Section 52. Chatting

52. Chatting

Love to chat? Apple's iChat connects you in real-time with up to three other people, and Leopard's new video backdrop feature lets you insert any photo or video as a background. If you've got a case of morning face, you can switch to text-only mode, monitoring multiple sessions in one window and jumping from buddy to buddy by clicking a tab.

Got friends on AOL, MSN, Jabber, IRC, and Yahoo? Check out Adium (adiumx.com; free, donations accepted, shown in Figure 18). The application's cute icon always prompts a grin, and its silly sound effects library makes even dull chats more entertaining. Simple, powerfuland only for the Mac.

Figure 18. Adium connects you with chat buddies on several of the most popular systems, including AOL, MSN, IRC, and Yahoo.