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4This page tells you that the name was added to your list. It also lets you click the Send E-mail button and send an e-mail to the contact that explains how he or she can add Windows Messenger if the contact is not already using it. You can even send the message in one of over two dozen languages and add a custom message at the top of the e-mail. If you know your contact already uses Windows Messenger, you can skip this step

and click Finish.

tip Contacting People Using a Different Instant Messaging Program

At some point in the future, you should be able to communicate with other Internet users who use different instant messaging software. Current and emerging instant messaging standards, such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) might make the future of instant messaging applications much more flexible between different vendors.

Once you choose to add contacts to your list, the contacts are sent a message, alerting them to the fact that you have added them. At this point, the contacts can choose Allow This Person To See When You Are Online And Contact You to allow you to see them when they are online, or they can choose Block This Person From Seeing When You Are Online And Contacting You so that you won’t know whether they’re online and won’t be able to contact them. So, contacts function as a two-way street. You can add contacts all day, but they have to allow you to see them and communicate with them while you are online.

At any time, you can also remove contacts by simply right-clicking them in the Windows Messenger window and clicking Delete Contact. If you use Outlook Express as your e-mail client, you can also directly create contacts for Windows Messenger from Outlook Express. In Outlook Express, just display the Contacts pane, right-click an existing contact, and click Set As Online Contact. You can also click New Online Contact and create a Windows Messenger contact from Outlook Express. Windows will then see if the contact has a .NET Passport. If the contact does not have a .NET Passport, you’ll be told that and be invited to send an e-mail to the person inviting him to sign up for a Passport account so you can instant message with him.

Understanding Windows Messenger Status Messages

Note that some of your online contacts have additional status messages attached to their icon, such as busy, on the phone, be right back, and so on. These status messages allow you to be online for outgoing messaging, but to appear unavailable to

Chapter 8: Using Windows Messenger

others who have you listed in their Windows Messenger program. If you are online and want to use a status message, choose File, My Status, and click the status you want others to see: Online, Busy, Be Right Back, Away, On The Phone, Out To Lunch, or Appear Offline. Others see your name listed under Online with the status message appended to your name except for the Appear Offline status, which actually moves your name into the Offline list, even though you are still online. This is the same way you appear to others when you turn off your machine or sign out from Windows Messenger. As a rule of courtesy, make sure you use the My Status option when you are not available to answer instant messages, or take yourself offline so that friends, family, and colleagues are not waiting for you to respond.

Using Instant Messaging

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If you click the Phone tab, you can enter any phone numbers that you want your contacts to be able to see. Of course, you should not enter any information on this tab unless you explicitly want to share phone numbers with all of your contacts. Also, make sure you never give out passwords, credit card numbers, or any other personal information over instant messaging because the link, although private, does not encrypt data and is not considered secure.

Using Emoticons

Emoticons are icons you can include in instant messaging sessions that provide some sort of emotional denotation. Some people consider them silly, but they can be a way to express inferences and feelings quickly and easily. You can use them if you prefer, but they are certainly not required.

There are over three dozen emoticons that you can use; they range from smiley faces to smooching lips and are all available using simple keyboard shortcuts or a pop-up menu. You can learn about the available emoticons and the keyboard shortcuts for them by clicking Help, Help Topics and typing emoticons in the search box (next to the Go button). You’ll need an Internet connection to see all of them. Table 8-1 lists the keyboard shortcuts you use to create the different emoticons.

Table 8-1. Emoticons and Their Keyboard Shortcuts

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Inviting Other People into a Conversation

Let’s say you’re visiting with a colleague to discuss a project using Windows Messenger. During the conversation, you realize that an additional colleague needs to join in to offer some input. Can you have a three person instant messaging session?

Chapter 8: Using Windows Messenger

Yes, you can, and you can include more people in the conversation as well. When you want to add another contact to the conversation, choose Actions, Invite Someone To This Conversation. You will then be able to invite other contacts into the conversation. When a contact accepts the invitation, he or she will see the entire conversation thread, just as though he or she had been involved in the conversation from

the beginning.

Saving a Conversation

Let’s say you are using Windows Messenger to conduct a business meeting between four coworkers located in different offices around the country. Once the conversation is finished, you want a hard copy of the conversation for your records. This isn’t a problem. When the conversation has concluded, just click File, Save or File, Save As in the Conversation window. You can save the transcript to a text file. Text files, of course, can be a little aggravating to work with, and they might not print in an organized way, so you should consider copying and pasting the text into Word or WordPad, and then formatting it.

note Emoticons are not saved as a part of the transcript.

tip Working with Alerts

Windows Messenger can produce an alert sound when one of your contacts comes online, when you receive an instant message, or when you receive mail in your Hotmail Inbox. These options are configured by default, but you can change the defaults by accessing Tools, Options. Select the Preferences tab, and in the Alerts section, choose any combination of the three display options to show a visual display when a contact in your list comes online, when you’re sent an instant message, or when e-mail is received. Then select Play Sound When Contacts Sign In Or Send A Message to produce an audible alert when a contact comes online or sends you a message. Note that you can also change the sound of the alert by clicking the Sounds button and selecting a new sound for the alert.

Using File Transfer

Windows Messenger provides a handy way to send files to and receive files from your contacts. Like e-mail, you can transfer any file to a contact simply and easily, which makes work between colleagues faster and more efficient. Using Windows Messenger file transfer, you can:

●Transfer the file immediately to the contact. No mail server resides between you and your contact, so there’s no time delay waiting for your mail to

be delivered.

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●Transfer files without file type restrictions. Due to the threat of viruses, some e-mail programs will not let you send certain kinds of files. Windows Messenger places no file restrictions on you. Of course, you should be careful of the files you accept from others.

●Ignore the file size limitations that some mail servers place on users.

The recipient will receive a message telling him how long the message is and about how long it will take to transfer the file over a 28.8 Kbps modem. If you choose to accept the file, you will see a dialog box warning you that Windows Messenger does not inspect files for viruses and advising you to check the file with an antivirus program before opening it. So, it is up to you to scan files with an antivirus program before opening them. Even though you know your contact, your computer could still get infected with a virus from a file, so beware.

For more information on securing your computer from viruses and worms, see “Protecting Windows XP from Viruses,” page 590.

note You cannot send a file if your conversation has more than one other person. If you need to send a file to a group of people, you can use e-mail, or you can start a conversation with each contact individually.

Aside from the possible virus threat, instant messaging file transfer lets you and a friend or colleague work collaboratively on a document or share documents back and forth through one window. You can be involved in a conversation and send the file from the same Conversation window. There is no need to use a different window or program, and that makes life a lot easier.

Keep in mind that Windows Messenger allows up to 10 concurrent file connections at any given time, and if you are using a firewall (even ICF), you must configure the firewall to allow the ICF file transfer traffic. See “Firewall Configuration,” page 223, for configuration details.

When you want to transfer a file, simply choose the Send A File Or Photo link in the right pane of the Conversation window. A browse window appears so you can select the file that you want to send. The Conversation window in Figure 8-9 shows you the progress of the file transfer and whether the contact has accepted the file.

By default, all files are transferred to %UserProfile%\My Documents\My Received Files. The environment variable %UserProfile% has a default value of C:\Documents and Settings\Username, where Username is your user Windows XP account name. You can open the file using the link provided in the Conversation window or by browsing the folder.

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One of the major gripes in the past has been delay—for example, you say something and then have to wait for the transmission to move your voice to the contact’s speakers. Delay has been reduced to as low as 70 milliseconds (assuming ideal latency conditions), which is hardly noticeable. Windows Messenger can use different codecs, software that encodes and decodes audio or video messages, so that the voice quality can be adjusted as needed due to the networking conditions. Windows Messenger also uses an echo cancellation feature that helps eliminate echo often caused by typical microphone and speaker use.

Of course, not all voice calls are perfect using Windows Messenger, but when networking conditions are good, you can get surprisingly fast transmission results, even when using a modem. Before attempting to use voice calls, keep in mind that any firewall or router in the pathway must support UPnP for voice calls to work. See “Connecting Through a Firewall,” page 222, for more details.

Making Voice Calls to Contacts

Before using voice calls, it is a good idea to run the Audio And Video Tuning Wizard provided with Windows Messenger. This wizard helps adjust the speakers and microphone as well as the Web camera if one is in use. The following steps guide you through this wizard:

1In Windows Messenger, click Tools, Audio Tuning Wizard.

2Click Next on the Welcome screen.

3Use the Camera box to select the camera that you want to use (if you want to use one). Click Next.

4You see a sample from the camera. Adjust the camera and the lighting conditions as necessary and click Next.

5Position your speakers and microphone. Keep in mind that your microphone should be kept away from the speakers in order to avoid echo. Click Next.

6Select the microphone and speakers that you want to use, as shown in Figure 8-10. If you are using headphones, make sure you select I Am Using Headphones. Click Next.

7Adjust the speaker volume using the Test button. Click Next when you are done.

8Speak out loud, reading the provided paragraph if you want to set the sensitivity of your microphone. Click Next when you are done.

9Click Finish.