With recent talk of Microsoft ditching Messenger for Mac (although that is not entirely true), and an increasing number of problems with a half baked client for Mac users, I decided to try out using iChat for my MSN needs. I have to say I am really liking it! Having iChat in its own space all set up the way I like it is great, and I so far I am finding it to be quite reliable...no worse than my experiences with the official MSN client!
For those interested, here is a complete guide, from my experiences, as to how to get it working! I based this on the guide provided by silverdreamer (found
here if you are interested), but found it outdated and lacking in places. Here is mine:
Getting Started
You will need;
-About 30 mins to an hour
-An MSN account, I used an @hotmail.com account
-The program PSI -
Download and install
-iChat - I am using the latest version. I don’t know if pervious versions will work the same, but feel free to try and post up your results!
Setting up the Transport
1. Open PSI and create a new account
As your server, enter: jabber.linuxlovers.at
Choose a username and password. I left the other settings untouched.
Your account should now be registered and show up in the window.
Right click your username and select ‘online’
Right click your username again and select ‘Service Discovery’
Find ‘MSN’ (msn.jabber.linuxlovers.at) from the list and double click it.
Enter your MSN (@hotmail.com) details and choose a nickname...this is the same as your MSN display name and can be later changed.
This the important part. In your PSI list, you should now have a contact named msn.jabber.linuxlovers.at, double click this contact and click ‘add/authenticate’.
PSI should now load all of your MSN contacts.
This is the bad part that I am yet to find a way around (please help if you can!). You will need to select each contact on the list, press enter and select the add/authenticate option. Perhaps the new functions in automator can be of assistance?
Once this is complete, we are done with PSI, close it.
Setting up iChat
Open iChat and set up a new account
Select Jabber from the list and enter your Jabber username we created in step 3. Enter this as
username@jabber.linuxlovers.at
Enter your password and an account description, MSN contacts for example.
For the server, enter jabber.linuxlovers.at
Bring your newly created account online and you should see all of your existing contacts in the window complete with display pictures!
To add a new MSN contact, enter the normal address with a % instead of an @ and add, @msn.jabber.linuxlovers.at. For example; username%hotmail.com@msn.jabber.linuxlovers.at
Additional Set Up
-I have not yet found how to get iChat to display your contact’s MSN display names instead of their actual name or their username%hotmail.com@msn.jabber.linuxlovers.at. If you know a method...please post!
-To add these new addresses to your contacts and hence display their name in the chat window, select the contact, press command + I to get info and enter their details or add them to an existing address book contact by selecting ‘choose card’.
-To change your MSN display name that your contacts see;
Open PSI
Connect to the sever by right clicking your username and going online
Right click again and select ‘Modify Account’
Click the tab called ‘details’
Click on Edit personal details
Enter your desired display name into the ‘nickname’ field
Publish the details to save and exit PSI
Your display name should now show up for your MSN contacts
Enjoy! Any suggestions as to how to improve this process or fix the two problems I noted, please post them up!
