Instant Messaging (IM)

As the name implies, instant messaging allows for immediate communication between computer users in real time. It is useful for a number of tasks, including:

• Get a quick answer to a short, simple question
• Hold an online conference with several people simultaneously
• Send or receive a message while you are on the phone
• Have a long distance conversation without phone charges

Zephyr, the Unix instant messaging service that was formerly supported by Ihe Office of Information Technology (OIT) at NC State, has been replaced by three others: Trillian (Windows), iChat (Macintosh) and Gaim (Solaris/Linux). All of these are available on Unity lab workstations. Gaim has the advantage of being configurable to work with a number of other instant messaging services simultaneously; e.g., AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!.

You can download Gaim free for your personal computer from http://gaim.sourceforge.net/downloads.php. Versions are available for these operating systems:

• Windows
• Linux (Fedora, Redhat, Mandrake)

For Macintosh OS X, you can download Adium X, an instant messaging program that utilizes the core of Gaim, from http://www.adiumx.com/.

Here are some links to other commonly used instant messaging programs:

• AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
  http://www.aim.com/
• ICQ
  http://web.icq.com/
• Jabber
  http://www.jabber.org/about/overview.shtml
• MSN Messenger
  http://messenger.msn.com/
• Yahoo! Messenger
  http://messenger.yahoo.com/

Last updated on March 5, 2008 by cawalker