A N U J says:
So how are things going?

Mai aisa kyon hoon says:
Everything is fine, whats up with the gang?

A N U J says:
Everybody is busy yaar. Himanshu, can you wait for 10 minutes? I will be right back

Mai aisa kyon hoon says:
Ok

(10 minutes later)
A N U J says:
Hey, I am back
----------------------------------------------------------------
The following messages could not be delivered:
Hey, I am back

Damn! I yell to myself. Why can’t the messenger show a prompt that Himanshu has logged out? And why can’t the message be delivered as offline? MSN sucks! <<I pack my fist into a punch only to realize that it is no use>>

The above few lines are the actual transcripts of my conversation with my school friend Himanshu Sharma who now lives in Hyderabad. It was one fine evening that I caught up with him after a really long time on MSN and started off this chat. And off late, most of my conversations on MSN end up the way this one did.

I was welcomed to the world of MSN Messenger long time ago. I guess it was around late 1999 that I had first downloaded it to chat with my brother who at that time was in the Middle East. At that time, MSN was only a messenger, just as any simple instant messaging software should be. It did not have any fundoo features and stuff. Rather, it was just simple software, using which we could logon to the messaging server, and start chatting with any online contact. There was no big deal in it. It was due to the simplicity of MSN that it slowly but steadily gained popularity among the young junta of the world.

So who said that Yahoo! will remain behind them? They too updated their messaging software and pretty soon the competition between Yahoo and MSN became hotter than the Delhi summer! MSN is (in?)famous for all the spam that we complain about on MouthShut today. The same thing happened with me and I shifted my loyalties to Yahoo very quickly. But then recently I again downloaded MSN (version 7). And folks, I am regretting it big time. Darn MSN, darn chat client. Let me tell you about my experience with MSN.

I was fairly happy with my MSN 6.2 when all of a sudden some of my friends urged me to upgrade it to MSN 7, which (according to them) has new fundoo features. So I patiently waited to download the 7MB setup file on my dreadfully slow dial-up connection. Now what? I configure the messenger on my computer and restart it (my usual practice after every software installation). I logon to Internet and open MSN. Then I wait patiently as it takes more than a few moments to open up. Darn… too slow (I think). Okay, now what? I sign-in to my account. I notice at least 10 new tabs coming up even as it indicates 5 new messages in my inbox. Before I could say darn again, the messenger crashes. Welcome to the world of crash landings! (Whatever that means) (I think again). I restart the messenger, sign in again, and thankfully, it doesn’t crash again. Phew! And the journey has only just begun! (I think to myself).

Now what? I find a friend online and I start chatting with her.

A N U J says:
Hi Sneha! ((Readers please note, I am not talking about Sneha the star writer))

At the bottom of the window, I see:
Princess Sneha is typing a message

Suddenly, Crash! Boom! Bang! The messenger goes Ooh! Aah! Ouch! Once again!

Tired of the messenger for the day, I shut it down, vowing to uninstall it the next morning. But then the curios Anuj decides not to do so. Keeping my fingers crossed, I sign in to MSN again, yikes! Nobody is online! And no email notification either! But I know that I have some unread messages in my mailbox. So I instinctively click on the inbox option and finally reach there, only to find that the 14 unread messages are in another folder, thanks to Custom Filters.

Lessons learnt till now:
# No offline messages. Great turn off if you are a Yahoo fan.
# Don’t rely on your MSN Messenger if you have filters activated in your mailbox, because it doesn’t show unread messages from other folders.
# MSN won’t indicate you whenever a contact goes offline. So keep the messenger window open if you have to look at their status.
# The downside of keeping the window open is that the bottom ad-bar will keep on updating it’s ads, thus slowing down the speed that you can use for other downloads.

So I finally get to chat with Sneha again. When she doesn’t seem to reply to my message, I send a nudge. Wait! Isn’t it the same as a buzz in Yahoo? (I think to myself). Only, the buzz is louder than a nudge.

I found two of my school chums online. I invite them into a chat. Ahem! Isn’t it the same as Yahoo’s Conference? I am going nuts (I think again)

Hardcore Yahoo addicts will find it difficult to switch to MSN. Why? Simple. It is because MSN has an entirely different range of emoticons (erm… smileys in Yahoo slang). So if a :(( can make a crying face in Yahoo, the same will be made by a :’( in MSN. Darn, too complicated! (Why do I think so much?)

Did you hear MSN radio? I have tried it once. Liked it. But then I also liked Yahoo’s LaunchCast. So whats the difference? Maybe that MSN radio works in a browser window (or maybe I have configured my messenger to open radio in a browser, or maybe I haven’t checked, apologies about it).

Background: similar to Yahoo IMvironments. Winks: similar to Yahoo’s audibles. So whats new in MSN? Keep trying, keep trying. Think about it. Ultimately you will realize that MSN and Yahoo are both the same side of a coin.

While chatting with a friend recently, I noticed him sending me winks. I decided to send him a wink too, but lo and behold, the winks wont work. Apparently, it worked on my screen, but didn’t get to him. I checked all settings, but nothing worked. Darned MSN

Coming soon – a review on the new Yahoo Messenger 7 (beta). Eagerly wait for it, Ab to mai uska bhi band bajaa doonga!

Software version:

7.02