Everyday Nerd » Instant Messaging

Yahoo Finally Releases Messenger for Vista!

Nerd — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:42:00 +0000

It’s been almost an entire year since Yahoo first announced it was developing their Yahoo Messenger program for Windows Vista.

Well . . . the Yahoo Messenger Blog has announced the release of their Windows Vista Yahoo Messenger program.

FEATURES:

Entirely new interface that harnesses the power of WPF, the graphics subsystem in Windows Vista

Organize your conversations into tabs, or drag and drop a tab out to create a new window
Keep up with your favorite contacts by dragging them into the Windows Sidebar gadget
Send enhanced emoticons that have some extra oomph
Change the color of your IM windows with a built-in skin chooser. Go crazy with a different skin for every IM window!
Adjust the display size of your contacts with a handy slider
Arrange your contact list into multiple columns just by resizing your window
Send instant messages to your Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger contacts
Send files to friends as large as 2 GB
Find contacts quickly with the contact search bar. Type in a few letters of the contact’s name or ID and they’ll come up in filtered results.
As-you-type spell checker that’s smart enough to know that “LOL” is not something to correct
A preferences menu you can access by right-clicking anywhere at the top of the main Messenger window

Download Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista

Google Talk Hacks

Nerd — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:02:00 +0000

If you want to have desktop icons for your favorite Google Talk contacts, there’s an easy to do it.

Right-click on your desktop and select New / shortcut. Then type:

gtalk:chat?jid=[Gmail-Username]@gmail.com

and the name of your friend (of course, replace [Gmail-Username] with the actual username). When you click on the shortcut, Google Talk will open a new window where you can chat with your friend. To make a shortcut that automatically calls your friend type this instead:

gtalk:call?jid=[Gmail-Username]@gmail.com

You could right-click on the icon, select properties and choose a new icon. To convert a JPG file into an icon, you need a software like IrfanView: just open the photo, crop the face area and save it as an ICO file.

If Google Talk is not open, clicking on the shortcut will launch it, but won’t open a new chat window for your friend.

Bonus tip: you can easily launch Google Talk by going to Start/Run and typing gtalk: (gtalk followed by a colon).

Mac Software – Adium

Nerd — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:50:00 +0000

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber (Google talk), Yahoo, and more. If you are on a mac, and need to chat, this is the software to do it … Continue reading → Related posts: