Shoutbox

I don't know how long it was before February 2003, but I was a regular user of MsgPlus 1.42b. I remember its very simple interface and I liked its quick-texts function best. But after an update to MSN Messenger (or was Windows Messenger the only thing used back then?) things started becoming extremely buggy. I figured out MsgPlus was causing the problem, so I uninstalled it.

February 2003, a friend started messaging me telling me about Messenger Plus! 2.0 which had been released (or it might have been a beta/alpha, can't remember) and he sent me it. I remembered it as being the MsgPlus I had uninstalled the year before. I noticed there were a lot of updates to 2.0, and I started using it regularly.

I asked him where he got it from since I couldn't find its website, and he linked me to a thread on these forums. I looked around a bit, then I wanted to register. My reason for registering was so newby and embarassing I won't mention it here. After I was registered I started helping some people with their MsgPlus problems, posted plenty of suggestions, and got to know a few people.

One of my suggestions was a command which stopped tags being evaluated (I suggested /text, I think he made it /notag or something). Patchou liked it, and included it. He told me if I wanted to have my name placed in the about window that I should PM him with the name I wanted, which I did.

The story of how I became a beta tester is actually quite interesting but I think Patchou might possibly not want me to make a big deal out of it.

So after I became a beta tester I stopped visiting the forums as often, and somehow I found IRC. Originally I used sock's webchat and didn't even want to bother with mIRC (my, what a fool I was) but eventually when the webchat died I had to start using it. IRC was under strict management back then. Management changed a bit, and things became more lenient.

Only in the last 6 months have I become more of a 'regular' on the forums.

EDIT: I've had two 24h bans I think.