What is the deal with iChat

Hi everyone (or at least the few unfortunate to be reading this)

A week ago I got my iPod touch, and not much later I got so obsessed about Apple that I got a 13'' inch MacBook, too.
I am very unfamiliar with the Mac OS system, and despite that fact I am trying to manage myself through this experience as well as I can.
Like so many others on the Dark Side (and basically here in the Netherlands) I've been hooked on MSN Messenger since the first day I heard of it, and I've installed it as an application on my Mac now, too.
However, iChat looks much more appealing.
I must have looked over every single forum thread / tutorial that I found to get my MSN contacts in iChat. Things I never thought about using - Psi, Jabber etc. - are now installed on my brand new baby. Despite my greatest efforts I have still not been able to get the whole thing up and running, so here it is:

Can anyone PLEASE tell me how I can comfortably schlep my MSN friends into iChat and be cool in class because I'm no longer an MSN user?!
I'm not looking for 'OMG I can't believe you don't know how to DO that' replies, just a person who can properly guide me through the process, because this whole thing is driving me insane.

iChat doesn't support the MSN chat protocol, it only supports AIM, .Mac & Jabber/ Google Talk messaging services.

You can use Adium instead of the MSN client if you prefer. It's an open source alternative that is considered by many to be the best multi-protocol chat client on any platform.

Hey there! Thank you, but luckily I was able to set the thing up anyway through

http://ascarter.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/ichat-with-msn/

Takes some attention and effort but works nicely!

zinzygeene said:

Hey there! Thank you, but luckily I was able to set the thing up anyway through

http://ascarter.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/ichat-with-msn/

Takes some attention and effort but works nicely!

Click to expand...

What is your experience with this so far?

it works, but i think i prefer adium.

zinzygeene said:

Hey there! Thank you, but luckily I was able to set the thing up anyway through

http://ascarter.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/ichat-with-msn/

Takes some attention and effort but works nicely!

Click to expand...

Nice find man... Although, I'm not certain I will go to all that effort to add MSN onto iChat. LOL I may though in the future (but I don't have many friends on MSN to begin with).

i just tried it, and it works fine, not awesome just fine,
it disconnectes every now and then, and now psi desabled the transport options, and block me from using msn. also in adium.
so im quite fuc*ed up right now, was able to fix the problem, and when i rebooted the machine the same problem happened, but psi doesnt allow me to enable the transport. now so. back to the crappy messenger. cant use even adium
Rrrr