New Year’s Day saw me planted in front of my computer as usual—it’s a public holiday anyway, but I was also feeling a little nervous and excited at the same time. Why? Because about two months earlier I received a surprise email from Miss Lilian Quek (MVP Lead from Microsoft Singapore) informing me that I had been nominated for Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional (aka MVP) award. Shortly thereafter, I was informed by Lilian that based upon my contributions to the BigBlueBall forums, she had decided to push for my MVP nomination for Windows Live Messenger. My nomination would now be evaluated by Microsoft in Redmond, Washington and the results would be out on January 1, 2010.

I didn’t expect the email to come so soon—after all due to different time zones it was still New Year’s Eve in the States. But there it was, in my Hotmail inbox. The subject header gave away the good news: “Congratulations 2010 Microsoft MVP!” I was totally ecstatic (I almost fell out of my chair) I’ve been helping BBB members with Windows Live Messenger (if you’ve been living under a shell, WLM is one of the most popular Instant Messaging clients available today and it’s free of course) ever since I joined BigBlueBall way back in 2006. I’d like to thank Jeff Hester (the boss of BBB) for taking me on as a staff member and believing in me. See, kindness is like a butterfly, it may not return to you instantly, but after a while it will. I still participate in BBB, always lurking and looking out for anyone who needs help in the WLM department; of course my good friend and fellow MVP Doris mans the helm too (and she’s been such a great help) We assist because we love helping people with their WLM problems and queries. Besides, the staff are great, and there’s much more than just IM there, go ahead and check the site out. Registering is free!

So what exactly is an MVP? Glad you asked. According to the MVP website, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals are…

…individuals who are recognized by peers as well as by Microsoft for past credible participation, highest quality answers and a demonstrated willingness to share their Microsoft technical expertise with others while providing guidance and assistance in peer-to-peer technical communities worldwide.

While these individuals represent a wide variety of backgrounds and professions, MVPs share the basic characteristics of possessing very strong technical skills in one or more Microsoft products or technology areas. Microsoft MVPs also possess the willingness to share that knowledge with others.

Selected contributors earn their MVP status by being nominated by their peers in the community, Microsoft Support Professionals, or Microsoft Product Group members who have seen consistent, professional and accurate technical answers or guidance in response to customer questions.

Here’s my profile on the MVP website. It’s nice to be acknowledged by the great M like this. Now I can add one more bunch of letters to the end of my name, LOL. Thanks, Microsoft!

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I posted this bit of humor in BigBlueBall a long time ago. Today I re-read it, and it still makes me laugh. I hope it’ll do the same for you too!

A cabbie picks up a Nun. She gets into the cab, and notices that the VERY handsome cab driver won’t stop staring at her. She asks him why he is staring.

He replies, "I have a question to ask you but I don’t want to offend you."

She answers, "My son, you cannot offend me. When you’re as old as I am and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything. I’m sure that there’s nothing you could say or ask that I would find offensive."

"Well, I’ve always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me."

She responds, "Well, let’s see what we can do about that: #1, you have to be single and #2, you must be Catholic."

The cab driver is very excited and says, "Yes, I’m single and Catholic!"

"OK" the nun says. "Pull into the next alley."

The nun fulfills his fantasy with a kiss that would make a hooker blush. But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts crying. "My dear child," said the nun, "why are you crying?"

"Forgive me but I’ve sinned. I lied and I must confess, I’m married and I’m Jewish."

The nun says, "That’s OK. My name is Kevin and I’m going to a Halloween Party."

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If you’ve read my About Me page you would already know that I’ve been a member and staff of BigBlueBall since June 2006. Although this forum caters to IM (Instant Messaging) and social networking first and foremost, there are a lot of other sections within, such as Cell Phones, PDA and Mobiles, and also Computer Support. There’s also a Community Center with the BigBlueBall Lounge as a place where you can get to know new members, post your own poll, read the funnies, a Music room, etc. All in all, there’s a lot to see and do. Needless to say, becoming a member is totally free (and painless).

Have a look at the new BigBlueBall here.

Last but not least, don’t forget to visit the BBB Blog, where you can post comments even without registering (but we hope you will). A big plus is that BBB is also connectable to your existing Facebook account:

So, a lot of stuff to explore—drop by anytime!

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I’d been using the latest version of Windows Live Messenger 9 (WLM) for the past few months. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t give me any trouble at all although it was essentially still in Beta (the final release is due sometime early next year). However, at the start of this week, I found that I couldn’t sign in. The error code returned was 80070057; it mentioned that the email address I used to sign in was invalid, which was rubbish since I’ve been signing in with that address for as long as I’ve been doing instant messaging.

So being a Big Blue Ball staffer myself meant that I should be able to troubleshoot these pesky gremlins, correct? Signed in with my teenage kid’s hotmail account, and that was successful. Signed into Web Messenger with my own account, that turned out alright too. This meant that it probably didn’t have anything to do with my computer, it was in all likelihood a cock-up at the Microsoft server end. Just to give the big M a break, remember that their servers have to “serve” literally millions of WLM accounts, 24/7.

My good friend Doris to the rescue. She informed me that there were reports of this WLM outage being posted on the Net. Try as I might, I could find very little information concerning Error 80070057; of course I could have written to Messenger Support and told them about it. Nah, I’d probably just receive a generic reply. According to Doris, it could be due to the fact that they pushed out an update for WLM9, and that could have caused the hiccup.

What irks me is that the big M has remained generally quiet about this problem. That seems to be the way they’ve done it in the past, and usually it’s been left to other websites and forums to bring out these annoying issues. What can I say or do, after all the darn thing is free, right? Anyway, I got pretty fed up after not being able to sign in for four days. Bit the bullet, uninstalled WLM9 (sniff, I actually liked it), downloaded and installed version 8.5. Signing in was immediate.I’ll stick with 8.5 for another week or two, thank you very much.

The moral of the story is: don’t always jump the gun and believe that the fault is at your end (at least give it a 50-50 chance). I’ve heard horror stories of people reformatting and reinstalling Windows, just because of problems with WLM. It gets even more nerve-wrecking and frustrating to discover that the problem is still there after doing all these drastic measures. So what can you do? Join Big Blue Ball! It’s where you can find answers, suggestions, etc. for 99.9% of your IM problems. The staff (including myself, ahem) are helpful and friendly, there’s lots to see and do besides the IM stuff. And did I mention, registering is free, of course. Kudos to Jeff Hester, Mr. Big Blue Ball himself, for starting the BBB forums many years ago.

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I was just thinking of this while folding my clothes . Here are a couple of things I came up with:

1. Help and advice are readily available, provided you look for it. And most of the time, people don’t even think about charging you.
2. A sense of belonging. This is especially true in a great forum such as BigBlueBall, where I’ve met lots of nice folks. Furthermore, with Instant Messaging such as Windows Live Messenger, you’re never alone.
3. International brotherhood. Yeah, I just coined this up. Tied in with #1, because while you can search for help and advice, you can also contribute ideas and solutions. It’s an international win-win situation.
4. Opportunities. Granted, there are thousands of scams on the web, but there are also genuine opportunities. This is something I am really looking into!

Any thoughts? Please drop a comment here (no moderation or approval in my blog, your comment will appear immediately).

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To quote my fellow member Yahooligan in his excellent BBB post:

Microsoft has launched a new online service in 20 countries which will allow users to watch video clips at the same time as a network of friends and chat via Windows Live Messenger. The new service called Messenger TV will offer a range of clips on MSN Video including MTV shows and music clips from providers such as Sony BMG. The firm hopes the ability to watch clips with friends on different computers will create a new social experience and attract users who already spend hours on social networks.

“Online video has exploded in popularity over the last year, but to date it has been something people watch on their own. Messenger TV is set to change all that,” said John Mangelaars, the vice-president, EMEA, of consumer and online for Microsoft.

“Watching video online can now be a social experience, as people watch videos together, make comments and share reactions.”

The service will launch in 20 countries including many European countries, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Brazil, Canada and Mexico but not the United States.

What happens if your country isn’t in the list of countries allowed to watch Messenger TV? Glad you asked, I’ve come up with a workaround:

1. Add MessengerTV@Live.com to your WLM contact list.
2. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options. In the General tab, click on Languages. Click Add and add English (United Kingdom) and move it to the top of the list.
3. Double-click the MessengerTV contact in WLM to start a conversation. Type any message (a simple how are you? is fine). It will reply and ask whether you want to start Messenger TV. Click Accept and enjoy!

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Well I do, and my weapon of choice is Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger, or WLM for short. It’s funny how many people still call it MSN; MSN actually stands for Microsoft Network but, oh never mind. I prefer typing out my messages to video and voice chats, saves bandwidth (and I’m just on a 1MBps broadband connection).

Why do I love WLM? It’s stable, has lots of customization features (emotes, winks, etc. both from Microsoft and third-party), and millions of people use it. So much so that if WLM hiccups, you know where to go, don’t you? BigBlueBall. It’s THE place for all things IM, and more.

WLM’s latest version is 8.5.1302.1018. Get it here. Oh, and I also love Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Writer (all obtainable at the same link). In fact I write all my posts in Live Writer before publishing it to my blog. It works seamlessly, and is a no-brainer to understand.

A good third-party program to install for WLM is Messenger Plus! Live. You can customize sounds, email accounts, add scripts, control event and chat logging, use skins, etc. Worth getting, and it’s free. Just opt out of the sponsor program when installing.

And if you want to add me to your WLM, leave a comment here.

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