Welcome to my guide for beginners to the world of instant messaging. This article is a tad long, so you might want to read bits and pieces at a time.

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If you enjoy this article, please read my other posts at:
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Hello there. I assume that since you’re reading this article you are new to “IM”. The most popular instant messaging program is MSN live messenger. This is one I suggest you use since you can use any E-mail account that you own on this messenger. All you have to do is sign up for a .net passport from Microsoft. This can be found by going this site. You can use an existing E-mail address or create a free @Hotmail.com E-mail. I will use this program as the base for this article, simply due to the fact that it is the most used by the public.

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2 - What does it do and why should I “IM”?

Well, to sum it up in one sentence it basically allows you to send messages instantly across an internet connection. You type into a window and hit you’re “enter” button or press the “send” within the window, and the message is transferred to the other person in about 1/50 of a second.

Next, why IM? Well the simple answer is that the messages are transferred instantly. This beats E-mail since the servers sometimes get clogged, and this slows the message transfer rate. E-mail used to take days to reach the other person, now it takes anywhere from 5 seconds to 24 hours. But the part about “Instant” should still prove better than E-mail.

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3 – Exploring messenger – Beginner

There are many features to MSN messenger, so this section may be a long one. But it is worth reading and possibly re-reading. I'll write this in a tour like format. If you are just reading this article for a few pointers you may skip this section. If you have not gotten the program yet, I suggest getting it before continuing. This is the link to download right away, so if you have these blocked the link will not work. Please tell me if this link does not work, I'll get it fixed right away.

Firstly, after you’ve installed the program (A.K.A the “client” for those tech junkies out there), the first screen that comes up is the sign-in prompt (a prompt is just computer terms for something that wants you to enter information into it to get a return (or a result)). There are two required fields that you must enter information into in order to get into the program. These are “E-mail address:” and “Password:”. There are other options to fill out as well, such as “Status” and the usual “remember me” options. But for now just worry about the first two fields.

Once you’re into messenger, now it’s time to start adding contacts. There are two ways of doing this. The easiest way would be to click on the icon with a “+” sign and a little picture of an outline of a person. Hovering your mouse over this will tell you “Add a contact”, which is what is does. The other way is to click on “contacts” and then “add a contact…” from the top of the client. Either way, once you click on one of these, a new prompt will appear. It will have many tabs on the side; you can ignore these for now. Anyway, the prompt only requires one item to be entered. The first field says “instant messaging address”. Just enter the person’s e-mail and near the bottom of the page there is a button that says “save”. Click the save button and you’ll have your first contact. Now all you have to do is wait until they accept you and then you can begin to chat online. This usually takes about 2 to 5 minutes to appear if they press it right away. Congrats! You can now do many things with your 1st contact when there online, such as the many games available though messenger, including a few unique games.

Next I would suggest making a few groups, to better organize your contacts. First thing you’ll have to do, unless of course it does it by default, is to instruct the client to sort your contacts by groups. Go to the top menu bar, select “contacts” go to “Sort contacts by |>” and click on “Groups”. Now by default there will be 4 groups, “friends”, “Family”, “Co-workers”, and “Other Contacts”. The first three groups’ names can be changed or “renamed” by right clicking on them and pressing “Rename Group”. The last group is for contacts that you have not placed into a group and therefore you cannot do anything to this group, including “delete”. If you have contacts not placed into a group when you enable sorting contacts by groups, they will go into this group.
The prompt to add contacts has a drop-down bar near the bottom of the first tab, which allows you to place new contacts into a group automatically.

Now there are a lot of advanced options, so they warranted a new section altogether. Enjoy.

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4 – Exploring messenger – Advanced

The first thing to do could be saving your login info into the client. If you are the only user of your computer, just check the last of the three boxes and all the data (e-mail, password, preferred “status” on login) will be saved. If someone else uses the computer, don’t bother saving anything aside from your E-mail.

Second thing I would advise doing is customizing your messenger.

Now to remove some clutter. I would remove the tabs on the left side of the client since all they do is take up space and advertise useless products. To remove this, just go to “Tools” from the top menu bar. Then click on “options…” and go to “Tabs”. Then just check the box that says “Hide tabs”. There done, and a little less clutter to distract you. While you’re at it, I would remove the msn today that pops up when you login. Keep open (or re-open if you’ve close it) the “Options” menu from before, and then go to “General” and look under “sign-in” and one of them says something about MSN today, simply uncheck it.

Now to select a background (if you wish), a display picture, display name and a personal message. For a background, go to “actions” and select “personalize messenger” and click on “backgrounds”. A new page will open up and you can chose a background. Click on one to download it, most of them are free, and then you’ll have it to use. Next, a display picture. A display picture is just like an avatar sort of thing. You can set any picture to be there, it’ll automatically resize itself. This one is easy to set. Just open up a conversation window with any contact (yes even an offline one) and you’ll see an icon with a downward arrow. Click the big icon. Click the option near the bottom that says “Change your display picture”. A new window will pop up and give you a list of available pictures, and a button that says “browse” (which means search in your folders for pictures). After you import a picture with browse or select a picture, make sure it’s highlighted, and press “Ok”. Now your picture should change. To get to change your display name, click on your current name and then “options” and “your display name” is the first thing you’ll see. For your display name, a good way to start would be your name, and maybe a quote, joke or something like that. Let’s say your name was John. “John – “war does not determine who is right, only who is left” ”. As you use messenger you’ll get used to this, and might begin to have more complex names. Anyway, moving on to your personal message (PM). This is similar to a display name; it’s basically a way to extend your length limit or type some other message. A thing you could put might be your current activity, such as writing, so it’ll appear like this:

John – “war does not determine who is right, only who is left” - writing

The PM is always in italics and always at the end of your message.

Next and last, games and activities. There are a number of games available for play though msn. One of the most popular is checkers. But just to point it out: some games, such as checkers, have unique rules. You must capture your opponent if you can. These rules can get some getting used to. There are also a few unique games available, such as “7 hand poker” and head-to-head versions of classics, such as “Hexic” and “Minesweeper”. Good times are had, especially if you win 5 in a row; most people will get annoyed and make further mistakes, such as continuing to play =D.

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5 – Chat Speak / Short Hand

First off the bat, “Chat Speak” and “Short Hand” are the same things; some people just call them by different names. Moving on, I'll make a chart of about 20 “shorts” that are commonly used. There are over 2 thousand of these “shorts” but it would be impractical to list them all. You can find out what one means usually by asking the person who says it.

Short --- Meaning (extended)
lol --- Laugh out loud/ lots of laughs
Np --- No problem
Brb --- Be right back
Rofl --- Rolling on (the) flour laughing
G2g --- Got to go
Thx / Ty --- Thanks
Imo --- In my opinion
L8r --- Later
Cya --- See Ya (also “cover your as$”)
BTW --- By the way
Pls / plz --- Please
IRL --- In real life
CU --- See you
bb --- Bye-bye
ATM --- At the moment
^5 --- High five
B4 --- Before
BF/GF --- Boyfriend / Girlfriend
gr8 --- Great (the 8 is used in many "shorts", pronouced "ate")

This list is pretty basic. There are many other lists available on the net, I’ve gone though the trouble of finding a few for you to use:

http://www.romulus2.com/articles/guides/shorthand/shorthand.shtml

http://www.netlingo.com/emailsh.cfm

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6 – Emotions

This will be on of the shortest of all sections since most of the information you’ll need is within he messenger itself. Anyway an emotion is a small picture (12-15X12-15 usually) that is sent to the other person using a small code, such as the all-known smile; :). The information you’ll need to send an emote is found by clicking the smile in the conversation window. A new window will pop up with a bunch of emotions for you to choose. Just a note with msn messenger: many people use the “=” to start their emote, but messenger uses “:” with its emotes. So if you type “=D” into messenger, nothing will happen; you’ll need to press “:D”. A correct code will make an emote appear right away. A few of the most used ones are:
:D – a large smile
:P – a tongue action
;) - an animated wink
Please note that those stated above are the defaults, if you change them I have no clue what you changed them to and cannot help you there =P.

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7 – Conclusion & Further reading

Well, all good things come to an end, as must this article. It’s about 2,300 words and I enjoyed writing it. If you have any questions/concerns/corrections please E-mail or message me. Thank you.

Further reading:

The lists of short-hand, once again:
http://www.romulus2.com/articles/guides/shorthand/shorthand.shtml
http://www.netlingo.com/emailsh.cfm

Other sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging
http://www.netalert.gov.au/advice/services/im/What_is_instant_messaging.html
http://www.kolabora.com/news/2006/09/28/instant_messaging_tools_and_technology.htm