on Tuesday 7th January (with the exception that there are no major bugs in final alpha release). Watch this space!



 MSN Helper 2.00 Build 30103
MSN Helper 2.00 Build 30103

dwergs says ( 05 Jan 2003 ):

 

MSN Helper has been updated to v2.00 (build 30103). Boss protection, chat log archiving and browsing (including those created with Messenger Plus!), message reading, quick texts, personal contact properties and more. More importantly, there's a MSN Messenger 5.0 compatible version available as well! Get your fix from our MSN add-ons (link fixed!).



 BetterMSN
BetterMSN

Johnny_Mac says ( 05 Jan 2003 ):

 

ginge, the well known creator of Msg++, is back with his latest Messenger addon. BetterMSN has been released as a public alpha version and holds the pack of usual goodies and more, including: custom name contacts, group blocking, signout and status change alerts. The new addon is also compatible with MSN 5 even in XP! You can download it from here and find out more on ginge's website by clicking here.



 Johnny Mac joins the Mess.be team
Johnny Mac joins the Mess.be team

dwergs says ( 05 Jan 2003 ):

 

After submitting numerous news items to Mess.be indirectly and proving himself to be a true MSN Messenger addict, Johnny Mac (from the Plus! team) is now an official Mess.be reporter. Welcome aboard, Johnny!



 Dreamingweb & JeT SkI emoticon patches
Dreamingweb & JeT SkI emoticon patches

dwergs says ( 05 Jan 2003 ):

 

Added a few more crazy emoticon patches for MSN Messenger 5 and up:

- Alien Emoticons by JeT SkI (download emoticons)

- Chilled Ice by JeT SkI (download emoticons)

- Devilish Delight by JeT SkI (download emoticons)

- Ice Crystal by Dreamingweb (download emoticons)

- Fancy Dress by JeT SkI (download emoticons)

Remember that you can always "uninstall" them with the original emoticons restorer [Source: Webtech]



 Known Issues update
Known Issues update

dwergs says ( 05 Jan 2003 ):

 

Johnny Mac noticed an interesting addition to Microsoft's known issues list concerning MSN Messenger. It reads:

"MSN has investigated reports that some third party add-in applications are causing the MSN Messenger 5 application to suffer degraded performance and varying degrees of unstable operation.

In order to experience the best performance with MSN Messenger, you should uninstall third party MSN Messenger add-in applications you have installed which may be causing stability issues and report these issues to the third party application vendors."


Are they blaming innocent add-ons & bots now for crashes and disconnections? ;)

Oh, and browsing the known issues a bit further, I learned that MSN lost a small number of contact lists almost two months ago. I sure hope none of you suffered any damage from this.



 Help Mess.be Conquer the world !
Help Mess.be Conquer the world !

timothy says ( 05 Jan 2003 ):

 

This is not MSN related, but you can help Mess.be conquer the world !!! Just look at this blog post, and select the country of your choice. This little part of land will be claimed for the mess.be crew thanks to you ! And after-wards you can take a look at all the other blog posts.



Click Here!

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