Heres an update of the initiative from Windows Live Messenger that has been running since March to raise money for dedicated social causes just by having a simple bit of text in your Windows Live Messenger chat name. Since it’s inception this year, the i’m Making A Difference program has raised over $92,500 US and still going! That’s over $10,000 US donated every month from your generousity of having a simple word in your chat name.
What’s good about it is, theres no limit to how much they’re willing to donate to the causes. So if you are already or would you like to get involved, this is all you need to do. Make sure you have the latest Windows Live Messenger, login and add one of the follow text codes to your chat name;
- *red+u - American Red Cross
- *bgca - Boys & Girls Clubs of America
- *hsus - Humane Society of the United States
- *naf - National AIDS Fund
- *mssoc - National MS Society
- *9mil - ninemillion.org
- *sierra - Sierra Club
- *help - StopGlobalWarming.org
- *komen - Susan G. Komen for the Cure
- *unicef - U.S. Fund for UNICEF
But how does it work? Every time you start a conversation with your name with the text, a portion of the advertising revenue will be donated to the respected charity in which you’ve chosen to help. Pretty simple huh? So for those who use programs to remove advertising in Windows Live Messenger I suggest you let them display, add text of a charity you think is deserving and make some money for those that could one day save a person or an entire country(s) of a problem.
For more information on the i’m Making A Difference program, follow the link and read up on how you can make a difference. You may even wanna spread the word to your friends and family.
As you might of just heard, Windows Live Installer is now available to install your favourite Windows Live Products. The products are listed with short description of what the service can do:
- Mail -A faster, easier, and safer way to manage your e-mail accounts
- Messenger - Connect, share, and make every conversation count
- Photo Gallery - Edit and upload photos and videos
- Writer - Easily pubish pictures, videos, and other rich content to your blog
- Toolbar - Search from any Web page with powerful protection
- Onecare Family Safety - Safer Web browsing and communications for your family
If you didn’t notice theres a new beta version of Windows Live Messenger 8.5(Version 2008 8.5.1288.816) that is bundled with the Installer. So whats new? Other then the version/build number, so far just various issues not detailed and is now available in 35 languages. Well post more as we know.
It seems Microsoft has caved in and quickly made the latest beta available to the public. According to the Windows Live Messenger blog, you can now download Windows Live Messenger 8.5 beta from the Windows Live Messenger beta page.
The emoticon bug posted about by David has seemingly been resolved in this latest build.
Today an internal build of Windows Live Messenger 8.5 was leaked by Messenger Addictos, a Spanish site about Windows Live Messenger and related products.
The new build includes a completely new installer system (though it appears it might need some more work). Messenger itself also got a complete visual overhaul, featuring a new UI that combines the best of Windows Live and Vista. It also includes several minor new features, some of which are still undisclosed. Unfortunately support for Plug-Ins (or “Add-Ins”) has been dropped (the plugins feature never seemed to make progress in any releases).
Click on the links below to view some screenshots of the new Messenger (thanks to mess.be):
- Sign in window
- Windows Live Messenger 8.5
- Sign-in Toast
- Conversation Window
- New typing indicator (above text input)
- About window
The leaked build is only available in Spanish at the moment, but if you managed to download it somewhere, you can copy the old language file (”msglang.dll”) of Windows Live Messenger 8.1.0178 over the new one (”msglang.8.5.1235.0517.dll”). Note that the installation directory has also been changed to “C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Messenger\” making the transition from MSN Messenger to Windows Live Messenger more complete.
via mess.be
Just remembered about this emoticon ‘bug’ in Windows Live Messenger which occurs when you hover over the 
emoticon and the *-) emoticon in the Show All Emoticons Window.
Not really sure if this occurs with builds of Windows Live Messenger other than 8.1.0178.00, see for yourself
Anyway, look at the screenshot below to see what I mean:
