Ever wonder what would happen if you installed all the from-service instant messenger client you could get your hands on? Nothing good, that’s what. There are three and only three instant messenger clients that are worth using anymore. Pidgin, Adium (which is Pidgin for Mac) and Miranda. None of these store your account credentials in the cloud (everything...

In what is arguably the most nerdy way to send and receive instant messaging through popular networks such AIM, Yahoo and MSN, it is possible to do it all using IRC. While it’s true that instant messaging isn’t used as much as it used to be, IRC shows absolutely no signs of slowing down whatsoever and people do use it regularly – so much that...

When it comes to webmail, be it Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, we don’t ask for much. Truly. All we want is the ability to send an receive messages with minimal fuss. Many don’t even bother using the built-in address book or calendar features because as long as the mail keeps flowing, that’s what matters. Being that mail flow is the most...

For a few years now, the way in which Yahoo! and Windows Live does public profiles is nothing short of ridiculous. There are way too many options, way too many things to turn off, and the real sad part is that most of you who read this didn’t know about all the crapola that comes with a profile from Y! or WLive. This is mainly due to the fact that both...

There are still quite a few diehard Yahoo! users out there, many of which use the Yahoo! Messenger software. In November 2009, Y! Messenger released version 10, boasting a number of improvements and many bugfixes for a more stable product. I can say from personal experience that I became disenchanted with the Y! Messenger ever since version 7. Versions 6 and...

VoIP is Voice over Internet Protocol. It’s a general term used to describe voice communications over a packet-switched network (such as the internet). In this article I’m going to touch on the several different ways you can use PC-to-PC VoIP. Important note: Yes, VoIP obviously includes the ability to communicate via PC-to-phone and vice versa. But...

There have been more than a few that have likened Twitter as to being a "slow instant messenger." Yes, the term is an oxymoron, but it fits in this context. Some liken it as turn based messaging of sorts. See, the deal is that Twitter doesn’t act like IM, nor does it act like email. It’s somewhere in between. The best way to use Twitter as...

Note: This is for Windows 7 users only. In Windows XP and Vista, when you use the Windows Live Mail client, you can right-click the icon at the bottom so that it only appears as such when the app is minimized: When using the Windows Live Messenger, by default it will also have a small icon: However the problem is that these Windows Live applications do not...

Putting instant messaging on your web site has never been easy. The only way people could get any messaging on their web sites was to use IRC. The popular way to do it was to embed a channel such as with PJIRC. And later on there was the ability to create an IRC chat "widget" with Mibbit. Both methods are so-so at best because they rely on IRC servers...

I’m an AIM guy. In fact I use the very-very current AIM 7 Beta 3, which I’ve found works great so far. The service does what I want it to do and it’s a reliable network. But I have read on more than one occasion that Windows Live (formerly MSN) is the most-used IM on the planet – maybe. The Big Question to you, the reader: What IM do you...

There are certain times when you need to access your instant messenger from the web rather than from a client. For example, if you’re at a friend’s house and want to login on his or her PC for a few minutes, it’s the easiest way to get chatting without installing anything. The Big Three are AIM, Yahoo and Windows Live (formerly MSN). AIM The...

Lots of us have more than just one computer in the home. And with instant messenger apps, that unfortunately means only one computer can use a single IM account at a time. For example, if you use Yahoo Messenger and login to one PC in the home, then use the same account to login with on another, it will "kick off" the first one. You can have multiple...

Web-based instant messaging is something some people swear by while others (like me) still prefer the client. Meebo, one of the better multi-service web-based IMs, now has a Windows app called Meebo Notifier that can run the service without having the browser running, sort of. I say "sort of" because while it is a legitimate app that takes care of...

The long (and I mean long) awaited Trillian Astra from Cerulean Studios was made available to those who were willing to sign up for testing purposes. I downloaded it today and installed it. Currently it’s just Windows-only for testing purposes. Trillian was the first multi-protocol instant messenger I ever used years ago when they were at version 0.74,...

More people these days are getting away from instant messenger programs and using the in-browser way, because there really isn’t too much reason to use an IM app these days. Years ago a large chunk of the IM functionality was provided by the application, but that’s not the case anymore. You can do voice, webcam, manage your buddy/contact list and...

Software bloat is unfortunately all too common in many of the apps that we use, with two of the biggest offenders being email clients and instant messaging programs. While it’s true you could use web-enabled versions of these apps, sometimes this is just as bad because it causes the browser (no matter which you use) to use a lot of memory in short...

Just when I thought I knew everything about Live from Microsoft, here comes another: www.WindowsLive.com. Is this the same at www.live.com? NO. It’s different. And I don’t mean different in a better or worse way. Just different. First I’ll say that this is one of the few (if not only) web sites Microsoft has done that’s actually easy to...

aMSN is a free alternative to Windows Live Messenger. The immediate advantage of using aMSN is that it is not as memory-hungry as the client delivered by Microsoft. In addition, as far as an alternative messenger app is concerned, this one more closely resembles traditional-looking clients rather than something totally new that takes you a few days to learn...

Note: This is a seriously techy article – but very useful to those that need this type of information. Question: What is a federated identity? Answer: Wikipedia describes it as “the process of a user’s authentication across multiple IT systems or even organizations.” The layman’s answer: It’s the thing that allows you to use...

I was a hardcore Pidgin user for all my instant messaging stuff but I recently discovered Digsby. I liked it so much that I switched! See video below on why I like it so...