Archive for May 5th, 2008

Pidgin


PidginI was very pleasantly surprised just now to discover that Pidgin is available for the Windows platform.

According to the Pidgin website:

“Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.”

Overtime I’ve somehow managed to accumulate accounts for a variety of instant messaging services, including MSN, Google Talk, AIM, and Yahoo! Messenger.

I spent quite some time trying to use all of them, but eventually came to the conclusion that forcing my machine to load five different messaging programs every time I started up the machine was a complete waste of processing resources. As a result I stopped using most of them. In some cases I managed to convince some of my contacts to switch to a new IM client; but that hasn’t been the case with all of them unfortunately.

Then when I started using Ubuntu I discovered Pidgin, which is installed in the distribution by default. Pidgin enables you to log in to multiple instant messaging networks from a single program. This not only saves you space in your system tray but reduces the overall demands on the system.

According to the website Pidgin works with:

  • AIM
  • Bonjour
  • Gadu-Gadu
  • Google Talk
  • Groupwise
  • ICQ
  • IRC
  • MSN
  • MySpaceIM
  • QQ
  • SILC
  • SIMPLE
  • Sametime
  • XMPP
  • Yahoo!
  • Zephyr

Furthermore, unlike some of the other multi-protocol IM clients I’ve used, Pidgin will even notify you of new email messages sent to the different accounts. For example I am informed of new Gmail messages, given a brief summary of what the message is, who it’s from, and then provided with the option to login to Gmail in my default browser to read the full message.

The one thing I don’t think Pidgin does is facilitate VOIP communication. As a result I now load two IM clients when starting up my machine: Pidgin and Skype. My system tray is blessedly empty and yet I’m able to communicate with more people than I could before. Brilliant.

The installation process is quite straight forward. Just go to http://www.pidgin.im/, download the set-up files for your operating system and then run them locally. You are also given the option to install some additional features - such as a spell checker. Just click through the wizard process and the bulk of the work is done for you.

Once that’s done it’s just a matter of adding an account for each instant messaging service you want to link to. In my case I have three accounts in Pidgin - MSN, Google Talk and AIM. Then when you start up Pidgin, you are logged into each service and all of your contacts are displayed in the single buddylist panel.

Note if you want to take advantage of the email notifications you need to activate this option. This is done in the account settings area (open Accounts, highlight account in the list and click Modify, then in the User Options click “New Mail Notifications”). Notifications then appear at the very top of the chat window.

Like all open source software, Pidgin can be heavily customisable if you know what you’re doing. I’ve only just begun to experiment with the application, but rest assured I will be tinkering to see what else it can do.

For the Mac users, unfortunately Pidgin doesn’t exist for the Mac platform; however Adium is just as good and is very similar in appearance and functionality.  This can be downloaded at http://www.adiumx.com/

References:

Monday, May 5th, 2008

open source, web communication No Comments