Be Excellent To Each Other

I use MSN messenger. Mostly to speak to people I knew in the USA given that it's free. I've used Hotmail because for many years as I travelled around and didn't stick with the same ISP for long and I was sick of constantly having to send out mail to tell every one what my new email address was. So, I started my .msn.com email account (hotmail but with a nicer sounding end bit) in 2003 and I have used it until now.

Recently I was using the new MSN (which I fucking hate) and it said "signed in at two locations". This scared the fucking bejesus out of me until I realised that the new hotmail page signs you into messenger when you check your emails. This is highly irritating because sometimes I am not in the mood to speak to any one, so when I go to check my emails I am then online and active for people to see. At which point some one will talk to me and I then feel obliged to speak back to them.

As if this wasn't bad enough I noticed yesterday that I was signed into not one, or two, but three locations. Again, not having a fucking clue what was going on I eventually realised that when I go to google.co.uk it also fucking signs me in.

I'm beginning to feel like I have no sodding privacy left. Does any one have any more info on this and how the hell it could have happened?

On the left hand side of the hotmail screen you can sign out.

Go to Tool>Options>Sign in and check "sign me out of other places when I sign in to messenger"

It's no more an invasion of privacy than it is having a telephone, so I wouldn't worry about it.

When the page said 'Do you want to sign into messenger whenever you sign into Hotmail', did you tick 'Yes'?

I'm sure you can easily disable it through hotmail account options.

Yeah, that's pretty much a feature, calling it an invasion of privacy is a bit much - especially when it's pretty easy to turn off.

What everyone else said.

Funny isn't it though, that when someone messages you on an IM client, you feel obliged to start some monstrous, sprawling conversation with them? Now, I'd be the first to admit that I'm a terribly antisocial bastard, but it's something that irritates me enough that I never use any IM clients anymore and on the very slim chance I do need to use one for something, I stick myself on 'Appear Offline'.

Being signed into MSN when you visit google.co.uk is a new thing though, surely? Never heard of that before.

Not if you create a google account using your MSN email address, which I assume is what happened.

Clarification - it didn't sign him into MSN, it signed him into Google, but the email address shown at the top-right is the MSN address.

lose hotmail, becoming to unreliable, get gmail

I hear AOL is pretty pro.

Malia, that's twice you've made me laugh in the past few days. Proper laugh too!

I think I may nominate you for my "poster of the year 2010" at the year end awards.

Well this is it. I mean obviously I'm known for my mood swings. Even on a nice dose of pills there are some days when I just don't want to talk to any one.. Thing is I do cherish my friends and they mean a lot to me so as you say sometimes I just feel obliged. Problem is that my friends come to me for help with computers ETC so I end up getting all stressed out lol.

Cheers for the advice guys. I managed to find the settings last night. I honestly don't recall it asking me if I wanted to sign in though..



I don't have a google account.. Well, sort of.. I remember recently whilst trying to upload a video to Youtube it kept saying I couldn't until I did some shit it asked. I know Google is tied to Youtube so it could have been that. Now that one I wasn't paying attention to...

Last time I signed into MSN messenger (and that was the first time in what feels like a couple of years) it was totally empty. I don't think anyone I know uses it anymore. I really can't be bothered with it.

I'm also finding our families using Skype a little stressful. They all call at once and then all expect to have a really long conversation every week, and seen antsy messages if we don't answer. We didn't talk to them this much when we were living nearby! I'm starting to think that we should sign in but appear offline too, and chose who we want to talk to, and when. Plus, I don't really like talking on webcam/speaker phone arrangements as it feels a bit unnatural and everyone just ends UP SHOUTING AND TALKING LO...OH, YOU'VE FROZEN AGAIN, NO WAIT YOU'RE BACK.. SORRY, WHAT? CAN YOU HEAR ME...


Plus I have to pause my torrents to use it

I can't even log into any Live services on my work laptop anymore - Messenger, MSDN Online, nothing. Password reset is done a) on the "trusted" PC or b) via support. a) exploded, if I even ever set one and b) hasn't responded, despite a 24 hour promise.

I finally got round to plugging my media server laptop into the internet over Christmas, and the password I thought was right... is right. But still doesn't work on my work laptop today.

Fucking hell Microsoft. Fucking hell.

Speaking of Microsoft, my brother has been using Games for Windows Live with an account set up with some e-mail account he used to have. He decided to switch to gmail for emailing and so he "renamed" his Windows Live account to use the new e-mail address. At that point he was denied access to all the stuff he has bought. He contacted Microsoft and they basically said "tough shit". If you want to switch e-mail address, fine, apparently you can, you just won't be able to use any of the stuff you bought unless you switch back to the old one.

This new MSN is fucking attrocious. It's nothing but bloated adware and seems to be flash based and buggy as fuck. From time to time it slows my PC to a crawl and when I type I can type faster than it produces the text in front of me. My browser then crawls, and instead of sorting itself out it decides instead to hammer me with pop out ads and pester me with shit I would never want or need.

So I have to close it and reboot it. Utter fucking gash. The stupid thing is you can close the ads with a small X. If you miss it however? POP POP POP. I don't get why if you can close it why you can't close it completely. And I hate the tabbed chat windows, and again there's no way to put it back. You have to right click the tab and pop it out and dragging doesn't work.

Fucking asshats.

Silverlight

Is shit? breaks all the time? constantly needs reinstalling otherwise Sky Player doesn't work? can't remember cookies so Sky Player keeps registering the same PC until you get banned for registering too many PCs?

shiny

RE: The sky player/cookies/silverlight thing.

Apparently this happens if you don't log out of SkyPlayer properly when you use it. It sends a message when you log in, to say that you are watching, then it sends a new one when you log out. If you don't log out, it still thinks you are logged into one system and so when you log back in on the same computer, it thinks you are on a new one.

This is what the guy at Sky told us, anyway. So, log out properly when you have finished watching Babestation. Don't just click away.

Happened to me every time I changed channels Mimi. Every time I went to a different channel I would get the "This computer is now registered" crap at the top of the screen. Needless to say within four channel changes I was banned again and had to continually phone to get it reset or wait 30 days.

Would it be correct to assume that you also have cookies blocked, for privacy reasons?

No. It's a widely known issue apparently. Still, doesn't really matter now as when I recently cancelled Sky Sports (because I couldn't afford it) they punished me by not letting me use Sky Player any more.

That was nice of them, then.

Sure that's punishing you, and not just that you have to have the Sky World package (or multiroom) to get Sky player for free?

Yes. Sorry I forgot !

If you want anything from Sky you simply have to

PAY CUNT PAY

Greedy fucking cunts they are.

Their lying non existant retention offer was the best. Offering me things they don't even have.

Ed. Not that it really matters 'cos we're switching to Freesat soon any way. Note they haven't swallowed the VAT increase? so it's time to get rid of it. Simply too much money.

Now you're just being daft. You no longer meet the criteria for the free bonus service, so if you want it you have to pay for it. It's not exactly an evil conspiracy.

Although ironically, sky tv itself is

I find this difficult to believe, seeing as I've done the exact same thing with my Live account.

Really? I thought it was impossible, so I created a new live account and transferred over my Xbox gamertag.

Heh. The windows phone spellcheck doesn't understand gamertag.

Did you have to contact Microsoft about it, or did it just work?

It just worked, as far as I'm aware.

I had a long post in my mind, but I'll leave it as Jesus Fucking Christ.

Use something else like Digsby or Pidgin.

Pidgin was OK but I had a couple of issues. Should look at it again tbh. Adium.. Now if only that was on PC.

Agree, strongly.

That's about 30 different erroneous retypes on at least 2 computers over the last couple of months.

Whoops.