I use AdiumX for all my instant messaging needs. It does moreorless everything you want it to do - connects to every chat service under the sun, endless customisation (skins, sounds, displays), supports Growl and more. And it’s slick, too. I love it.
But the only thing it won’t do is video chat. Which is a real shame as my new MBP has an iSight built-in. But if I want to use it, then I have to use iChat, but unfortunately I simply don’t know enough cool kids who actually use a Mac + iChat, so it’s pointless.
I’m not blaming the Adium guys - it’s not their fault, and they’re certainly doing their best to get something sorted out - but if anyone knows of a chat client which will enable me to use my iSight on the MSN chat service, then I’d love to know about it.
UPDATE:
Turns out I should STFW a bit more. aMSN has been around for a while and does video chat on MSN on the Mac. I’m a dumbass.
Go figure. I actually missed having a decent forum for being able to rant about stuff. Freedom to say what I wanted; when I wanted. Then I realised - “oooh I know where people do that nowadays! On a blog!”. Then I remembered - I have a blog! Whoop-de-doo for me, and I can release some anger.
Well actually, my anger is pretty limited at the moment. I mean, I’ve spent the last 5 months travelling, and it’s even longer than that I haven’t been at work, moreorless. So when you find yourself in a situation where you can literally do anything you want any time any day, well I guess you don’t have much right to be pissed off about too much stuff.
One of those things that I wanted to do - buy a new computer. And not just any computer, a brand spanking new Apple Macbook Pro. I felt I deserved it, after all, I’ve been working hard these past few months. [Er, hang on.] Long story short, I negotiated a good price with (the) Apple Store (i.e., the online sales people) but because of the way they work, they couldn’t accept my UK-registered credit card. However, the local store (Stamford) has the machine. I phoned them to check if they would pricematch the deal, and they said of course. So I trundle all the way in to the store - and lo and behold - they won’t pricematch. We figure out how the Apple Store has got such a good price and it’s through a mechanism that the Apple Retail (store) [following this?] couldn’t match. Besides giving me some bullshit about why they couldn’t, I wasn’t too bothered about it all. I mean, they’d told me they would match, and when I get there they can’t, well, I’d normally be upset at even that. But this new Zen state of mind of mine has obviously miraculous calming effects on me. In fact I was doing really well about the whole situation, was even prepared to just buy the new ‘pooter at full whack right there and then, until the sorry operator muttered a sentence which, boils my blood every time I hear it:
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