A while back (ok, for quite some time), I've been complaining about non-Unicode apps. Today's latest offender was MSN Messenger, Korean version. Apparently there's some extra things from Microsoft for the Korean version that allows you to have avatars, instead of just a picture.

However, I couldn't install it, because it's not Unicode enabled. Here's a pic of it's installer (downloading):


Beautiful, eh? Same goes for IRC. I type in Hangeul (Korean script), and it comes out as ????. Others (using a DBCS, codepage 949) type in, and it comes out as garbage (as in the title of the above window). I was hoping to have an app that would set the locale for a specific app, so I wouldn't need to change my whole session locale *just for one app*.

Well, it turns out that Microsoft has already done this, and it rocks. Presenting: AppLocale! This beauty sets the local for a single app, and well, that's it. So now I can easily use IRC to chat in Korean (well, chat perhaps is an overstatement of my abilities)! Yey! And people wonder why I think Microsoft is so cool...