Most of my friends use MSN messenger, so that is what I had been using too up until about 6 months ago, when one of my clients said it would be nice to be able to contact me on iChat. I must admit I had never really used iChat as no-one I knew used it. I didn’t really want to have two messenger programs open so had a look for a program that would allow me to view users on different messenger programs at the same time. I found a program called Fire which allowed me to see my client on iChat and my friends on MSN. I thought Fire might be of interest to other bloggers and designers so I went and had a quick look at their web page to see if their were any updates only to find Fire is no longer being updated. There was however a link to a program called Adium which I have downloaded and seems to have similar functionality. You can see people from AOL, ICQ, IChat (Bonjour), MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Gadu-Gadu, Live Journal, Novell Groupwise, QQ and Lotus Sametime. The only thing missing is Skype, which I guess will just have to be open as well when needed. Adium automatically recognised I had been using Fire and imported my contacts which was nice and easy. So far so good I will keep you updated if I run into any problems.
Twitter
RSS
Facebook
5 Comments
For the PC people, there’s Trillian. It integrates AIM, ICQ, IRC, Yahoo! and MSN messengers. Not quite as many as Adium. It’s a very light program (I got so sick of dealing with the barrage of ads from AIM and all the stuff the AIM installer would put on my computer).
I use Adium and Trillian both. I do have trouble with transfer rate for files more often than I like, but over all they are good messenger programs.
Hi Justin
I avoid transferring files by messenger, I never find it works very well for me on a mac unless the files are really small, but it is a great way of keeping in touch.
I find ichat really useful for video confrenceing, its the best there is.
I use trillian at work because many of my clients and or reps use so many different chat clients. Trillian was a blessing