microsoftNOW » windows live messenger

TBot – Windows Live Messenger Translation Bot

Shijaz Abdulla — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:09:00 +0000

Windows Live Messenger now has a translation bot, that will help you translate text from one language to another over IM. Simply add mtbot@hotmail.com to your messenger list and start talking!

Free OCS Public IM connectivity for Windows Live Messenger

Shijaz Abdulla — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:15:00 +0000

Microsoft has made licensing changes on the Public instant-messaging (IM) connectivity supported by Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS).

Live Communications Server Public IM Connectivity (LCS PIC) license has been renamed to “Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity (OCS PIC). Those with certain OCS Client Access Licenses (CALs) will no longer require Public IM connectivity licenses to federate with Windows Live — but still will require them to federate with AOL and Yahoo.

Windows Live Federation offers users the option to add Windows Live Contacts (MSN/Hotmail contacts) to their Office Communicator contact lists, view presence status and chat with those contacts.

The licensing change took effect on July 1, 2009.

I'm a-Live!

Shijaz Abdulla — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:14:00 +0000

The hosting company that hosts my website over at www.shijaz.com was upgrading their servers, and they wanted me to make some DNS changes so that I can point to the new servers.

I considered this a good opportunity to make use of Windows Live, the free hosting services from Microsoft. It rocks!

To make use of this service, you need to register a internet domain name, and then create an account at domains.live.com. This basically involves making some DNS changes. If you want to login to Hotmail (now Windows Live Mail) and send out & receive email using you@yourdomain.com email address, you just need to making your MX record point to Hotmail. You get a free 500 GB mailbox! The tasks mentioned in the website are easy to follow.

You can also "brand" Hotmail so that it looks like your own stuff. Here’s what I did with mine:

I also installed the Outlook Connector on my PC, which lets me access my email using Outlook, and synchronize my email, calendar and contacts – just like Outlook Anywhere/RPC over HTTP!

If you create an optional SRV record on your domain, you can even login to Windows Live Messenger using you@yourdomain.com as the sign-in name.

Did you know?

Shijaz Abdulla — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:02:00 +0000

There are over 450 million “active” users on Windows Live Messenger every month. That’s almost 8% of the world’s population. Bearing in mind that only 19% of the world’s population uses the internet, this is 40% of all internet users worldwide.

An “active” user is one who spends at least 12 hours per month in active chat (actual data transfer, not the hours spent simply signed in). Wow!

The mystery of blocked audio/video in MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger

Shijaz Abdulla — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:02:00 +0000

On the ISA Server forums and newsgroups, a common query we see is regarding blocking/unblocking Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger using the ISA firewall.

Blocking is easy. Microsoft has also come up with a KB article which explains how you can do just that, using either ISA Server 2004 or ISA Server 2006.

Now how about “unblocking”? Let me be more specific. Firewall administrators often post queries that they can’t seem to be able to ‘allow’ audio and video in MSN/Windows Live Messenger through the ISA firewall. “Why not? Just allow the protocols/’open the ports’!” I hear you say.

Lets take a closer look on what these ports are:

This table is extracted from KB927847. *Legacy means MSN Messenger 5.0 or Windows Messenger only, and not Windows Live Messenger.

Pay attention to the highlighted text. This means, you will have to ‘open’ over 60,000 UDP ports just to get the audio and video working! Clearly, MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger were not designed to work behind ISA Server, or any other proxy for that matter.