Instant Messaging

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Instant messaging (IM) is a service that allows you to communicate with other people in real time. If two of you are online at the same time, you can communicate by sending messages that immediately pop up on the other person's screen. Both sides of the conversation display in the message window, labeled with the sender's name, so you can see the ongoing dialogue.

There are several IM services. The most popular are:

  • AIM: AOL Instant Messenger (www.aim.com)

  • MSN: MSN Messenger (messenger.msn.com)

  • Yahoo: Yahoo! Messenger (messenger.yahoo.com)

  • ICQ: I Seek You (www.icq.com)

  • Jabber: An open source, XML-based instant messaging service (www.jabber.org)

You can only instant message with someone who is logged in to the same IM service that you are logged in to. However, you can be logged in to more than one service at the same time and chat with people on different services at the same time. This chapter provides instructions for using AIM and MSN, the two most popular services.

Two steps are required for instant messaging:

1.

Sign up with the service you want to use. You do this at the IM service Web site.

2.

Sign on to the service and send/receive messages. This step requires IM client software. Most services provide proprietary software, specific to their service, for Windows. Only Jabber provides Linux software. If you used IM on Windows, you probably used the IM service client software.

On Linux, you can use open source IM client software called Gaim that provides the basic IM services, without the unrelated features and ads that come along with the IM service proprietary software. Gaim can sign you on to any of the IM services listed above, several at once if you want to.

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    Spring Into Linux
    Spring Into Linux
    ISBN: 0131853546
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 362
    Authors: Janet Valade

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