Answers to: "Windows Live Messenger Beta"-like software?

Answer by craigevil

craigevil — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:42:38 -0400

amsn - http://www.amsn-project.net/ emesene - http://www.emesene.org/

Either one would be a better choice than the multi-protocol apps if all you want is msn/windows live

Answer by tallship

tallship — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:01:19 -0400

Using one Jabber client to connect to all services

I would stay away from using clients that connect to all of the different services - no, let me qualify that. I would stay away from configuring my clients to connect to all of the various services.

On the windows side, you have apps like trillian, which I've always found to be problematic once you hook it into all of your accounts. IMO, it is preferable to just use a client to connect to a server that supports all of the protocols, and thereby relieve your workstation of all the resource burdens.

A list of really good Jabber Clients to choose from

You can download and install messaging clients like PSI, Pidgin, or Miranda (Another user provided the link to Kopete already, which is also an excellent client) and then use the XMPP server at "POSSR.com", which supports every single service except for Skype and IRC. it even supports Gadu Gadu, and the more corporate Lotus and IBM based messaing services too, as well as MSN, YIM, AIM, Jabber, ICQ, Google Talk, gmail, Google Wave, etc., etc., etc...

Create your initial Jabber account in your client

When you install your jabber client, just create an account at POSSR.com (if you want your id to be joe, then create an account from within your client for joe@POSSR.com, for example), and then just add support for all of your other IM services through your account on that XMPP server.

After you enable all of your various messaging gateways, all of your friends lists, etc., will appear every time you fire up your jabber client and you'll only have to run one client, instead of many, and only have to connect to one server, instead of many.

Enabling the Communications Gateways

To enable this functionality, once you have finished creating your jabber account at POSSR.com via the client of your choice (be it Kopete, Pidgin, PSI, whatever), then you simply enable the following gateway services which you can pick and choose:

qq.POSSR.com
yahoo.POSSR.com
aim.POSSR.com
livejournal.POSSR.com
myspaceim.POSSR.com
msn.POSSR.com
icq.POSSR.com
gadugadu.POSSR.com
sametime.POSSR.com
gtalk.POSSR.com

Again, irc has been disabled as a gateway service on POSSR.com due to much abuse, but all of the other services are available except for Skype itself :)

I hope that helps :)

Kindest regards,

Bradley

. NorthTech.US

Answer by TracerBullet

TracerBullet — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:08:12 -0400

You might find Kopete useful too.

I use Pidgin on my laptop because it's included with Linux mint, it does the job and I have no real complaints. On my desktop I run Arch Linux with KDE and find Kopete is just as good, it is better with e-mail alerts and that kind of thing in my opinion.

You can find it here. Hope it helps.

Answer by Thor

Thor — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:33:41 -0400

Hi,

I have to concur with Jazz - I use Pidgin on a daily basis, the best direct-chatter around, be aware (and not surprized) that if and when coupled with hotmail - as in my case - you will get "freiend requests" - user's discresion to the use of that...

Thor

Answer by Jazz

Jazz — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:31:33 -0400

Although I don't know exactly what the new WLM is capable of, here's what might be interesting for you:

Pidgin handles all kind of IM-protocols. Regarding MSN, you can open your hotmail inbox via Accounts -> MSN -> Open Hotmail Inbox. Pidgin also supports facebook chat and news through a plugin.

Also, there's Gwibbler, which describes itself as microblogging client supporting Twitter, Identi.ca, StatusNet, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, FriendFeed, and Qaiku.