Many internet chat fanatics are probably already aware of Trillian, the program by Cerulean Studios which allows you to connect simultaneously to AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN and IRC. For the rest of you, I am bring it to your attention. I use an older version of it, but 3.x looks to be quite an improvement. But, no longer do you need to use a separate chat client for each network. You can just use one single application to get it all done, and its a pretty robust application at that. It supports video and audio chat, message logging, identity management, etc. It has plug-ins available and is even skinnable.

I sometimes have to chat with developers or clients via internet chat, and its a chore to have to use ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, or Windows Messenger separately. And I love the message logging feature, which gives me a total running record of the topics we discussed.

The basic version of Trillian is free, and the Pro version is only $25. Head on over to Download.com to download it, or to Cerulean Studios for more info.