You can go here:

Windows Live Signup

And clicking on the link to the right on that page that refers to signing up for a new account. That will help you open a new account with MSN, giving you Msn Messenger [and Windows Live Messenger, since they are basically the same theoretically] account along with Hotmail account and more. Almost all of the free online MSN and Microsoft accounts will be opened for you once you create an account using the above link.

Is that what you were looking for?

If someone writes to your wrong e-mail address, do you sort such e-mails out based on who is sending them to you or based on the topic of the e-mail?

Plus, sometimes people write to me to the “wrong” email. Emails on matters that are related to my blog are sent to my primary account, and vice versa!

Too bad Kopete is not available for Windows [unless I'm missing something]. It has webcam like you said, and it even supports typing and voice chatting with Skype contacts.

Thanks again Jake. I really appreciate the information.

Regarding #1, I see. I have a few contacts who are on several im’s, and they will also start conversations with me the moment I sign on, through the different im’s. Sometimes it can be hard figuring out who the different windows belong to, specially when their different im accounts have different nicknames. Having a single window can be much, much more efficient in many cases.

For #2, I like Gaim, and it is very interesting. I have heard a lot about Miranda but it seems harder to use than Gaim; maybe I am missing something. Gaim doesn’t have webcams or audio chat yet, but it makes many things a lot simpler. I have heard a bit about Meebo, though Kopete looks a bit beautiful, specially with the chat themes you mentioned. I will try Kopete sometime, thanks.

Louiss, thank you for coming and commenting.

I also prefer contacts in a single im account, or at least one program. Gaim, now called Pidgin, allows me to open and manage more than a dozen im accounts through a single program interface, and saves a lot of time too. Do you use any program like Gaim, or do you always open all the separate im clients simultaneously?

1. Not really. I do have one friend who uses Kopete on Linux like I do, but sometimes he will use another computer with XP. When he moves there, he will switch over to AIM. We usually talk on MSN for webcams and the like. Occasionally a few friends will all switch to AIM so we can start a chat there. Otherwise, mostly the same for the entire conversation.

2. Gaim is great featurewise for the most part. It has a variety of plug-ins and well supports the AIM protocol, which is what most of my contacts use. Meebo is nice for general chatting, but it doesn’t support any advanced features. I do like how it works though. Overall I prefer Kopete. It is slightly less featured on the client side, but it has a lot of great plug-ins (though not as many as Gaim, more that are useful to me). It does have a few unique things such as great theming of the chat interface. Though it has but very basic support for AIM, no one I talk to uses these. I do however use some things such as webcams on MSN, which Kopete supports and Gaim doesn’t. They all have pros and cons, but Kopete just works for what I do.

That is interesting, specially about the person who gets on one im program at a time. Portability and im’ing on the move sounds like a good reason to have someone listed on more than one place. Sometimes my conversation with a person will move from one im to another, like from AIM to Yahoo messenger, so that webcam can be started.

Do you have any contact who talks to you on more than one im account at the same time?

I have been using Gaim for a while, and just saw Kopete after you mentioned it; it looks nice. Comparing Meebo, Kopete and Gaim, which one do you prefer?