Slashdot Mirror
Instant Messaging On Linux
IceFox writes: "In this first installment of a four part series, LinuxOrbit takes a look at AOL Instant Messaging clients available for GNU/Linux. Kaim, Gaim, and the official AOL Linux client are reviewed. It's interesting to note that open source projects are way ahead of AOL in developing a full featured AIM client for GNU/Linux."
This is a prime example of the unfortionate backlash of what should be a wonderful thing: open source. The fact that code is freely available should be enough for people, but as typical with the world, give somebody something, and they want more. The fact that somebody can be so lazy as to not want to invest 5% of the time that the original programmer invested into making it do what he (or she) wants it to do is just selfish. This is not commercial software here, it's free. If somebody gave me something for free and it didn't do what I wanted it to do, I'd fix it myself. And if I couldn't, I'd keep my damn mouth shut.
More likely, the patch was horribly written and caused bugs, or had negative effects on maintainability.
I hate getting shitty patches from wannabes who think they know it all. When I reject them, they always spout off on the lists about how I didn't accept the patch because I'm stupid and on a personal vendetta against them.
... or any other IM which does not have the ONE THING that ICQ has over all the others: A fucking systray icon which changes when messages are pending.
I mean how hard is it? I don't want to keep a window open on my screen all the time and I absolutely do not want windows to pop up on their own. Gimme a systray icon/dock/wharf icon which changes and I can either click on or (even better!) have wm-global keybindings stuck to to pull up a message. Jabber, gtkICQ, AIM, GAIM, EveryBuddy, GnomeICU... NONE of these have this feature. LICQ's QT client does and that's about it.
People tell me to get so-and-so IM client. "Does it pop up messages?" is my first question. The second is "Does it have a systray/wharf/dock icon?" is my second. If either of these questions are answered wrong the IM doesn't have a hope in hell of being installed on my machine.
First off, this is not meant as flamebait, but a general warning - call it a review, of jabber clients on Linux.
We were going to use Jabber on a project I'm working on as part of the application. We've now decided against that until the clients become more stable and more usable.
The server I'm sure is fine. I downloaded a binary from jabber.org and ran it after editing the configuration file. I think its still running.
But the clients were a different issue. On Linux you have 4 or 5 choices. My first try was the Perl client. That actually downloaded and worked pretty well after a very lengthy compile phase (it compiles Tk). But the language it uses is confusing - the jabber client developers have obviously used some of the server jargon in the clients. This made it extremely odd to use. Whereas with AIM it was enter user/password and I was off, with Jabber it seemed more confusing. Plus I didn't know anyone who used Jabber, so I had to try the AOL or IRC bindings. Those didn't work well and/or were confusing as hell.
Next I tried the Gnome/GTK+ client. After realising the dependencies were spiralling out of control I gave up. Nobody should have to update their entire (up to date Helix) gnome install just to get a jabber client running. OK, I'm exhagerating a little. But it was enough to put me off, and certainly not something we could force on our customers.
Then I tried the Python client. That proved impossible to download, but the homepage wasn't exactly encouraging about its functionality.
Finally the one glimmer of hope was the Mozilla client. That installed with just a few clicks and a restart. Unfortunately it didn't seem to support the alternative protocol bindings, so I was stuck not knowing any jabber users.
In short, my conclusion for now for our project (based on the knowledge of our user's abilities) is that Jabber just isn't there yet on the client front, on Linux. Maybe it will be in 6 months or more. For now, AIM is a great alternative, despite the worrys of AOL's control over the protocol.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
In particular, I'm bitching about the fact that
Everybuddy and Gaim fail to build on Solaris systems simply because the code is written without regard to other systems.
You can say "Well, it says its for Linux" or "GNU isn't UNIX" or some other cop-out, but in reality with these types of programs it doesn't take a lot of effort at the design phase to make it cross (UNIX) platform and still perform just as well.
The "cop out" is "you've got the source, fix it yourself". Maybe these guys don't have Solaris boxes to try things out on. I'm sure if you give them some diffs, they'll gladly accept your fixes (put them in #IFDEF solaris). Fix it for AIX too while you're at it, since you think it's so easy.
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I've heard of Zephyr, though never used it myself. The multiple-namespaces concept seemed pretty doovy.
An IM system I 'grew up' with (it has been around
since 1992 or so, possibly earlier) is
goofey. UNIX command-line client (I think it was developed on ULTRIX originally), central server, unique user names, stored messages. No peer-to-peer file transfer capabilities, but it does have a large fortune database and a Jargon File lookup utility...
It was mostly used by people at or from Monash University, though there are users across the Net.
Incidentally, did anything ever come of
RFC1312, a distributed instant-messaging standard that used a simple user@host mechanism?
You can say "Well, it says its for Linux" or "GNU isn't UNIX" or some other cop-out, but in reality with these types of programs it doesn't take a lot of effort at the design phase to make it cross (UNIX) platform and still perform just as well.
Before this gets knocked down for being flamebait, I just want to point out that I've identified fixes to 3 open source projects before to make them cross platform and the authors don't respond because "if it isn't linux, they don't care". I can understand if you don't have the hardware to test it on, but at least take a suggestion/patch.
<grumble grumble grumble>
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Is there a Linux IM client that can also handle the voice capabilities of Yahoo! Messenger or one of the other services? Yahoo!'s official client doesn't do voice chat under Linux. Would be nice not to have to touch Ameritech's crappy phone lines at all (I have a cable modem).
Also, anyone know if those Plantronics DSP-series headsets work under Linux? The DSP-500 in particular. They plug in to the USB port. Linux-USB lists Telex's equivalent as working, so I'm hopeful.
.11.0pre's haven't worked on my system at all. They core dump everytime (RPM or ones built by me) I still use the latest stable release and it works extremely well. I prefer it to AOL's client on Windows :)
Keep up the good work!
Is there an open source project that is devoted to create a Standard for Instant Messaging? I thought there was some RFC's in progress for this. If some has a few links they could share on that would be great.
[waiting for your party to respong]
glad to see there's something NEW going on.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Thanks to some happy hackers.. Gabber 0.8.0 (http://gabber.sourceforge.net) now supports message queuing and Gabber has had Status Docklet support for some time now.. so Gabber does exactly what you want. Besides that, it's a darn good looking app.
(goodness i hate my nickname on slashdot)
While I haven't read RFC1312 and can't comment on anything else in it... Jabber uses the user@host format for communicating with users. Microsoft Messenger does as well. I believe I heard that Yahoo! Messenger does internally.
Instant messaging is just another nifty lil' thing that everybody lived without it, but now that it appeared, people gives too much importance
for it.
People lived without computers for thousands of years, and got along just fine. Doesn't mean they haven't become very important.
People lived without shoes for thousands of years, and got along just fine.
People have lived without instant messaging for thousands of years. This does not mean it will not become very important in the near future.
You're monitoring your email every 5 minutes; sounds like you're taking a stab at instant messaging anyway, just with a 5 minute delay instead of a 5 second one. If you really don't want to be interrupted, you should be checking your email a couple of times a day, not all day long.
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Disclaimer: I work on TiK. I'd just like to point out that TiK is still alive and doing _very_ well. Plugins, filters, buddy pouncing, advanced logs and captures, remote administration, weather and stock updates, and graphical smilie support are just some of the features which TiK supports. With options to turn everything off if you want a stream-lined client. (And we had these before a certain other client too...) Not to mention, it's the most cross-platform of the clients I've seen, since it just needs Tcl/Tk to be installed to work. Checkout the TiK homepage at http://tik.sourceforge.net
The reason the author did not mention Jabber was:
"We'll make sure to mention this feature in part 3 of our IM series, when we discuss all-in-one IM clients for GNU/Linux."
http://praya.sourceforge.net
The problem with talk/write is that if you're on a dynamic connection, people can't find you. A lot of people still use modems and dynamic PPP, so there's room for this stuff.
If you have cable or DSL, this IM stuff is redundant. If you don't, then it's moderately useful.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
just an idea.
New things are always on the horizon
Although the article focused on clients for AIM, it would be wise to mention other, and IMHO superior systems such as Jabber and others.
:-)
;/a>
Jabber has several strengths over other Open Source IM projects. I'll name a few:
<ol>
<li> Based on open standards all around, no proprietary secret parts. Jabber is part of the IETF effort to develop open IM protocol standards.
<li> Uses XML for protocol and messages.. This turns out to be a powerful (hm.. I guess some people will disagree with this) application level protocol language.
<li> The scope of this open architecture is much wider than IM between people. Communication with appliances and remote control of everything from dishwashers, ovens, DVD/CD players, RealTime MPEG-2 video-recorders, and so on.
</ol>
Before we know it Jabber, or similar XML-based IM systems, might be the emerging standard of "home network appliance inter-communication". (maybe I should trademark that sentence
If you compare the potential functionality of Jabber with other emerging standards like RTSP (RealTime Streaming Protocol) there is a lot of similarity, and XML-based IM-protocols might well end up being the leading contender for home-network Human<->appliance appliance<->appliance communication.
I'm probably stating the obvious to many slashdot readers, but in my NSHO it's one of the most exciting developments within the OpenSource community at the moment.
Any reader who's interested in learning more about this should check out:
<a href="http://www.jabber.org/">www.jabber.org<
and also skim through <a href="ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2326.txt">T he RFC for RTSP</a> for one of many areas where XML-based IM-systems might turn out to be the best and most flexible technology.
I suppose you mean 'other character sets'?
Huh? I use everybuddy and talk to lots and lots of people who use both AOL's included IM as well as the standalone AIM client.
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo
i use tik, which is a client written in tcl/tk, it works flawlessly. i have used it on freebsd, solaris and linux with no headache. since it is tcl/tk, the source is there with you and you can easily tweak it to fit you.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
I know exactly what you mean by this. I'm working on a port of EveryBuddy for Win32(You can see it on SourceForge), but because of it being made the way it is, I've suggested some fundemental changes to the design of the program.
However, I haven't heard anything from the EveryBuddy team in more than a month! So I guess the OSS movement has a big problem, because noboddy tolerates improvements/fixes to their projects.
So instead, everyone who wants a project done starts his own project, so that he can decide for himself what needs to be done. Then he creates a project on SourceForge, hoping to attract someone who is willing to help him without getting anything, or making to many suggestions to the project.
Now, normally this is not a problem, because the people helping are called employees, and they get paid for their work. However, in the OSS community, your endproduct has got to be free of charge, so you have no way of paying your employees.
Because of that, only people who find it very interesting to work for others without getting payed will apply to your project. Sadly, theese people only does this because they hope to get something out of it, either coding experience, or a nice reference on their CV.
So I think the problems with the movement is the following:
1) Forking(Why do we have x texteditors, x GUI's)
2) No money(You can't attract professionals without paying them, that simply doesn't work)
-H
That depends on what client you use. mfaim, a console-based AIM client that's part of the libfaim project, automatically logs all your conversations. And it really is more convenient to do things in real time sometimes.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
There are two _____.
talk's nice because it's ubiquitous, you can use it through telnet, and you can watch people type (which really does lend a different flavor to the conversation). Better still is ytalk, a talk client that allows more than two people to talk at a time. They're both very handy sometimes... and yes, I also use AIM and such.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
There are two _____.
Any of my fellow X-haters out there (I'm assuming there still are some people on Slashdot that don't like slowing down their systems with things like Gnome) may be interested in knowing that there are a number of console AIM clients out there. The best one I've found is mfaim, which is available on the libicq project page at Sourceforge.
.sig.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
There are two _____.
I really don't agree. I was able to install gabber (the gnome client) by just adding one line to my sources.list and typing apt-get install gabber. I find it works just fine. I've tried to install the Konverse client but haven't yet had success with that. The Java Applet client also works fine on Linux; the pure Java Swagger client works, but isn't (as yet) nearly as polished as gabber or the Windows clients.
But Gabber just works[tm] and is easily up to the standards of the Windows clients. Recommended. The server is also extremely easy to get set up and running. This is often extemely important: if you're setting up a system for communication inside any commercial organisation, you really don't want your messages routed through someone else's server.
Oh, and, re your .sig, if you want to do XML and stylesheets and stuff with Apache or Jigsaw or WebLogic or more or less anything, really, you probably want Jacquard ;-)
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
Heh, Zephyr, the grand daddy of IM. Don't you need Kerberos for zephyr to work? Or has someone updated it?
I have been using GAIM for a while now and I like it a lot more than the official AOL version of AIM or the AOL java version of AIM. It has all of the normal features but it also includes your other IM clients into one package. You can use AIM, Yahoo and MSN Messenger all in one client. It really works well. I would definetly have to say it it WAY ahead of any other AIM client availible.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Anyone know how to get the chat window to remember the size it was? I hate having to resize it every time I open a chat window.
a/s/l ? gotta pic ?
Try Jabber. It is an open-source, XML-based, fully buzzword-compliant IM system. You can run a server on your internal network which people can connect to using one of the many clients available (such as WinJab). Plus, Jabber can communicate with other transport protocols as well, such as AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, or IRC. This can, of course, be modified at the server level to block access to external servers and/or protocols.
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
The client support for Linux systems seems to be great. I'm using GICU and GAIM both of which seem to work well.
The thing I wonder about though has anyone implemented a AIM or ICQ sever? I ask this because there are some setups, like work, where you want the instant messaging functionality without the distraction of the outside world.
It's interesting to note that open source projects are way ahead of AOL in developing a full featured AIM client for GNU/Linux.
There's nothing interesting about it. Obviously, AOL doesn't care about supporting Linux. If they were actually concerned about Linux support, then they would allocate more development resources to the Linux AIM client and make it better.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
This may sound way out there, but with the strong trend towards moving Linux Distribution towards computer-illiterate people, where are the AOL clients?
I mean, duh, if you want all of those people to user your easy, tailored interfaces (eazel, eazel, eazel!), shouldn't you consider incorporating some sort of familiar environment like AOL into Linux??
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
the plugins. You can get a plugin to do just about anything. For instance, many of you have probably heard of AOLiza. Occasionally, I've got a bot running on TheAliceBot. That screen name uses a GAIM plugin to turn it into a bot based on the Alice bot engine (it works GAIM version 9.20, but not the latest version of GAIM; perhaps someone could edit the source and post a link . . . ?). You can't do that with AOL's IM client. Secondly, you can have more than one instance of GAIM running on the same desktop, each logged onto a different screen name. You can't do that either (without a patch) with AOL's client.
"It's interesting to note that open source projects are way ahead of AOL in developing a full featured AIM client for GNU/Linux."
Because AOL realize it's not important to their business.
I use it to stay in constant contact with my team. Rather then run down the hall or pick up the phone I can jot a quick note and get an immediate response.
I use it to keep in touch with friends. It's more real time than email but less than straight chat. Perfect for carrying on a conversation while working on something else.
I use it to notify me when my coworkers in the VA, CA and WA offices get in and are at their desks.
So no, it's not just a toy. No more so than Email is.
I use ICQ so I don't have to check my email every 5 minutes.
That's why you have a script check your mail (playing gotmail.wav if you have any) and put it in a cron job to run every five minutes.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"Full featured" software can still be fast and small if the developers know what they're doing.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why not pick up the phone?
A long-distance call to the other side of the planet still costs about fifty U.S. cents a minute, as opposed to local calls, which cost two cents a minute in some countries or a flat monthly fee in others. I don't know about you, but I'd rather local-call my ISP than long-distance call my friends across the pond.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Do you have any plugins that were compiled using an older version of gaim installed and loaded? Got a GDB backtrace you could e-mail me? Thanks :)
---
Rob Flynn
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Rob Flynn
Pidgin
A lot of the crash problems have been weeded out. If you find anymore please send me some bug reports. 0.11.0pre4 was released while I was on vacation (after I finally got the server to let me upload it :-P).
Enjoy =)
By the way, We've added Jabber and Napster support as well. =).
---
Rob Flynn
---
Rob Flynn
Pidgin
Perhaps it is also interesting to note that this could mean the beginning of the end for monopolies (or semi-monopolies, or whatever the hell Microsoft and AOL are). In a time in which open-source is continually pushed and bettered while huge companies like Microsoft and AOL sit on their ass because the competition just isn't there, it's only a matter of time before that which keeps both of the companies alive is compromised by the free programming movement. All, in favor?!
(On the other hand, watching Microsoft and/or AOL die might not be a good thing. As much as they own, they are somewhat of a backbone for an industry... gradual steps must be taken in any case.)
I used 'talk' since I first used a Unix Computer and I also used 'phone' on an even older VMS computer. So what's so great about this IM that even Nasdaq is affected by it?
It's encouraging to see that CLI apps are still being developed by small groups of rebels. I've always found the command line to be infinitely more efficient; once the learning curve of familiarizing one's self with commands has past, feeding a quick string of keys to an app will always be more efficient then the current mouse-centric gui environments (though I look forward to the days of eye tracking and other, more natural command interfaces)
I used to use TiK (http://tik.sourceforge.net) via HTTP proxy. Worked perfectly.
-Forager
student of animation and the fine arts
Was it a real developmental entity, or just a lot of marketing and political posturing?
It would be wonderful to have a standard transport mechanism across devices and different types of nets. It appears that IETF does not consider IM to be a very high priority.
The link is here.
Everybuddy is an instant messaging client for Linux which can connect to not only AOL's toc.oscar.aol.com server, but to ICQ, Yahoo!, and MSN's chat services all at once. It displays very nice status information, allows multiple accounts to be logged on at once, can use ispell to help correct typos in a non-intrusive way, and will log all conversations by Contact name. This means you can talk to "Natalie" on AOL and later on ICQ, then either use the view log function to read past conversations or grep the log file for a specific term if need be. The latest version has other great features, such as assigning sounds or a command to be performed when a contact name comes or goes offline. It comes with sound support, has a very nice look and feel, and is IMHO the best choice in IM clients for linux at this time.
AOL needs some server stability, however. For a while last week none of her server-located buddies would work. AOL wouldn't even recognize her username/password pair. A few days later it worked fine again (!) How bizarre. Last night chat rooms didn't seem to work. Many members of my family use AIM, and it's easier for all to join a chat room than to juggle many little windows. Rooms could be created, but invitations to join weren't received by anyone. These annoyances seriously detract from AIM's utility and make users wonder if they're doing something wrong.
On a lighter note, I can't tell you my frustration with my family over their inability to understand that I don't use the AOL client. Just last night mom kept pointing me to certian menu items and features that GAIM doesn't have-- "Help" menus, that kind of thing. I just couldn't make her understand that GAIM != AOL AIM.
Happy new year to all!
Total, seamless integration of ICQ, AIM, Yahoo and MSN in one client. You just can't beat it.
:)
;)
You can refer to multiple accounts of people by a name you choose, so no matter whether he's using ICQ or AIM, he'll show up as "Dustin is now online".
http://www.everybuddy.com
Sorry, no Windows port
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
They are located here.
I have an alter-ego at Red Dwarf. Don't remind me that coward.
On other subject, I hope the second part of this series (ICQ) makes it to the front page. I have a thing or two to say about GnomeICU (poor; why did Helix choose that one?) and Licq (kicks ass).
What about jabber, that can interface with AIM, ICQ and most other instant messager systems. Its open source and it's native protocol is also an open standard. There are different frontend availible and it supports most platforms (Linux - various i.e. KDE, Gnome..., Windows, Newton, mozilla, MAC, JAVA, BeOS, CE etc..). Most of these clients are released under the GPL however, some are under closed licenses.
There also working on secure communications by the way of PGP/GPG and a web interface. Some clients already support encrytion though.
There is also a commercial server avilable with more features than the open source version but at least this project has an Open source server that didn't have to be reverse engineered.
Its seriously worth a look if you currently have to run different IM clients to keep in contact with people on the various networks. One place to keep all your contacts and the server make communicating between them transparent.
www.jabber.org is the opensource part and sponsored by www.jabber.com, these guys sell the comercial server.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
KDE 2 contains an instant messaging client called Kit (http://kitclient.sourceforge.net), though I haven't tried it out yet. It seems to be fairly simple... Screenshots can be found here:
http://kitclient.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
Why not stick with Gopher, it does almost the same thing, and all the standards are in place.
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Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
I'll readilly admit that I haven't used it, but can anybody answer me why I would want to?
As far as I can make out IM systems are just like e-mail systems except I can see if the person at the other end is around at the time.
If I want to chat I'll use talk or IRC (depending on their/my location), and e-mail is perfectly fine for messages.
If people are around at the time then they'll normally answer an e-mail in a couple of minutes. It's not as if e-mail is based on dial-up UUCP connections anymore (as a rule).
So what's so great about IM?
Paul
You could put it in a shell script or whatever. In anything else, including Windows, BSD, AIX, and Linux, you can just go to http://www.aol.com/aim/aimexpress.html with a java enabled browser and you are running AIM. It works well enough, doesn't require you to download anything, and you have your buddy list on any computer you go to. I use it instead of the windows client as well since it has all the features I use. I only wish there was something just as easy for ICQ on Solaris now.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
for linux gabber is one of the best clients...
other than that, its a great messanger.
Next I tried the Gnome/GTK+ client. After realising the dependencies were spiralling out of control I gave up. Nobody should have to update their entire (up to date Helix) gnome install just to get a jabber client running. OK, I'm exhagerating a little. But it was enough to put me off, and certainly not something we could force on our customers.
I have also had difficulties with dependencies, as I use Redhat 7.0; since Gabber is written in C++ and depends on libraries written in C++, the move to gcc `2.96' hit it hard. However, you can get a statically linked binary of the latest Gabber (0.8.0), which has no crazy dependencies, from the download page (or the above link).
They should really look over that. GAIM supports file transfers, and shows what services they have. Erm...and does anyone know what happened to direct connection support that was in pre2(I think it was 2)?
Bah
hmmm...
"Applet TIC can't init: NEW"
*walks over to Jabber server*
Bantu provides a complete web-based (Java) IM client, that integrates with Yahoo, MSN, and ICQ. This client works great through firewalls too.
Although, they charge businesses for their software, there are many sites that offer instant messaging using Bantu for free.
With all of the focus on Everybuddy, it seams that Jabber has been left out of the picture!
Here is a messaging system that supports almost anything out there, including TwoWay Pagers, ICQ, IRC, AOL, MSN and Yahoo. Clients also work on a large number of platforms... Macs, Linux, Solaris, Web(PHP, Flash, Perl,Java) and yes, even Windoze.
www.jabber.org
AOL Messaging!!
Masterb8r@aol.com-What are you wearing?
Hakr-A ripped t-shirt with java stains and a pair of khaki shorts I haven't change in eight days.
Masterb8r@aol.com-Sexy. What are you into S&M?
Hakr-I haven't heard of that distro before...
Masterb8r@aol.com-Sexy-Are you D&D?
Hakr-I love D&D!!
Enuf said I hope... Keep your sense of humor :)
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
I hope you realize that AIM accounts are *FREE*. You dont have to get an AOL account for AIM.
Just thought I'd clarify that.
Just my $0.02.
Sig? Hah, I don't need no stinking sig!
I still don't understand how IM is even useful. Why is so much energy, headlines and discussion devoted to IM? It seems that is mostly a toy without any "real world" usefulness.
Why not stick with email, it does almost the same thing and all the standards are in place.
Yep. Works well. It's as simple as can be. Recognizes all of the major IMs but not AOL.
.
I used to use ICQ, but nowadays I just don't use any instant messaging. My company 'forces' the persons to use MS Instant Messaging (cool Windows client) for being ready to discuss with co-workers) and I used everybuddy (that supports ICQ, MS, Yahoo and AOL) on Linux, but now I just don't use. I don't like the idea of people monitoring me, if I am online, if I ain't, etc. If they have to reach me, they try e-mail, that I monitor every 5 minutes. If I want just to chat and waste some time, i use IRC. Instant messaging is just another nifty lil' thing that everybody lived without it, but now that it appeared, people gives too much importance for it.
gcc -o sig sig.c sig.c:4: #error NO SIG FOUND make: *** [sig] error 1
Am I the only one out the still using Zephyr-grams? Ok, I know all of you guys at NC State and MIT are, but what about in the workplace?
The Oscar protocol, supported only (or at least best) by GAIM, supports more "goodies" eg. away-message viewing than TOC does. On top of this, all the 11-pre's support multiple accounts within the same GAIM window, which is great for playing with people's minds :-P