In having frustrations of having to go back and hit the reconnec on Yahoo and MSN Messenger after booting up my Mac at home (iChat works fine) due to the slight delay in logging on to my Airport network, I decided a script was in order. By the time the startup items are complete and you're ready to use it, all of the IM sessions are logged in, instead of having to click on the reconnect buttons. I also added WeatherPop to this so it won't try to run and grab your forecast when the network isn't there yet. This uses an earlier hint that checks for the network.
on idle
try
do shell script "curl www.apple.com"
tell application "MSN Messenger"
activate
close the front window
end tell
tell application "Yahoo! Messenger"
activate
delay 2
close window "Yahoo! Messenger"
end tell
tell application "iChat"
activate
close the front window
end tell
tell application "WeatherPop"
activate
end tell
quit
on error
-- say "Network not available"
end try
return 2
end idle
Use the 'Stay Open' option when saving this AppleScript, and it will check every two seconds for network availability. Then it launchs the IM's and WeatherPop. Modify the script if you're on a proxy.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040810234445365