Windows XP Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 79 Universal Messaging: Trillian Unites AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, and ICQ

It's the Esperanto of the
Instant Messaging world; Trillian lets you communicate with all the
major messaging programs.

I live, therefore I message.
That's the credo of not just teenagers everywhere,
but also for people like me. I use instant messaging to keep in touch
with editors, friends, and other authors, as well as readers of my
books. And I frequently use it along with conference calls; while the
larger group is speaking over the phone, I instant-message others in
the phone conference to get background information and make
occasionally less-than-flattering remarks about speakers who revel in
the sounds of their own voices.

But as all instant message users know,
there's a big drawback to instant messaging: the
major instant messenger programs, including Windows Messenger,
can't communicate with one another.
That's a bit like being able to make phone calls
only to people who use the same brand of telephone as yours, but
given the economics and ego that drives the instant messaging
industry, that shows no sign of changing any time soon.

However, there's a great workaround, and
it's free. The universal instant messaging program
Trillian will let you communicate with users of with ICQ, Windows
Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and AOL Instant Messenger as well as the
old Internet chat standby IRC. You don't need to
install any of those programs; just run Trillian (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com), shown in
Figure 8-21.

Figure 8-21. Universal instant messaging with Trillian

After you install Trillian, enter your usernames and passwords from
your other instant messengers. When you do that, Trillian
automatically uses those contact lists, so you don't
need to reenter them. To enter a new contact from inside Trillian,
choose the Add Contact button, tell Trillian which program your
contact uses, and then fill in the contact information. Because
instant messaging programs store your contacts on their servers,
rather than locally on your PC, when you add contacts like this,
these new contacts will not only be available in Trillian, but also
when you use your instant messaging program.

If you have accounts on more than one instant messaging program,
Trillian signs you into all of them when you log in, so you get a
single sign-in and are then available everywhere.

Trillian lets you use some, but not all of the features of each
individual instant messenger program. For example,
you'll be able to send files as you can with instant
messengers. But you can't, for example, use the
Windows Messenger whiteboard or application sharing.

One problem with instant messaging with any program is the way that
it leaves you open to the world: anyone who wants to contact you can,
including increasingly aggressive messaging spammers. Each individual
program gives you controls over who can contact you and how you want
to be contacted, and Trillian also lets you customize your privacy
for each of the programs. Right-click on the big Trillian icon near
the bottom of the Trillian screen and choose Preferences. Then,
scroll to the bottom of the list to where it says Chatting Services.
You'll find ways to customize your privacy, which
differ according to the service's capabilities, as
shown in Figure 8-22.

Figure 8-22. Customizing privacy options in Trillian

Trillian is skinnable, so you can
easily change its appearance. To choose a new skin, select Skins in
the Preferences screen shown in Figure 8-22, and
choose either Launch Skin Chooser to choose from any skins already on
your system, or Get More Skins to choose from skins online.

Trillian is one of
the few programs that takes advantage of XP's
transparency capabilities [Hack #18].
To make Trillian transparent, right-click anywhere in the program and
choose Advanced Options Transparency. You can then choose
a transparency of anywhere from 10% to 90%, where 10% is the least
transparent, and 90% is the most transparent. I'd
suggest using 10%; any more than that and it becomes very difficult
to see the program or chat with it.

There
are two versions, one of which is free, and the other, called
Trillian Pro, costs $25. The Pro version includes a plug-in system
that allows third-party developers to create plug-ins that you can
download for free. For example, there are plug-ins for delivering the
weather and news, checking your POP3 email accounts, integrating with
WinAmp MP3 software, and more. The Pro version has other features as
well, such as the ability to videoconference using the Yahoo! portion
of Trillian.

8.8.1 See Also

Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net) is another
universal instant messenger. Earlier versions tended to crash
unexpectedly on XP, but more recent versions are more stable.
It's not as handsome-looking as Trillian, and it
doesn't take advantage of as many of the built-in
features as each of the instant messengers in the same way that
Trillian does. But it's open source and runs on many
other platforms, not just Windows.