I hummed for a little while... I then peered at my to-do list... nothing inspired me. Next I swivelled around in my chair until I was more lightheaded than I normally am... but still no inspiration... I inhaled more coffee.. not a nada of inspiration... eventually I decided to poke my nose over Andy's desk to see what he was up to... actually it was more an attempt to be annoying :D anyways, at the time he was head down bum up putting the finishing touches on YIM Skin Maker PLUS++ and there was little I could do to capture his attention.. apart from ask him about his latest project... so ask I did and that's how our new seriers of articles on Yahoo! Messenger Skins got started :)

Over the last few weeks we have been researching and plonking our way through numerous versions of Yahoo! Messenger (v5.6 though to v8.1) and trying loads of different ideas, theories and skins to get a better understanding on how it all comes together and how the skins have evolved over the years. It's been a huge learning curve but a great experience, and today we popped out the other side of the marathon effort and added our newly created skins to our Yahoo! Messenger Skins Download section, and I've just finished putting up articles which cover everything from an introduction to Yahoo! Messenger Skins through to Installing and Skin Making (including a tips & tricks article) and if you have a passion for making backwards compatible skins you may find Yahoo! Messenger Skin Reference Table  and Yahoo! Messenger v8 .xml file helpful :)

For interests sake, we also touched on the Pink Skin that Yahoo! currently has available for download on their Yahoo! Messenger website. This skin isn't currently compatible with Yahoo! Messenger v8.1 nor are the other 3 skins they provide (Celadon, Bronze, Pink, Gray / Orange), the most noticeable omission is the Plugins icon from the toolbar but we've provided some quick fix instructions for this issue, along with some more remedies for other Pink Skin quirks :)

Links:
- Yahoo! Messenger Skins
- Installing Yahoo! Messenger Skins
- Making Yahoo! Messenger Skins
- Skin Making Hints, Tips and Tricks
- Yahoo! Messenger Skin History
- Yahoo! Messenger Skin Reference Table  
- Yahoo! Messenger v8 .xml file
- Yahoo! Messenger Pink .xml file
- Our Yahoo! Messenger Skins (Downloads)

..well actually it's :bz not buzz but it's close enough.. and yes it's officially a new smiley that's (currently) only availabe in the new Yahoo! Messenger for the Web!

How it came about...
Based on some articles we had seen earlier in the day (Yodel "Yahoo! Messenger Hold the Download", Yahoo! Messenger Blog NEW! Yahoo! Messenger for the Web, etc) Andy and I were both aware that Yahoo! had released it's latest offering, Yahoo! Messenger for the Web in beta and while our quick glimpse at it was exciting (and were we hankering to get stuck into it) our day was already heavily committed, Andy was polishing up Skin Maker Plus++ for Yahoo! Messenger and I was neck deep in some Yahoo! Messenger Skin tutorials (yet to be complete... need I say more than "easily distracted" ;) so it wasn't until late that night that we were able to hit the forum to start tidying up our day... and it was then that we came across a post by jeffbonforte informing us about Yahoo's NEW Web Based Messenger now being publically available as a beta version, but the clincher to what kept us up until the wee hours of the morning was what he tacked on the end of his post...

"...Also, I think there is an easter egg emoticon in there for Bee, no? "

...and that's what set into motion our latest marathon effort of reviewing Yahoo! Messenger for the Web and tracking down any new smileys, which as you can see from the smiley posted above, was a successful mission :D As it's nearly 1am and we've been at it since 6am, it's time for us to turn in... I'm completely knackerd.. but still a buzzing (or should that be :bz'in ;) either way it's time for us to shut down for the night (before we fall down ;) but before we go:

If you want an introduction to the list of the features currently available in the Flash version of Yahoo! Messenger for the Web then check out our Yahoo! Web Messenger article, or for a full rundown and some "how to's" check out our Yahoo! Web Messenger Features article but what I consider to be just the bees knees about this version is:
- Tabbed IMing
- the updated smileys which are now Flash images and oh so cool! Because they are Flash based this paves the way for dynamic expanding and resizing as seen in the Yahoo! Messenger for Vista preview
- Super Quick access to Yahoo! Messenger for the Web via http://web.im or you can take the long road and get there with http://webmessenger.yahoo.com
- Online Archives, you can now access all your Web Based conversations at any time, from any location
- Windows Live Messenger user / friend support (although these conversations aren't archived, perhaps in the future they will be...)
- Scrolling text notification of new IM's received in your browser title/s and browser task bar button/s
but there are loads more awesome features in this version don't forget to swing by our Yahoo! Web Messenger Features article

my personal recommendation.. check out it! It's super fast, simply to navigate around, easy to use.. quite simply put, it's fantastic and a huge improvement on the old java based version.

Links:
Review of Yahoo! Messenger for the Web
Review of the New Yahoo! Web Messenger Features
New Yahoo! Messenger Web Smileys

EmotiBlaster was created by (and is © to) Chris Szeto, it was back in 2002 that Chris sent me a copy of it.. and boy was it addictive! We had it featured on WackyB.co.nz but as time moved on and updates came through it slowly fell to the bottom of the server pile.... that is until the other day when I stumbled across it on an old WackyB backup... oh did it bring back memories.. and who can forget that tune ;)

Since that day, Andy has tweaked it to included all of the Yahoo! Messenger smileys up to, and including, v8.1, he's changed the colour scheme (it was blue), added an R.I.P indicator (which shows you the key combination of the last smiley you missed), added a High Score Page and he did other twiddley little things that have short words and long meanings that go right over my head.... anyways.. here it is... the recent version of EmotiBlaster.. thank you Chris for letting us use your game again :)

Go Play EmotiBlaster!

simply because I've recently bumped into quite a few people still running beta releases of Yahoo! Messenger version 8 :)

The last version 8 beta was 8.0.0.508 (released 5 July 06), the first GA out the door on 27 July 06 was 8.0.0.682 and there has been a few versions released since so do give some consideration to upgrading to something a little more stable and if you need a couple of great reasons why you should upgrade sooner rather than later, check out the following...

On 25 October 2006 FrSIRT (French Security Incident Response Team) released a security alert Yahoo! Messenger Conference Invite "room name" Denial of Service Vulnerability (low risk) which is applicable to all versions of Yahoo! Messenger below v8.1.0.195...

"A vulnerability has been identified in Yahoo! Messenger, which could be exploited by remote attackers to cause a denial of service. This flaw is due to a NULL pointer dereference error when processing conference invites containing a specially crafted "room name" parameter, which could be exploited by remote attackers to crash a vulnerable client via a malicious invite request."

solution... upgrade to version 8.1.0.195 (for Windows 98 / 2000 / ME / XP) released 24 October 06
Direct Download Location: http://download.yahoo.com/dl/msgr8/us/ymsgr810_195_us.exe

and for another compelling reason to upgrade (again), on 8 December 2006 Yahoo! released Yahoo! ActiveX Update...