iChat to MSN Through Jabber
Posted on Friday, May 6th, 2005 at 2:56 pm under Mac Geekery, Tutorials.The latest version of the Mac OS X known as Tiger brings Jabber support to iChat which indirectly supports other messaging protocols like MSN, ICQ, AIM and IRC.
What is Jabber and why do I care?
Jabber is an open alternative to consumer IM services. Unlike these commercial services, Jabber is a decentralized network. It works similar to email servers in which anyone can download the Jabber server application and run it in their server to offer Jabber. Because of this, there is no global username, there is unique usernames on each server thus you can have multiple jabber accounts on different servers. The username is in the form of an email address. So, if I get a jabber account at jabberserverx.com then my jabber username would be myusername@jabberserverx.com. Each Jabber server can be configured differently to offer support for MSN, ICQ, AIM, IRC, Yahoo, Email Gateway and even File Transfer. You can find a grid of the Jabber servers and its supported protocols here. Why should you care about this? You should care because it’s open, free and it’s seems to be the only way to bring Yahoo and MSN Messenger into iChat.
Step 1: Get your account set up
If you don’t have an MSN or Yahoo account, you need to create one. A hotmail account could be used for MSN. Create an MSN account at passport.net.
Step 2: Get a Jabber Client App
Since iChat has only basic support for Jabber, you need a Jabber Client Application to create a Jabber account. We’re going to use Psi, one of many Jabber Client Applications.
Go to PSI’s website psi.affinix.com and select the Mac OS version of PSI and the mirror server closest to you.
Download it, drag to you Applications folder and launch.
Step 3: Create a Jabber Account
Enter njs.netlab.cz ( some people are reporting a more stable connection with jabber.freenet.de )as your Jabber server. This is a server from the Czech Republic that supports the protocols we need. To find other servers, Jabber.org provides a list of servers you can choose from.
Enter your desired account info. Notice how it looks just like if it was an email address for that server. If the username is taken, it will let you know. Click on Register to continue.
Upon success, click OK.
Use Control + Click to get the contextual menu from the server’s name and make your status Online.
Step 4: Register your IM Service with your Jabber server
Use Control + Click to get the contextual menu from the server’s name and select Service Discovery.
From the Service Directory window, Use Control + Click to get the contextual menu from the desired Service and select Register.
Enter your IM service login info. In this case, I’m entering my MSN Messenger login info.
Once completed. Quit Psi and Launch Address Book.
Step 5: Add Jabber formated usernames to Address Book
First, you need to know someone who has an MSN or Yahoo Messenger account. From Address Book create or edit a user and add a new IM username. Make sure you specify Jabber from the pulldown menu and replace their @ symbol with a % sign.
msn account name:
sireltonjohny@hotmail.com
jabber address format
sireltonjohny%hotmail.com@msn.netlab.cz
Step 6: Set up iChat for Jabber
From iChat, select the iChat Preferences. From the Accounts Panel, click add to Add a new Account.
Enter your Jabber account info.
Once the account is created. Select Jabber from the Window pulldown menu and make your Jabber status Available from the Jabber Buddy List.
From the Jabber Buddy List, Add a new buddy by clicking add button. It should find the Buddy we added earlier in the Address Book.
Search for your friend by typing their name on the search field then click on Select Buddy.
Done. You should now be able to chat with people on MSN Messenger right from iChat.
Conclusion
The simplicity of having only one IM application is priceless. And although there great Apps that combine the services I prefer the iLife integration of the Apple applications. The only downer is that file transfers are not available through this setup. It would be safe to assume video is neither but I have not tried it myself.
May 6th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
AWESOME! You rock man. It will be so nice to be able to use iChat instead of MSN Messanger.
May 6th, 2005 at 7:26 pm
and it’s supported protocols –> and its supported protocols
May 6th, 2005 at 8:44 pm
Thanks so much! No more Adium!
May 6th, 2005 at 9:31 pm
Sorry to be somewhat off-topic here, but I have a site suggestion. Please consider having an RSS feed with just the title and blurb or first paragraph of articles. That’s what all the other sites I subscribe to do, and when I open my aggregator, I use spacebar to cycle through new articles. That never works when I hit the newest All Forces item, however, because it’s usually several pages long, and spacebar just scrolls to the next page.
It’s cramping my RSS style, man. :) I might have to unsubscribe otherwise.
May 6th, 2005 at 9:45 pm
done. i fixed it according to your recommendation. i didn’t realize it because i am not subscribed to my own rss feed ;-)
May 6th, 2005 at 10:29 pm
I followed the instructions but the Jabber List shows my friends name dimmed and the status “Waiting for Authorization” and it never clears.
I double-checked all the settings and I followed everything correctly.
I am using Tiger.
Any ideas?
May 6th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Heheh, awesome. Thanks, Melvin.
May 6th, 2005 at 11:53 pm
Works nice. I was able to connect to both Yahoo and MSN gateways via jabber.org.uk. Only problem is that whenever I start up iChat, I get a message from MSN (msn.jabber.org.uk) informing me how many emails are in my inbox (zero, since I never use MSN for mail!). Anybody know how to turn that off?
May 7th, 2005 at 12:04 am
I’m having a problem. I followed the steps but I can’t seem to use MSN via iChat unless I’m logged in on Psi. What’s up with that?
May 7th, 2005 at 7:48 am
This is just awesome!!!! Worked flawless!!!!! Perfect !!!!!! Thanks a million!!!
May 7th, 2005 at 8:56 am
Jerry,
keep trying, that happened to me as well. when i first logged on to ichat it brought all my contacts from msn. i had to go one by one and delete them and them bring them back in from address book. try that and let me know. make sure your formating is correct.
trevor,
that might be a preference u need to set in msn messenger.
cory,
i don’t know what to say other than go step by step to see if u missed something. u do not need to be logged into psi. as a matter of fact, it doesn’t make sense that it would work with u logged on to msn from 2 different locations at the same time.
to everyone,
get a gravatar! it’s a free service that gives u a global avatar (like a buddy icon) that will show up next to your reply. any blog u visit that supports gravatar will show your icon.
May 7th, 2005 at 10:22 am
it ends up waiting for authorization from the other msn buddy. what next?
May 7th, 2005 at 10:57 am
I found that when it required authrization you just need to go back to msn messenger then accept the authorizaton. Then quit msn messenger then go back to ichat and they should be authorized!?
so you may need to keep msn messenger around when adding people..
May 7th, 2005 at 11:19 am
It works it really works
but…
I cant see the avatars of my contacts, also they cant see mine…
any suggestions.?
Jo
May 7th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
Off topic: wait a minute… no more full entries in your rss feed??? I want it back! :) Seriously.
May 7th, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Dear Melvin,
Sorry for being off-topic also, but, in response to Paul D’s issue with your RSS feeds, I’d beg to differ. there are two competing usages of rss feeds:
1. Partial feeds are usually used by people who like just a title and a summary, in their RSS reader. they can then choose to visit the entry at the actual site.
2. Full feeds are usually used by people who don’t (regularly) visit the sites whose RSS feed they read. people like me. Most of the blogs I read feature full RSS feeds, therefore i never have to leave the RSS feed (in my case BlogLines).
I understand Paul D’s complaint, since most blog entries are short, tops a few paragaphs and yours are larger. But I strongly dislike having to go to the site to get the full story.
Here is an interesting post from one of my favorite LA bloggers Sean Bonner (of Blogging.LA fame and former editor of The Unofficial Apple Weblog), where he discusses partial vs. full feeds.
Ideally, it would be nice to have two feeds one for each kind of user. Melvin, I’m not sure if Word Press can issue two feeds, but it would make an interesting blog entry walking novice users through it.
Now would you please revert your RSS feed back to full (with images, if you wouldn’t mind) because in the words of Paul D “It’s cramping my RSS style, man. :) I might have to unsubscribe otherwise.“.
‘m just kidding, full or short feeds I always come back to see that face.
May 7th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
oops, i messed up Sean Bonner’s link: http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/000939.php#000939. I hope this one comes through.
btw - word press comments would be so much cooler if you could preview them and then re-edit them after you’ve posted.
May 7th, 2005 at 1:47 pm
You rock man! God bless you
May 8th, 2005 at 6:28 am
Like Cory I can only get it to work in iChat while Psi is running. When I quite Psi all contacts drop offline in iChat. I have the same problem with Canopus on my Treo 600? It’s like Psi is required to activate my Jabber account?
May 8th, 2005 at 6:59 am
You need Hotmail for .NET passport? no. any email address is fine when signing up to use MSN messenger.
May 8th, 2005 at 7:10 am
psi is NOT required to be on. as a matter of fact, i haven’t launched it since i did the initial set up. however i have noticed sometimes i need to do an offline/online switcharoo to my jabber buddy list to reconnect to msn. also, as i mentioned on a previous comment, i had to delete the buddies from my ichat/jabber buddy list and reimport them from address book when i first set it up.
off subject. see my nice little icon? i’m getting sick of seeing some many generic buddy icons in this post. sweetie please with sugar on top? it’s free and works on any other blog that supports gravatar.
May 8th, 2005 at 8:02 am
Awesome tutorial! Has anyone tired using iSight for MSN through Jabber yet? I know for sure Adium doesnt offer that.
May 9th, 2005 at 7:01 am
I should point out that you are giving your username and password to an unknown service provider. So if you use your Yahoo account for personal stuff then an unscrupulous Jabber server admin could easily gather the information needed to log in to your account and read/send email on your behalf.
It’s probably not something to lose sleep over if either a) know the server admin, or b) only use your Yahoo (or Hotmail, or whatever) account for chatting, but it *is* worth thinking about.
A safer bet would be to install the jabber server component locally on your Mac and then launch it at startup or login.
Cheers,
jon
May 9th, 2005 at 7:02 am
Also, may I recommend Proteus for a fully-fledged Jabber app. I used Psi for a while, but Proteus was a flat-out pleasure to use. I only over switch to iChat for video chats with my iSight. [note: I'm not affiliated with Proteus in any way]
jon
May 9th, 2005 at 7:13 am
How do I get the yahoo chat setup?
May 9th, 2005 at 8:36 am
Setup iChat to work with MSN
All Forces has posted a nice how-to if you’re interested in getting MSN to work with iChat. Requires a little trickery but seems to work well enough.
Check it out….
May 9th, 2005 at 10:06 am
Don’t listen to “Paul D”, above. Keep with the full-article RSS feed. If need be, create a separate “minimalist headline” feed for those that still use browsers..
May 9th, 2005 at 10:34 am
Tried several times to register, but get a “communications error”. Anyone else had this?
Bobbi
May 9th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
OK, OK, I registered with Gravatar but awaiting pic approval. Very neat feature.
And now on to my question… the Jabber window in iChat says “Available” but none of my MSN buddies are online (although I know they’re there because MSN shows them). I tried your trick of disconnecting/reconnecting, but still no avail. Any other thoughts?
Thanx :) .:. tony
May 9th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
Ok, several things. First…THANK YOU for the great tip! Second, I got everything working, except, like many other users, I have to have PSI running in order for iChat to register onto the Jabber network. Strangest thing ever, but true. Third, PLEASE bring back the FULL RSS feed. Whoever made the suggestion is just plain goony. You can set most RSS aggregators to just show you the subject line and he could accomplish the same thing that way. I, like most others, rarely go to a site to read the post since most sites have the full post in the RSS feed. I tend to unsubscribe from sites that don’t use full feeds because it is a PITA when you are tracking 300+ feeds a day. Soooooo PLEASE bring back FULL feeds. Thanks!!!
May 9th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
There was an error creating the default profile.
What shall i do next?
May 9th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Great tip - I put it on my own site a couple of days ago after reading it on a forum.
Like Jo I can’t see my contact’s avatars, only a generic light bulb. I notice your final screenshot shows your contact’s avatar - is this from their entry in your address book or are you receiving it through iChat?
May 9th, 2005 at 3:19 pm
the icons come from my address book.
May 9th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
I can’t get it to stay working. I have to delete all the buddies at launch and reload them from the address book. Doing so makes it work, but only until I log out. When I log back in, everyone shows up as offline again and I have to do it all over. Any help anyone?
May 9th, 2005 at 5:16 pm
Same problem as above i believe…
When i log out and in again all the people who are online dont show up until their status changes.. which could be a long time.
May 9th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
Awesome tutorial! I can FINALL trash MSN’s IM app which is horrible simply for the fact that it doesn’t allow Apple’s system wide spell checker in the IM window!
I HATE sending IM’s with words spelled incorrectly. Apple helps make me look smarter ;)
I don’t know why I never thought about using Jabber to tunnel through to MSN & Yahoo before.
Thanks!
P.S. For those people who are having that iChat connection issue by having to keep Psi open as well, I had that same issue while setting things up. After I quit Psi, my Jabber iChat buddies would disappear. But after a few minutes I had iChat log my jabber account off then back on, and they appeared. No more need for Psi. Hope that helps!
May 9th, 2005 at 6:24 pm
Very, very nice. Thanks a bunch!
May 9th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
melvin,
do you know kevin rose?
May 9th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
Damn! I’d buy Tiger just for this feature alone. Way to go.
May 9th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
i do not kevin rose.
May 9th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Hmm… Brilliant hack but I, as with others noted above, am still getting that ‘Waiting for Authorization” bug.
Have tried to delete the person from my buddy list and add them again from the address book, no go. Have tried to go offline/online, no go. Have tried to keep MSN Messenger open waiting for some “authorize” pop-up, but no go.
Anyone have a similar experience and emerged victorious? Would love to go to an all-iChat just for the hell of it.
Thanks,
Ant
May 9th, 2005 at 9:38 pm
You may want to look at this also, growliChat. It’ll notify you everytime buddy on your buddy list change status to online or away
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~pongmong :)
May 9th, 2005 at 11:15 pm
why you do not use skype ???
the easiest way to use instant message AND VoIP -> cross-plattform
win - mac - linux - pocketpc
and it is free too
May 10th, 2005 at 2:42 am
Oh man. This is superb!! Thanks very much for putting this tutorial up!
It surprises me that Apple haven’t done more with iChat… like their own Jabber server, for example. Make it even easier for users to use MSN and Yahoo with iChat by providing a simple ‘MSN’ or ‘Yahoo’ option in iChat under account type. In the backend, this could just be Apple’s very own Jabber server talking MSN or Yahoo as required.
I mean, come on Apple, you even have a Jabber server in Tiger Server!
May 10th, 2005 at 2:50 am
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!. AMAZING!, bye bye adium!
May 10th, 2005 at 4:26 am
Awesome, Thanks heaps for showing this.
Anyone with an isight managed to get videochat working? If so, i’ll be buying one tomorrow!!
May 10th, 2005 at 4:30 am
Will it work with iSight and video chat?
May 10th, 2005 at 5:46 am
This works for me, but If I close Psi, the transport between jabber and MSN drops. You don’t say it anywhere, but do I need to have Psi open for this hack to work? Is there some configuration I can do so I can close Psi and it’ll all still work?
May 10th, 2005 at 6:27 am
I’ve found that if i use the server jabber.freenet.de , i don’t have the problem of having to delete the contacts and adding them again. As soon as i connect to the jabber server, the online contacts will come up without any problems.
May 10th, 2005 at 6:37 am
I am using iChat AV and I can’t setup Jabber account. Any help?
May 10th, 2005 at 6:41 am
Apologize, I am still using Panther. damn…
May 10th, 2005 at 6:56 am
Awesome. How the fu@k did you figure this out? :D
May 10th, 2005 at 7:03 am
Just for all you people wondering if iSight works with iChat over Jabber — the answer is — no. The Jabber protocol (so far) only supports text chatting. So, no profiles, video chat or file transfers are possible over Jabber.
May 10th, 2005 at 7:53 am
Fire.app works fine for me, in fact faster than iChat does :P
Just needed to add this to the discussion here, with Fire.app no jumping through hoops, it supports all of this stuff natively and has already been updated for Tiger, I use it daily.
May 10th, 2005 at 8:25 am
Does this work with Yahoo accounts also?
May 10th, 2005 at 8:26 am
Works perfect, many thanks! No more other programs, just ichat!
May 10th, 2005 at 8:35 am
Indeed, Irqam is right. The jabber.freenet.de server seems to be more reliable. For those of you having troubles, try it.
May 10th, 2005 at 9:14 am
The secret with me for getting rid of the Not Authorized messages was to launch PSI again, and respond therein to the Authorization Requests from Yahoo. Then go back to iChat, and re-lofin.
Finally, right click on each instance of your friends and select “Request Authorization” Two points: All my Yahoo buddies showed up without being in my address book. And their addresses according to “Get Info” (username@yahoo.jabber.server) was different than the address format that this Blog (username%yahoo.com@jabber.server)
May 10th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Mac, that is becuase the yahoo ID is not an email address, if the ID is an email address the % is a replacement variable for the @ in the email address. The scope of the article doesn’t cover for any other IM handle conventions besides MSN. So in the case of your yahoo buddies and even ICQ buddies the format for their IM handle in addressbook would be (user@service.jabberserver.here) still with the IM type of Jabber.
May 10th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
setting up account worked great but when I go to my adressbook there is no “jabber” optin in the list! do I have to install anything else before?
May 10th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
I keep getting everything set up. I can see people online. They can see me. But when I try to chat with them, they read what I am typing but i never get what they type. This is over Yahoo. Any ideas?
May 10th, 2005 at 3:35 pm
I would like to join Jabber
May 10th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
I would like to join Jabber o que mais voce quer ouvir?
May 10th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
Isn’t there a security risk in providing a Jabber gateway your MSN password? I mean, it is OK if that particular MSN account is not your primary Hotmail account. But if it was… you’ve just provided your email address and password to some Jabber server. This also applies to the Yahoo! gateway.
Even if the server is trusted, is there any protection from snoopers? Are the passwords sent as cleartext?
Just wondering.
May 10th, 2005 at 11:22 pm
Wow - Jabber is amazing
I am from New Zealand and everyone here uses MSN - but msn on mac is gay.
I see alot of potential here.
Correct me if i am wrong.
Why doesn’t apple set up Jabber on there own server.
Then why can’t they (with all their smart developers etc) rewrite the jabberness in an improved way which would allow some of the features of msn (especailly on windows msn) to work through into iChat - eg ‘winks’ and ‘handwritten/drawings’ etc.
And as i see it there is also the potential for this to work in a way which would allow audio and video chat via jabber and iChat to msn.
Maybe some other smart enough person can set up their own jabber service to do these things
I might email apple with this as a suggestion (imagine if everyone who reads this makes the same suggestion to apple .. ?? !!!) I like to dream ….
PS - not sure if my gravyatar works
May 11th, 2005 at 1:48 am
How come I haven’t read about firewall restrictions. I can’t get past anything even with proxies enabled. All the info on using proxies in Psi I found on the web is useless up to now…
May 11th, 2005 at 2:19 am
Thanx for this!!!
ICQ works fine, but MSN (as always) creates some problems.
1) I have to use Psi in order to request
2) somehow not all MSN user see me online
Problem (1) is not so bad as I know how to go on but how do I solve (2)
May 11th, 2005 at 4:07 am
I doubt Apple will setup a Jabber network. There is too much up-keep and support implications. Their support number would be bombarded with these kind of calls. Apple can’t afford support on a free product. Very unlikely.
May 11th, 2005 at 4:59 am
MSN seems to be working great in iChat. Thanx again for posting this! :)
Anyone have any advise on Yahoo? I set it up in iChat/PSI. I can send from iChat to Yahoo with no problem, and although I can see my Yahoo friends typing to me, I don’t actually receive it in iChat.
However, if I’m in PSI, then yes, I receive their Yahoo messages.
Anyone have any luck in getting Yahoo to work properly in iChat/Jabber? Thanx!
May 11th, 2005 at 9:03 am
Will this work with OSX 10.3.9?
May 11th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Great work around, thank you!
May 11th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Jabber, MSN and iChat embrace
Being relatively new to Macs, I looked at iChat and though - AIM client… I knew no other mac users who I could talk to, and no people with AIM accounts I _wanted_ to talk to. What I needed was an ICQ and MSN client, which is a shame - because they al…
May 11th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
Got Yahoo! working easily using jabber.org.uk - fantastic.
Follow Melvin’s steps using Yahoo! services intsead (you don’t really need to do the Address Book bit).
May 11th, 2005 at 2:01 pm
Dear Melvin,
You rock. Your site has been keeping my hackabilly tendencies in check, but I just wanted to know if you have considered using the (Read More on …) function of WordPress. While I find your articles truly stimulating, your front page is now several feet long. You probably already know the code, but just in case it can be found in the WordPress Codex. Cheers!
May 11th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
I am virtually willing myself through the directions due to my need to eliminate Adium and stay with iChat.
Alas, I cannot get this to work. Methinks there be a number of missing steps in here.
What if I need a proxy server to get out? Do I put this info into Jabber, iChat, or both?
After I set up Psi, do I need to make my account active by changing my status?
Does Psi need to be running for iChat to work going forward? What’s missing about the steps with Psi? Anything?
Somebody, anybody. I’d do anything not to have Adium shut itself down with Tiger every time I launch it.
May 11th, 2005 at 3:59 pm
looky looky
MSN 5 looks kinda like iChat
http://img139.exs.cx/img139/9981/macmessenger5ni.jpg
I seem to be having problems with iChat not being able to workout who is on and offline. Everyone appears offline. It was working at first but more recently semms to be struggling with that - in msn nessenger 5 people online, in iChat none. - Any ideas?
May 11th, 2005 at 6:16 pm
LOL, indeed, jabber.org.uk works great for Yahoo, but it lacks MSN support. argg. Anyone know of a jabber domain that handles both MSN and Yahoo?
Thanx,
May 11th, 2005 at 6:18 pm
Apple could make a Jabber service part of .Mac I suppose. They already offer AIM through .Mac servers though don’t they? I’d never buy .Mac anyway, so it’s a moot point for me.
I just use Adium. I find iChat to be useless for me, even for ICQ, because my friends ICQ clients (trillian, kopete, etc) don’t parse the HTML so they just get HTML garble, and there is no way to send just plaintext in iChat.
May 11th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
Hi Melvin,
Thanks for writing and sharing this brilliant tutorial!
I am from Taiwan, and I am wondering if it’s possible for me to translate this great tutorial into Chinese. I’ll give the credit to you and post the link to your blog. If you allow me to start translating this article, please let me know. Thanks very much.
May 11th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
Thanks for sharing ^_^
May 11th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
Best if people use a local server instead of all flooding netlab. You’ll get greater responsiveness and reliability that way. See:
http://www.jabber.org/network/
Btw azazel, you could use a jabber icq transport with iChat.
May 11th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
jack. that would be great. go for it.
May 12th, 2005 at 12:41 am
Hi Melvin,
Thanks for your generous sharing. You can find the translation of article in the two places below, and I also mention your name and your blog.
One of the Mac forums in Taiwan:
http://www.oikos.com.tw/v4/viewtopic.php?pid=29833#p29833
My blog:
http://applewoods.blogspot.com/2005/05/ichat-jabber-msn.html
Thanks again!
May 12th, 2005 at 7:41 am
@Tony: You don’t need a Jabber server that has both transports. One of the great things of Jabber is that you can use *different* servers for each transport. You can use for example the MSN transport on server X, and the Yahoo transport on server Y. Instructions to reach this: when doing the Service Discovery in Psi to register on the transport, you can type in the Jabber server address above. Type there the address of the server with the transport and register on that server.
@article: “The only downer is that file transfers are not available through this setup.”–>I heard iChat supports file transfer between Jabber accounts. If that is true, it will be probably possible in the future with the transports. The author of PyMSNt (an MSN transport) has planned support for this (pyAIM-t and pyICQ-t are based on its codebase, and so they also will support it, I guess). The only drawback will be that most public servers will not enable this functionality as it will consume all their bandwith (it will act like a proxy). So you will have to setup the transport on your own private server, *or* you need to ask your provider to set up a Jabber server with this transport. (SAPO, the Portugese provider that hires the pyMSN-t developer, will probably do this.)
about security: It is true that the passwords and account information will be available for the server admins. But the same thing is true for *all* Internet services! Your email provider (Hotmail e.g.) can see your password, emails, addressbook (in case of a webmail provider like Hotmail),…; your MSN account will be visible by the people of MSN (or people that break into their servers),… If you really want to be sure no one can read your business secrets e.g., you need to set up your *own* server with these services (email, Jabber,…) and you need to abandon using proprietary services like MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Gadu-Gadu (also via Jabber). And even then you have the risk that people crack your server…
May 12th, 2005 at 9:40 am
Thanx Sander. iChat only supports one Jabber connection at a time, but I think I know what you’re talking about. However, it seems that the UK server does support MSN on the same gateway, but it was just down last night. Thanx again for your reply :)
May 12th, 2005 at 7:19 pm
is there a way to combine the jabber window with the AIM window?, so i have one iChat window for both MSN and AIM contacts?
May 13th, 2005 at 6:57 am
I have everything up and running but I can’t seem to change my MSN name. Changing it in MS Messenger and then logging in with iChat will result in my name changing back. Who knows the answer?
May 13th, 2005 at 8:15 am
@Tony: “Thanx Sander. iChat only supports one Jabber connection at a time, but I think I know what you’re talking about.”
I am not talking about multiple Jabber accounts support; Jabber is so cool that you can register on transports at another server than your account.
E.g.:
jabber.co.uk–>Yahoo Transport at jabber.co.uk
–>jabber.au–>MSN Transport at jabber.au
Another thing that might be of interest for iChat users:
http://modevia.com/pipermail/py-transports/2005-May/000453.html
May 13th, 2005 at 8:53 am
Trek, I believe you have to change it within Jabber. When you registered your MSN gateway, there was a field for nickname. I think that’s where you have to adjust your MSN name.
May 13th, 2005 at 8:53 am
Thanx Sanders! I’m gonna give that a try.
May 13th, 2005 at 8:52 pm
is there any plugin for the MSN emocicons? I can only see (0) and those things when they send them.
May 14th, 2005 at 3:48 am
James, try this: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/email_chat/moreichatsmileys.html
May 14th, 2005 at 5:32 am
Great tutorial - I could have really used this when I got my copy of Tiger - I ended up searching for a jabber server that lets you configure services online…
Thanks a bunch for a great, helpful howto!
May 14th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
The only problem that I’m having is that MSN on Jabber only shows “Status Changes”. So if anyone was online before I logged on to Jabber, I would see them offline, but if they changed their status to Away for example, I would start seeing them as Away instead of Offline. Any fixes?
May 14th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
I’ve added my ICQ account to my iChat through Jabber, and it works fine. I only had to manually add each of my ICQ buddies in Psi - maybe I could have done this in Address Book, I wasn’t sure.
It behaved weirdly at first in Psi, seeminbgly not connecting to ICQ automatically.
Also, every once in a while my MSN contacts all remain offline in iChat, until one of the contacts actually changes their status, and I guess they broadcast that change to the MSN server. At this time they will actually pop online in my iChat. A few times of rebooting the iChat and booting up Psi fixes that.
Oh and if people are looking for cheap Jabber enabled hosting, I’m with dreamhost.com, and they do Jabber for MSN, ICQ and Yahoo! with all their hosting accounts, for a very very reasonable price. Sorry for the shameless plug there, feel free to edit it out if it’s against policy.
May 15th, 2005 at 4:14 am
Karan,
I had that problem - so annoying.
I just started again from scrath but connected to a different Jabber host and works sweet now.
May 15th, 2005 at 5:18 am
“A few times of rebooting the iChat and booting up Psi fixes that.”
Temporarily, that is. Every few days it will do this.
May 16th, 2005 at 8:23 am
how do i change my msn nickname from within ichat?
if its not posible, can it be done in jabber?
or do i have to swap to msn or amsn when i want to change it?
i can’t find the option. i’ve looked almost everywhere.
please email me.
May 16th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
Hi great directions, however when I go to register the Yahoo Transport via right click, the Register option is greyed out. I have the Psi on line, everything else looks good. Please advise me of what I have overlooked. Thanks!
May 16th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
I’m very grateful. I scanned dozens of feeds on the topic and not one told me step by step. many thanks
May 16th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
daveOTN - make sure u first make your status online, it’s two steps before registering.
May 16th, 2005 at 10:31 pm
Hi MElvin… thanks for responding.. I checked that status by going to the right click on the jabber.freenet.de and made sure I selected on line as well as went to the app menu bar and selected STATUS>Online. should I use another jabber server? Am I being a total goof?
May 16th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Is it possible to have multiple account on the same server…
like 2 msn on the msn transport of njs.netlab.cz???…
thanks for all your help…now only if the budyicons of each users can be update via the servers :D..
thanks
Carlos
May 17th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
you can change your nickname using the arrow menu right under your screen name that by default says Avaliable. If you click on the menu and select “custom…” next to the green circle you can type in a nickname or phrase. This adds it to any nickname you registered with Psi. So if I made my Psi nick name “james” and made my status as “gdhjdgh” is would read on a normal MSN application “james gdhjdgh”
May 20th, 2005 at 11:52 am
Loved the blog about setting up Jabber for iChat. Problem I have is that my status is seemingly always on “available” - and each time I start iChat, it sounds like popcorn with all the messages that “pop”in. Is there some way to align Psi with iChat? Or what should my status be in Psi?
Best,
Christian
May 20th, 2005 at 11:54 am
I whant to unistall Psi from one of my computers, its not configured properly and I am having a lot of trouble, ,it works fine in another machine.
HOW DO I UNISTALL Psi or DISABLE it?
thanks for the attention
May 20th, 2005 at 4:29 pm
Just delete the PSI application and look also for psi preferences in you Library…
May 20th, 2005 at 6:56 pm
Just tried it today (May 20), and it worked flawlessly…
Thanks a million!
May 21st, 2005 at 8:42 am
the only thing that would keep me going to amsn, mercury and adium, will be display pictures from the contacts.
May 21st, 2005 at 10:47 am
Thanks for sharing. I’m about 95% there with Yahoo. I get the buddy list up in iChat, can send messages to buddies and can see when a buddy is typing in the iChat chat window, but I never receive the buddy’s message. I guess this could be firewall/NAT since it’s the same on more than one jabber server. Any suggestions?
May 21st, 2005 at 10:49 am
Will only let me use it when I am logged into PSI which sucks. Also my buddies tell me I am offline whenever I message them which also sucks
May 22nd, 2005 at 12:31 am
I managed to successfully complete the tutorial, this is really phantastic - without it I certainly would not have succeeded to join MSN through iChat!!!
Now I have my MSN buddies sitting in the Jabber window “Waiting for Authorization”. None of the hints presented above have helped. Can someone please share some insight how you have resoved this step?
May 22nd, 2005 at 8:17 pm
A few points with regards to security, since a couple of people are probably wondering…
1. iChat uses SSL by default, so it won’t be sent in the clear from your machine to the Jabber server unless you have SSL explicitly turned off for that Jabber server.
2. The MSN and Yahoo transports, however, store the password in plain text on the Jabber server, so if that machine gets hacked, someone could get your details that way. But on the other hand, that same risk applies to many web sites… forums, blogs, you name it.
3. The password is “probably” sent encrypted from the Jabber server to MSN and Yahoo. I say “probably” because I know for sure that it’s encrypted for MSN, but I’m not sure for Yahoo as I haven’t dug into the code for that transport before.
4. With regards to trusting “potentially unscrupulous” Jabber server admins… as a Jabber server admin myself, I’d like to think that our option is at least as good as trusting a “known unscrupulous”, large corporation known as Microsoft. :-)
May 23rd, 2005 at 9:15 am
MAJOR ISSUE!!!!!!!
I did this hack (via jabber.freenet.de), and in clients examining via MSN messenger, my password appears as the nickname to remote users.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND USING THIS HACK!!!! IF YOU HAVE, CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD!!!!!
-albert
May 23rd, 2005 at 3:27 pm
Ok it is now working with PSI closed, but my contacts are offline, they can message me and I can message them…any advice???
May 23rd, 2005 at 3:46 pm
ok…now i have to delete a contact, then add them again for them to come online..what is the deal with that??do i need to add my contacts in psi also??please help i am almost there!
May 24th, 2005 at 10:27 am
First, To Albert: I ha the same thing happen but it was my fault becuase I am so used to how most programs and web pages work. When you set up your information in PSI it has three fields to fill out, one for username, one for password and one for nickname… By default I Put in username and password and then verified the password in the nickname field… I felt like an idiot when I noticed it. You just have to open your logon information for the MSN client in PSI and change the nickname to nothing or to your nickname rather than your password.
Secondly: I have had a problem where each time I set up an MSN connection through a jabber server it stops working a few days after I set it up. The Jabber server still works but MSN doesn’t. They even stop working in PSI. Just won’t connect or anything. When it is working it works great, but then stops and I have to change jabber servers to find another one that works… at least for a while. Any ideas here on this one?
Dragavan
May 24th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
to all people having trouble
just use adium,
ichat is great, but this is way to complicated and unreliable to set up
adium works great, and easy
i love how ichat looks and i hope they one day implement msn support nativly and i got the jabber/msn thing working the first day i got tiger, but its to dependent on to many things that can (and do) go wrong
May 26th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
Just thought I’d let you know here that I’ve gotten the MSN Transport plugin to work under Mac OS X Server 10.4.1 so you can run the Jabber server with MSN yourself. I’ve put my instructions on Apple’s discussion forum here:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@883.yXhRaq7aYg7.13@.68aeb8d7/2
May 28th, 2005 at 11:56 am
Thanks for the great tutorial! I’ve now consolidated my IM contacts into one app. And consolidation is always great! It’s like putting all of your eggs in one basket, which is a good idea if Apple makes the basket instead of Microsoft. :)
Still, Jabber support in iChat feels a bit rough around the edges, and I’ve already had 2 unexpected quits.
May 29th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
You are a genius! This is great. Thank You for helping me stop using msn! I will never go back
May 29th, 2005 at 6:30 pm
hey all ..
thanks for the great hack!! really wonderful .. but again, i dont think the issue regarding MSN user’s display pictures has been resolved .. is there any way to import my MSN contacts’ display pics?
May 29th, 2005 at 10:40 pm
Anyone know how to change the MSN screename in iChat without having to go through Psi? That’s my last little gripe…I like using creative screenames to pick up hot internet babes…[a la Kip]
May 30th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
”hey all ..
thanks for the great hack!! really wonderful .. but again, i dont think the issue regarding MSN user’s display pictures has been resolved .. is there any way to import my MSN contacts’ display pics?”
Tom..
It is very simple indeed! All I did was go into MSN or Adium and got their display pics by doing some screenshots. I then opened iChat and went to each of my contact list and hit ctrl then clicked on each one, then get info. Then view by address card and simply drag their display pics into it..works GREAT!.
May 30th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
I cannot registered an account with PSI. I am behind a proxy, but have entered the proxy settings. I get an error message saying something like ‘cannot negotiate with proxy’…(can’t quite remember the exact words). Is there any way around this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
May 30th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
For some reason, I am able to log onto the service, but my friends all see me as offline. anyone had that problem?
May 31st, 2005 at 8:19 pm
How do I add Yahoo Messenger friends?
Jun 1st, 2005 at 1:52 am
It worked out realy fine, but… because of something UNKNOWN I need to login via PSI in order to se anyone online in iChat and in order to chat with anyone. Can this be right, du i need both programs running? Or what did I do wrong ?
Please Help
Karsten Molander · Denmark
Jun 5th, 2005 at 11:51 am
I have a problem, i can only c what people send and they dont c my reply from iChat i can talk 2 them through the Psi but cant from iChat i followed the steps many times but i only didnt add them again i used my contact list from the MSN itself could that b my problem
Jun 5th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
Holly smoke batman!! I love Tiger even more now……
thanks for the heads on this one ;-)
Jun 6th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
I just wish ichat had tabbed chats.
Also, anyone up to making a script to add all your msn contacts to the address book with the jabber extension? It would be really