 |  | chat with everyone |  | | By Jack Lyon | | (10/21/02) |
Coke or Pepsi? Mac or Windows? Ford or Chevy? As a consumer society, we're slaves to brand names. That also holds true with instant messaging applications. AOL, ICQ, MSN--they're all essentially the same, but each of your friends will lecture you for hours on why theirs is the best. Until recently, if you wanted to talk to all your online friends, you had to download every IM application--packing your system tray with a blinking Vegas nightmare. Luckily, Trillian has arrived to become the ultimate mediator of the instant messaging wars. The software wraps a single interface around the big four IM networks and IRC, letting you chat it up with all your friends, regardless of what brand they're a slave to.
Get in touch
|
|
|
| More chat utilities |
|
|
|
Easy Message Express |
Chat with all your friends with this all-in-one instant messenger.
|
|
MyJabber Personal Communicator |
Message with your Jabber friends and also ones on AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC.
|
|
Odigo |
This instant messenger lets you chat with your buddies on AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, and Yahoo Messenger.
|
| |
|
|
Upon installation, Trillian takes you step-by-step through each major chat system, including AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, IRC, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger. Simply add your account information for the instant messengers you use, and skip the ones you don't. The software automatically imports your buddy lists for each account you enter. Most of your preferences for each service, such as whether specific buddies can see you when youre logged in, will also be imported and remain editable through Trillian. You can also decide whether you want to immediately log on to each account when you start up Trillian.
Create online cliques
Your all-inclusive buddy list can go for miles in Trillian if you have a lot of online friends on different IM services. But a couple of quick tweaks tame the buddy tangle. In the main Trillian window, right-click and select Contact List Options, and then Hide Offline Contacts. Every offline buddy, regardless of what IM service they come from, will be dumped into the Offline Contacts folder. Contacts that are online are initially grouped by the IM service theyre from. If youd rather rearrange them into groups that make more sense, such as Family and Friends, right-click in the main Trillian window, select Add, and click Create New Group. Give your group a new name, then drag and drop any contact into the list from the main interface.
Watch your windows
If you have several conversations going on at once, your desktop quickly becomes a minefield of popping windows. To cut down on the distractions, several chat session windows can be grouped together through the Attach function. Right-click the title bar of any active chat window, select Attach, and then New Container. Give your container a new name, and a new window appears. You can then attach any open chat window to that container. When a new message from any chat session comes through, its group window simply flashes in the taskbar.
Add your personal touches
Trillian allows control over an overwhelming laundry list of options and preferences. Thankfully, there are really only a few youll likely want to goof with unless you have special technical needs. To see all the tweakable settings, click the graphical globe in the lower left corner of the main interface and choose Preferences. To access the most common preferences, choose Events under the General heading. Here you control whether sounds are played, what happens during idle status, and what away message is displayed when youre taking five. Select Windows from the General heading to tweak all your appearance settings, including colors, fonts, and window behavior. Finally, at the bottom of the Preferences list youll find headings for each IM service. Select them one-by-one to fine-tune the behavior and rules of each specific service.
Jack Lyon, former director of CNET Hardware, splits his time contributing to CNET and building brand-savvy online games as cofounder of AstroManic Studios.
|
|
