Live Messenger/Skype ... we're going backwards


Recommended Posts

Skype/WLM have been pretty crap for a long time, my only saving grace is that everybody I know has moved onto Facebook.

It's awesome since I don't have a Facebook account, so it's an easy way to cut communication with them all.

  • Like 2

I still have a set of friends that I talk to via Messenger so I do have a need for an IM client that connects to Messenger/.NET. Until recently my preference was to use Pidgin for Messenger on my desktop, and Beejive on my phone. Beejive has gone downhill as of late and can't handle muti-presence chats properly. Pidgin's not bad but I've got a year tops before Messenger stops working on that.

With the incoming shutdown I decided now was the time to see if I could switch over to Skype. Previously I've stayed away for Skype, using it only if a friend bugs me to do a call. Surprisingly, Skype is fairly usable as an instant messaging client. The mobile app also works and chats do sync across devices - most of the time. I haven't tried syncing across two computers but mobile-to-desktop syncing is weird. Messages tend to "bunch" up on the other device where I'm not actively chatting on. Example: if my chat looked like this:

Friend: hey

Me: sup

Friend: not much

Friend: what time are you free tonight?

Me: uh

Me: probably after 8?

Then it'll look like this on the other device:

Friend: hey

Friend: not much

Friend: what time are you free tonight?

Me: sup

Me: uh

Me: probably after 8?

... which is annoying as it completely screws up the order of the conversation.

And there's the matter of syncing messages - if say my laptop was offline while I had a conversation on my phone, then I sign into Skype on my laptop, why does it then dump every message that I received from my friend onto my laptop, but not the messages I sent? Or why is there no option to stop Skype from doing that? Or as was the case yesterday, when I was chatting with a friend via Messenger on Skype, there were two messages he sent me that didn't show up on my phone, but ultimately did when I signed into Skype on my desktop.

Loss of tabs is a bit annoying, but I got used to the style of doing IM over mobile clients, where there are no tabs but open conversations with the complete chat history available until you "close" the conversation. Skype is similar except that you can choose how long to keep chat history.

Other annoyances with Skype: can't disable Skype Home in the default view (no, I don't want to see my Facebook feed repeated here), annoying ads in the mobile app, loss of chat font customization (which could be a good thing for some people - I don't mind either way), can't show your contact list in a tree format with groups (can use Skype lists, but you can only show one list at a time), etc.

As for the Metro Skype app? Used it for a grand total of 30 seconds before giving up. Mind you, I don't hate Metro apps as a whole - I use Tweetro and the metro Mail app on a daily basis (even if the latter app is flawed), but I don't want to see my contact list plastered as huge tiles on the main screen.

Hopefully Microsoft will get around to improving the desktop client. I just hope they don't completely screw up contact handling as they did with Windows Live Messenger when they moved contact management to the web and caused new friend invites to not work half the time.

no one said they won't release a new skype version by March

so ya'll wait before you roll your knickers in a knot to see what if anything happens by March 15

Wait wait I thought that the WLM protocol will be usable till 2014? :| Atleast this is what the Trillian devs have stated on their blog :pinch:

EDIT: Ah I get it now, WLM will stop working in March but all third-party clients will work with the regular MSN protocol till 2014, still I don't like this move as for certain reasons I won't talk about WLM is the only way I can stay in contact with some people and when I hear how unreliable the text-messaging part of Skype is... oh deary :pinch:

So really unless your using the official client its normal service as usual, any contacts on the official client will upgrade to Skype and still be able to chat to you.

Ive un-merged my account for now as Trillian was creating two chats when chatting on Skype, one which was coming through on my Windows Live account on Trillian and the other on my Skype account.

I can't believe people are still using it.

I haven't used WLM for over 8 years. I use GChat for those contacts, and Facebook Chat for those Contacts. If I want to do video chat I will use Skype.

No need for a traditional chat program.

The first order of business for Microsoft was to fire the Skype UX team. They obviously don't understand a single thing in how we/humans use software. Their stupid UI design also continues in the Skype metro app - which is horrible and stupid.

I agree. I saw it and was thinking...where do I place a call to my dads PC to video chat with him and my grandson?

Unmerged, how?

Sign in to Skype.com then go to: https://secure.skype.com/portal/profile

You can unlink your Microsoft Account and Facebook accounts here, it warned me something to the effect of "due to the deep integration of your Skype and Microsoft account you can only do this a limited number of times" click ok and your accounts are un-linked :)

Well I've been a long time MSN/Live Messenger user and I like Skype way more.

Well for the longest time running Live Messenger was a waste of time since one by one my contacts stopped using it till I had none left.

They all moved to Facebook like everyone else.

So for quite some time I never really talked to anyone since I'm not much into spending time on the Facebook site.

But gave Skype a try when I heard it has Facebook integration, and it works awesome.

So yeah, good riddance to Live Messenger, obsolete.

Precisely.

I had primarily started using Skype because of the audio/video support - the text and SMS support was basically icing. (By the by, if you watch the news *at all*, who HASN'T heard of some correspondent using Skype for sending their hot story? It's not just Fox News (and before them, CNN) any more.)

Because of the Facebook/Skype lashup, Skype is, if anything, even more ubiquitous as a messaging/chat client - regardless of how. That very ubiquity is possibly why there is such resistance - if there is one thing that the Internet seems to hate, it's ubiquity.

Then along came that raid series. As I said, it was done using voice, video, AND text - among all participants - and entirely in real time. I was, in fact, the ONLY participant running Windows 8 - two were still using Windowss XP, for crying out loud.

As far as WLM suport, the ONLY person left that I chat with using the WLM protocol has nary a problem reaching me via Skype (as my Passport had already been migrated to a Microsoft Account and was linked to Facebook) - further increasing my suspicion that it's that anti-ubiquity mantra rearing its head again.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Poll: Grand Theft Auto VI price predictions, cast your vote by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe After years of waiting, Rockstar will be solidifying the launch date of Grand Theft Auto VI with the launch of pre-orders next week. While the studio has confirmed a date for this occasion, it is yet to attach a price to the highly anticipated game. So let's see what our readers think it will cost at launch. The Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders will kick off on June 25 for digital and physical editions. Unless some last-minute changes happen, the release date will be November 19, 2026, across Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. Unfortunately, there's still no information about a PC version from the developer or the publisher Take-Two. Now the question becomes, how much will Grand Theft Auto VI cost at launch? The game is predicted by some analysts to be the biggest launch of an entertainment product ever. With the amount of hype that has been built behind it and with ballooning development costs, Take-Two may price this Grand Theft Auto entry differently from other AAA titles. The current price of a AAA game is $69.99. That norm almost rose to $79.99 before calming down. But with such a massive release, Grand Theft Auto VI may be the game that pushes the boundary again. It's also possible that Take-Two keeps the price relatively low to increase the number of players that jump in early and keep them hooked on Grand Theft Auto Online to spend on microtransactions for years to come. Keep in mind that the below poll is asking for a prediction of the standard edition price, not a deluxe or any other special edition that Take-Two will introduce for additional benefits. Also, there is also the chance of the company splitting up the campaign and online portions. If you think that will happen, put your vote on what you think will be the total cost of the two. Poll Poll: How much will Grand Theft Auto VI cost? $59.99 $69.99 $79.99 $89.99 $100 or more Submit Vote If you have a very specific prediction in mind, sound off in the comments below.
    • Would you please fix your graphics. They are outdated and don't fit the article.
    • The Light of Life? We actually do glow till our Death, study finds by Sayan Sen Image by Rafael Rendon via Pexels A study by researchers at the University of Calgary has found that living organisms produce an extremely faint light known as ultraweak photon emission, and that this glow appears to drop significantly after death. The research was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry in April 2025 and quickly drew widespread attention, leading to more than 200 news stories about the findings. Ultraweak photon emission (or UPE), sometimes called biophoton emission, refers to tiny amounts of light released by living cells as a result of normal biological activity. A photon is the basic particle of light, and researchers say every living system examined so far, including plants and animals, has been found to emit these photons. The glow is far too faint to be seen by the human eye. “I suppose it has a little to do with people being reminded of auras,” says Dr. Christoph Simon, PhD, one of the authors of the study and a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science. “It is a fact that living beings glow. It’s a very weak glow, but it’s there and visible with very sensitive cameras.” According to the study, the light involved is extremely weak, ranging from 10 to 1,000 photons per square centimetre per second across a spectral range of 200 to 1,000 nanometres. For comparison, a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre and is commonly used to measure wavelengths of light. Detecting emissions at such low levels requires highly specialized equipment. To study the phenomenon, researchers used electron-multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD) and charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras. These imaging systems are designed to detect extremely small amounts of light, including individual photons, while minimizing background noise. The technology allowed researchers to capture signals that would otherwise be impossible to observe. The team worked with the Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in Ottawa to examine photon emissions in mice. Researchers took two-hour exposure images of the animals before and after death and compared the results. “We saw that the level of light that they emit – this biophoton glow – is distinctly different between living and dead animals,” says Dr. Daniel Oblak, PhD, an associate professor in Physics and Astronomy and the corresponding author of the study. The images showed a clear decrease in photon emissions after death across the entire body of each mouse. According to the researchers, this provided direct evidence that living and dead tissue produce different levels of ultraweak photon emission. “It’s a very small amount and it’s, of course, very tricky to detect,” Oblak says. The study grew out of discussions between Simon, whose research interests include quantum biology, and Oblak, whose work focuses on detecting light for quantum communication experiments. Quantum biology is a field that explores whether processes described by quantum physics, which studies matter and energy at very small scales, may also play a role in living systems. “Since I work as a quantum physicist on light detection for quantum communication, I thought that experimentally we have a lot of the tools to be able to detect the light,” Oblak explains. The researchers also investigated UPE in plants and found that the light changed in response to stress. When plants were exposed to higher temperatures or physically injured, their photon emissions increased. Chemical treatments also affected the glow. Among the substances tested, the local anesthetic benzocaine produced the strongest emission response when applied to injured plant tissue. These findings suggest that ultraweak photon emission is closely linked to biochemical and metabolic activity inside living organisms. Metabolism refers to the chemical reactions that allow cells and organisms to stay alive and function. Because these reactions change when an organism experiences stress, injury or disease, researchers believe UPE may provide a way to monitor those changes. The researchers stress that the glow is a physical and biological phenomenon, not a metaphysical one. Oblak says more research is needed to understand exactly how the light is produced and what information it may reveal about the condition of living tissue. “We must understand what that is to figure out what’s happening,” he says. “If we can understand how that relates to certain influences on the body – stress, diseases – then that could be used as a diagnostic tool.” The researchers believe the technique could eventually help scientists study health and disease without invasive procedures. Because UPE can be measured without adding dyes, markers or labels, it may offer a way to monitor whether tissue is healthy, damaged or alive. In plants, it could help researchers better understand how organisms respond to injury, heat and other forms of stress. While the work is still in its early stages, the study demonstrates that ultraweak photon emission imaging can provide a non-invasive and label-free way to observe biological activity. Researchers say the approach could become a useful tool for studying vitality, stress responses and other important processes in both animals and plants. Source: University of Calgary, ACS publication This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
    • Damn, I loved this show back in the day.  
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      hhgygy earned a badge
      One Year In
    • One Month Later
      AMV earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      AMV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Collaborator
      ryansurfer98 went up a rank
      Collaborator
    • One Month Later
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      512
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      171
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      82
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      74
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      72
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!