If you’ve been away for a few days you may have not noticed the new Windows Live Messenger 9 beta has been publicly released. Sporting some new features, old features reworked and a new Vista-like interface. To get it all you need to do is head over to http://download.live.com/ and follow the directions. For an overview head to Liveside for an comparative look and for all the features, information from the team itself head over to Windows Live Messenger team’s blog.
It’s certainly a good update in the sense there heading in the right direction. A big selling point is creating your own custom Dynamic Display Pictures which you can use pictures or even webcam video to create them and best of all its free! A few little glitches and bugs it’s back on the track to take back the Instant Messaging market.
With seemingly little news about the next version of Windows Live Messenger which is still being tested inhouse and a very limited group of testers, I thought we could start listing your ideas about what you would want or like to see or even improved in version 9.
How? Just register at our forums and post the ideas here or even just drop your ideas as a comment on this story. You never know, they see the ideas and may even try implementing or fixing something you may of suggested 
Many of you know of the i’m Making a Difference project has been around for a year. Well today Dharmesh Mehta announced on MessengerSays that it has donated $1.3 Million to the various charities associated with the project. As we speak the total has been updated to $1,409,788 Million.
They have also announced that theres still no set limit on donations and are continuing the project now and into the future so this is great news to all that participate and want to make a difference. Remember if you wish to help the cause head over to i’m Making a Difference site.
While the buzz around is the Windows Live Messenger 9 Beta, you must remember that if your considering using it your going to have to go without. Going without I mean, not able to use add-ons such as Stuffplug and Messenger Plus! as neither software are compatible as yet(leaked beta after all!)
Atleast for now Patchou has said compatibility will be expected on the release of Messenger Plus! 4.50, theres no word on when Stuffplug will be. We’ll keep you posted but for now if you love your add-ons, still use Windows Live Messenger 8.5.
Thanks to carvell1 for posting on the forum;
Ever wanted to use Messenger while using mIRC? Well you can with MSN Messenger add-on for mIRC. It comes with some of the usual features you’d expect as well as;
- Notification of users opening chat window(s) with you
- Automatically connect to your account when mIRC starts
- Display Away when your Away on mIRC
- Conversation Logging
And much much more. So if you want to try it out, head over to the MSN Messenger add-on for mIRC site and of course make sure you have mIRC installed to try this baby out!