This is a very handy Internet communication tool provided by, as the name may suggest, MSN. Provided you have a ’Passport’ you will be able to use the service. You can get Passports in many ways, such as opening a Hotmail E-mail account, this account will also be your sign in name.
The software must be downloaded from the MSN site ( http://www.msn.co.uk). This takes a relatively short amount of time. Once you have installed the necessary components on your computer you are ready to go. Incidentally, when installed this will take up a miserably small 1.46mb of Hard Disk Space - hardly going to have you dashing out to the shops in need of a second drive now is it!
The Software acts like a Chat Room, but only certain people may contact you, this is something that you have a high degree of control over. You can add contacts by typing in their email address. Then, assuming it is compatible with the aforementioned Passport, they will receive a prompt when they next sign in. This will ask them if you re allowed to go in their contact list.
This will mean you are able to talk to them when they are online, and handily actually be able to see if they are online whilst you are signed in. But cleverly, even if you are signed in you can still prevent a contact from talking to you if you are busy. There are several status’ you can set yourself to if you are signed in, these include things like ’busy’ or ’away’. This will mean people will be unable to disturb you at that time.
Another good point about MSN is the ability to have group chats. I am a member of the site bolt.com (which I have written a review on, hint hint :P), On Bolt there is a group of us that have all got each other in our contacts list for MSN, this means that instead of having a window open for all people separately we can all talk in one window. Additionally, If for example 3 people named ’A’, ’B’, and ’C’ all had each other on their contact list, but person ’A’ wanted to invite person ’D’ into the conversation they would still be able to talk, despite not being in the contact list for ’B’ and ’C’. This is an excellent feature that allows for expansion of Net friendship circles.
Although you can not change your sign in name, you can change the name that appears on the screen when talking to others. And it is easy to keep track of who is who as the click of a right mouse button displays the email address of that contact.
As MSN is private there is no restriction on swearing while chatting, but as your screen name can be seen from any ’Passport’ related facility it is not allowed to contain swear words. Bear in mind this is actually an American service so this will include words that they do not like, not just British swear words. However, if you are desperate enough there are crafty ways to bypass this - such as adding a French accent onto one of the vowels.
While chatting you can change the colour of you font, this is especially useful when there are many people chatting at once as to distinguish between chatters. Hyperlinks can also be placed into chats so long as the have the https:// prefix. This is supplemented by the option of being able to send files across the system, thus eliminating the need to send a pointless email for the sake of the attachment.
MSN also provides those with a Hotmail account to access it via MSN. You simply use the Email address as your sign in name, and you will have one-click access to your inbox - you do not even need to type in your password as MSN is password-protected. And to top of this fantastic feature MSN will also monitor when a new email arrives.
You also get a MSN Profile that is visible from several areas, although it is unlikely someone will stumble across it - meaning only those you want to see it will see it. This allows you to store information such as Name, Location, Likes/Dislikes and Phone numbers if you so wish.
This is much more fun than an average chat room as you don’t have to be inundated with idiots due to the ability to chose who you are going to talk to, and it allows for closer relationships with the other people as it simulates a sustained email exchange over a short time period.
The one major criticism of the service I do have comes in the form of Help. Although it is a program that requires the Internet to operate it does not automatically mean it should need the Internet to operate the help section form the toolbar. Yet this is a requirement with MSN.