+Warwagon MVC Posted May 27, 2004 MVC Share Posted May 27, 2004 (edited) Do you yahoo? Welcome to review number 3. Some people have commented in the past that my grammar and spelling isn?t the best in the world. All I have to say to that is ? ? I dnon?t realllaey caree?. Having said that I bring to you: Yahoo 6, the Review. For the sole purpose of this review I have created a name on yahoo called ?neowinreviewdude?. I created it because I don?t like reviews or screenshots of instant messengers were people smug out everyone on their list, it ruins the effect. The only person on my list will be ?SprooSproo? created by Sara, also just for this review. (So if any of you have the tendency to message the screen names that you see in this review? you?ll probably get farther with ?neowinreviewdude?.) Installation I?m not going to show you how to install it because even Koko the Gorilla could install Yahoo! Instant Messenger. Upon opening Yahoo! 6 for the very first time, you will notice something different. Yahoo messenger has had its first face lift in a very long time, infact I think this is probably the most intense face lift Yahoo! Messenger has ever had. Also next to the clock you now have a new smiliey face. Once you type in your username and password you will be presented with a cute looking head that bops up and down, the purpose of which I assume is to entertain people with ADD for the 5 seconds it takes you to log in. At this point people who have used this as an upgrade and that already have people on their list will see their buddy list as always. People who are using this version with a newly created screen name will see a nice looking screen with an arrow pointing up to the ?Add? button as if to say ?Start here you idiot?. I clicked the add button and then typed in the name ?SprooSproo?, and then clicked next. At this point you can enter a message you want to be sent to the person you want on your list. The message can say anything? like ?Its me? the guy you did behind the bleachers in high school!? You can also choose what group you want this user in, like you could put them in the group ?Bleacher buddies? or in this case sense I have no groups, ?other? will work just fine. (If you don?t choose or create a group, it will refuse to add your buddy. Apparently YIM takes organization very seriously.) It then asks you if you want to fill out more information about this person that you?ve just added?generally you can skip this part, unless you think you?ll seriously have issues remembering ?Who?s that schmuck on my contact list? (The online equivalent of waking up in the morning with a hangover and wondering exactly who is it you?re in bed with). Finally it says ?YAY, your done, click finish to go back to your contact list?. SprooSproo is now listed on my contact list. She then sends back a new contact request because she is now adding me to her list. Upon double clicking the message window an ?easy on the eyes? look can be seen. Nothing that makes the day of ?Windows 3.11? flash before your eyes, and nothing that makes you think ?Sissy Momma?--just a very smooth look complete with rounded corners and a glossy finish. Typing messages is still the same, when someone sends a message to you, there is still that most annoying sound in the world ?the chimes?. It is the sound that could have brought out violence in the late Mother Teresa. It makes the sound of a dentist drill sound like music. In any case it is something that can easily be turned off or customized to be something a smidgen less irritating. (Messenger->Preferences->Alerts and Sounds) One of the parts I was disappointed about was the Similes; I like smilies just like the next guy, and I also enjoy Variety, something that this version of YIM does not have. They still include the same smilies as the last version and the version before that. YIM still offers the different things you were able do with last few versions (smilies, buzzing people on your contact list, formatting your text, and the IMVironment. I never did like IMVironments, guess I?m a no-glitz kind of person.) In addition to the features you?ve grown accustomed to, this version offers quite a few new ones: Skins Have you ever wished you could change the way YIM looked? With the new version you can. (View->Change Skin) By default it comes with the ?Indigo? skin turned on but you also have the options for ?Classic? (Which is great if you want it to blend in more with your OS) and ?Maverick Blue?. I?m not a blue sorta person, more of a happy one, so I think I?ll leave the default skin turned on. Address Book This lets you scroll through all the people on your contact list and get all the info you can about them that you have stored on your computer. Like their name phone number email address and anything else you can think of. When you add someone new to your Contact List YIM will try to get you to enter all this information up-front. If you did that, you?re all set. Otherwise it?s a hop-skip and jump away to edit the information about your buddy. Just Click the View Menu and choose ?Address Book?, or click the ?Address Book? tab at the top. Every contact you have on your list will have a View/Edit link underneath their name. To get back to your buddy list just go to the View menu again and change back to the Buddy List view, or click the ?Messenger? tab at the top. Launchcast Radio Have you ever wanted to listen to music while you chat on yahoo? Most of us (myself included) just load up an mp3 in Winamp, Windows Media Player, iTunes, or Foobar. But I thought I would at least try it out and see if it was any good. Upon clicking on the icon at the bottom of the messenger it started to play a song, and then asked me if I wanted the name of the song that is playing next to my name so people could see what I?m listing to. I thought to my self, ?who would give a crap what I?m listening to, I could give a crap what anyone else is listing to? So I told it no. I then pulled down a neat little list were you could choose the category for the type of song you wanted to listen to (think Winamp?s Library genre dropdown). After trying most of them I found that only a very few actually play a song, the rest just try to suck you into a trial. Stealth I have to admit, this is one of the cooler new features that is in this new version. Have you ever had someone on your list that you didn?t really hate, but that talked to you so much you just wanted to run and hide from this person, which was usually accomplished by putting yourself on invisible which in turn would hide you from the rest of your list. Well say hello to stealth. What stealth does is allows you to appear offline to some people and online to others, and they said sliced bread was a neat innovation. New Yahoo Avatars Yahoo! Now offers Avatars (very circa 1995) I?m sorry I think this is sorta silly looking if you want to try it out here is the address: http://beta.avatars.yahoo.com Basically you take a generic male or female and modify its hair style, skin color, and clothes. It then acts sort of like a buddy icon. Lame. Preferences The preferences are about identical to the ones in previous versions. One nice thing about YIM is that you can customize which buttons you want at the bottom of its window and which ones you don?t. I don?t find any of them particularly useful. Take the weather tab for instance. You get to see the weather temps all around the world but when you enter you zip in the little box it takes you to a web browser. I say screw it and give me Trillians Acuweather plug-in any day. Search for a friend. This feature was sort of neat. If you ever went to the yahoo website and browsed though the people on the yahoo directory trying to find a chick/man that is hot and local at the same time, you can now sort of do this inside yahoo messenger. You can search by gender/age ?Only search for people with pictures? and ?only search for people who use yahoo messenger?. For screenshot purposes I searched for a chick 18-25 with the keyword Neowin. Sorry guys, not hits.. While we are on this searching for people topic, thought I would mention something. After going to the http://messenger.yahoo.com website I see that at the top right they show 2 hot chicks talking to each other, to make you think just hot chicks use Yahoo messenger. Well if that?s true? then its news to me because I haven?t found any. So included here is a side by side comparison of what yahoo says should be online and what I?ve found. File Transfers. This is also the same as before, but now you can access it 2 ways: By saying you want to do a file transfer from the file menu, or by telling it you want to send a picture (which is a file and which will get you to the same place). Webcams. If you want to broadcast your webcam just click on the webcam button in the message window. Your webcam should then show up with you on it. For just showing you what a webcam looks like I had Sara turn hers on, but so she could be mysterious I decided to show you her holding something on cam instead. So by now you should have a pretty good idea about what the new Version of Yahoo messenger does. And hopefully you had an entertaining read in the process. So to sum it all up: Pros - Slick new Interface - Stealth Mode - Improved Address Book - You can now listen to music (coming directly off Y! messenger) while you talk - Can now change the skin Cons - No new Smilies - Not a lot of new features - The Chime sound is still there - Yahoo makes you think everyone is attractive - Only a few stations in the category ?Launchcast? actually give you music Edited May 27, 2004 by warwagon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kombolcha Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 damn your reviews are good (Y) but yahoo ain't my thang ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted May 27, 2004 Author MVC Share Posted May 27, 2004 Thank you.... I've found myself an editor to, who is the same Sara holding the thing in the webcam I write'em... she fixes the grammer and adds bits here and there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mipra Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 This is such a comprehensive review..thanks alot..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted May 27, 2004 Author MVC Share Posted May 27, 2004 thats what I was aiming for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpanda Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 i try it on a few days ago. it seem pretty cool but no one i knew was using it so oh well. you didnt really did a review on the feature imenvironment. the one which you could change the background of the chatwindow. the chat changes its layout as well according to the background. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b3ta Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Absolutely excellent review. A pleasure to read! (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neuroticia Posted May 29, 2004 Share Posted May 29, 2004 I'm not a big fan of YIM, myself. I tend to avoid it unless I'm hunting someone specific that I know will be on YIM and not another service, or if I want to view a webcam/send webcam-like things. This last version is enticing in some ways, though--although that will probably wear off once I get used to the features and they're no longer novelties. ;) It's worth a quick download (as long as you disable all the extra junk that Yahoo! wants to install on your computer. Bejesus, exactly how much Yahoo! stuff does someone really need?) Good review! (Of course I'm prejudiced. :)) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rappy Veteran Posted June 1, 2004 Veteran Share Posted June 1, 2004 I like Yahoo IM and used to use it alot but i dont know anyone that uses it now they all use MSN or ICQ and i would like to use it more...lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shockz Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 Very nice review :) (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hash Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 i dont use YMSG much any more either (in fact i just connect using trillian for email notices) but nice review just the same just came across this.. looks .. eh.. interesting i guess.. http://pcapps.bizhosting.com/yachine.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andi_kam Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 yeh, very entertaining review thanks for that made a good read. I use yahoo messenger and I wish more people did because thats the only thing lacking from it I think. Widesperad use. Hope the new version will encourage some hard core msn fans to move over or adopt both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezza Veteran Posted June 2, 2004 Veteran Share Posted June 2, 2004 I've been reading your review for some time and I gotta say you have the most comprehensive review ever (Y) I personally like Yahoo Messenger 6 :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdawgfoxx Posted June 2, 2004 Share Posted June 2, 2004 I cant let more then like 1 person view my cam at a time..like ill invite someone and they will view..and when i invite someone else it keeps inviting the first person thats already viewing its wierd.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxikk Veteran Posted June 3, 2004 Veteran Share Posted June 3, 2004 damn that ui does look pretty slick. nice review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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