Several places I've worked have, for various reasons, blocked access to Microsoft Messenger and other chat protocols. For various reasons of my own I want to use Messenger and therefore have various methods for accessing the service.
My latest way of doing things is to run a Bitlbee daemon that presents various chat protocols, including Messenger, as irc channels. This means that I can connect using a terminal irc client, accessible via ssh.
Bitlbee has a limitation that it doesn't currently support file transfers for the Messenger protocol (it does support file transfers via DCC for several other protocols) and obviously smileys, winks and nudges don't work.
Overall it means that I can communicate with people and that's the key.
Oh and I nearly forgot - Mark there's an Amiga port so there's another use for that old kit!
