We can’t go around without having a nice chit chat. Online, Instant Messaging has bridged this gap. Google it and these will be endless lists of services providing Instant Messaging services; some for free, others for a low price that we often call premium. Without doubt we must all have heard of MSN or Windows Live Messenger; the most used free service from Microsoft. Today I will try to pave a path from a simple to a more customised Live Messenger.

What you will need?:

1. Windows Live Messenger
2. A-Patch
3. Live Messenger Plus

If you don’t have a “passport.net” account head over there and signup for one. Remember you can use any email address for this purpose. Preferably, one from Google, Gmail will do.

After having downloaded Windows Live Messenger, which is a freeware, install it into your computer(s). This is quite easy, just follow the steps in the wizard. 🙂 Now, you can sign in and start chatting right away!!! But will you be doing it? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. If you are reading this it must be out of curiosity or for satisfying your needs. 😛

I will be proceeding with patching Windows Live Messenger first. Launch the downloaded patch (A-Patch) and you will be asked to tick what you will want to “power up” your “chat world”. 😛 Please note that we would be using windows live messenger 8.1 for our purpose. Personally I removed the ads as they were intruding. (I am not imposing). You can use your common sense and your requirements to tick they various possibilities available for customisation. You may like to play around with he nudge, remove the limit 😉

I can now say we have a “cleaner” live messenger as you wanted it to be. If you have not yet downloaded Live Messenger Plus do so now. It allows us to extends Live Messenger 2 ways; plugins and skins. Plugins allowing us to add on more options and automating some processes. In addition you can code plugins to suits your specific needs. Quite handy? Skins gives you the opportunity to dress up Windows Live Messenger to your taste.

Here are some of my favourite plugins that you may like to try:

• Display Picture Changer – Allows you to have a “dynamic” like display picture. It scrolls through a set of picture and changes your display picture for a set time period.
• Linked Chats – Allows you to share what your are chatting with friends. It is a convenient way over the traditional copy and paste.
• LinkSaver – You often receive links from your contacts. Configure it to save them into a file directly. Thus, no need to ask again if you missed it or do not have history to revert to.
• ReduceMem -You can often witness the memory consumption of WLM, with ReduceMem you can reduce if many folds. I have not tested it well but it seems that it works miracles.

This is a small list but keep tuning I will write more. It is a post after months of no writing. Thanks for your readership. I am back.