Microsoft has partnered with 9 charities to donate a portion of ad revenue every time you send an instant message. You have to sign up for the i'm program, but this is the real deal, unlike the countless internet rumors about similar deals that offer cash rewards for sending messages or emails.

The American Red Cross, Boys & Girls Club, National AIDS Fund, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, ninemillion.org, the Sierra Club, StopGlobalWarming.org, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and the US fund for UNICEF are all working with Microsoft on the program. Microsoft says there's no cap on how much money will be donated, but the company has promised to send at least $100 thousand to each charity.

In order to participate you need to use Windows Live Messenger 8.1 (no Trillian or GAIM for you do-gooders), and you need to copy and paste some code into your settings to choose the charity you want to donate your proceeds to. You can change charities later.

Some web sites are reporting that you need to start instant messages with "i'm" in order to generate revenue for the charities. But in fact, it appears that when you add the script to your settings, an "i'm emoticon" will pop up next to your name. Now every message does start with "i'm," and a portion of revenue generated from that emoticon (it looks like you can click on it) will go to charity.

What's in it for Microsoft? Well, when you're a company the size of a small planet, any charitable donations are a good tax write-off. And this is a rather innovative way to get that deduction while giving users an incentive to use your product.

[via TechBlog]

Microsoft has released a beta version of Windows Live Messenger 8.1 over at Live.com. It's not an enormous update, but it does add a few nice features to the IM client. Among them are a "Roaming Identity," meaning you can (optionally) have your display picture and personal message follow you wherever you login, an improved emoticon, background, and display picture menu that shows you recently-used emoticons, etc. up top, an SMS phone book that lets you associate phone numbers with you contacts and send them SMS messages easily, a "report abuse" function, and support for Vista's Presentation Mode that keeps IMs from interrupting you when you're in the middle of a presentation. There are a couple other minor new features like an improved Contact Card, a Sign Out option on the Status menu and a new contact emoticon. Windows Live Messenger is a free download from Microsoft.

Ed Bott is probably my favorite person to read when it comes to covering Windows and other Microsoft software. Today I noticed a little post he had regarding a way to fix Windows Live Messenger in case you find yourself unable to log in. I didn't think much of it, until my wife asked me why she hadn't been able to log in to her messenger for a few days. I quickly went back and read Ed's tip, then logged in remotely to her machine and deleted the registry key mentioned, and voila - she's back online.

So if you're having problems with your Messenger, the registry key you want to delete is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\Policies

Give it a shot - it might well fix your problem!

Thanks, Ed.

This one definitely falls into the at-your-own-risk category: A beta version of Windows Live Messenger 8, nee MSN Messenger, has been available for download from Microsoft.com for some time now, but without an invitation to the private beta test it has been impossible to use, until now. The trick is to use a recently-released "proxy patch" to fool the MSN network into thinking you're running version 7.5, thus allowing you to log on without being part of the private beta. Pretty clever, but dont' blame me if it messes up your system. Once again, try it at your own risk.

F-Secure is warning that instant messages claiming that "Messenger 8 BETA has been leaked!" and offer a download are really Trojans containing the Virkel.f virus. "Virkel.f adds the compromised machine to a botnet," says Personal Tech Pipeline, "from which the hacker can update the Trojan with additional malicious code, to make the PC into a spam zombie or along with others, launch a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on Web sites. Virkel.f also shuts down anti-virus and security software, and blocks access to sites that belong to security vendors." It spreads by sending itself to everyone on infected machines' buddy lists.