darn msn

i'm still feeling screwy at work. other than that, i'm just slightly annoyed at the fact that we can't use msn at work any longer now. no matter. i'm using ebuddy currently at work. but i just ventured on to a site known as desproxy which seems like a good alternative to making my actual msn work. will try it out soon!

as for msn... i understand that it seemed nutty today. for me, msn was down since early evening. i was racking my brain when somebody mentioned something on irc. didn't work for me. so i went online to google something up. i found on the microsoft discussion group, a reference to a mess.be forum workaround. so i tried it and it worked for me. if you are in a similar situation maybe this will help. i'm just sharing info i found, so perhaps you can pay it forward by sharing this info with others you think may find it useful? :)

this workaround is specifically for windows platform. other platforms... well you can try to get this working... but kinda no point if you aren't on msn eh?

1. make sure your msn messenger is not logged in (duh? lol)
   
2. run notepad, and open this file (it /should/ be there) C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts (note that it does not have a file extension)
3. go to the last line in the file and hit enter to make a new line.
   
4. key in these 2 new lines in the file (note that that's a space/tab between the ip address and domain name):
1. 65.54.239.80 messenger.hotmail.com
2. 65.54.239.80 dp.msnmessenger.akadns.net
5. save and close the file.
6. now try and login to your msn account.

that's all there is to it. if it works, good. if it doesn't, sorry you'll have to try finding help elsewhere. the advise also suggests that you should remove it after about 2 days once you for example, remove those 2 lines from the file (and save it) and you can login normally again.

i've been somewhat sickly these past days. hope i'll get well soon. this sore throat is really irritating!

*>_<"*