43. Set Up Instant Messaging  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 42 About Instant Messages
 SEE ALSO 44 Manage Your IM Contacts 45 Carry On an IM Conversation
Depending on your wireless service provider, you will likely have instant messaging capabilities already installed on your device by default. These instant messaging capabilities typically target one or more specific instant messaging services, such as AOL Instant Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger. In the United States, T-Mobile ships all its BlackBerry 7100t devices with standard support for AOL, Yahoo!, and ICQ instant message services. If you have an instant messaging account with any of these services, you can carry on instant messaging conversations with your T-Mobile BlackBerry device. 43. Set Up Instant Messaging 
NOTE This task focuses on a T-Mobile 7100t device to demonstrate BlackBerry instant messaging. Your wireless carrier might support different instant messaging services by default, but the idea is still the same. Instant messaging client applications all perform roughly the same function, so it doesn't matter a great deal which service you use as long as you can access it using your device. If your wireless service provider doesn't support the instant messaging service you use, hope is not lost. Check into a third-party unified IM client; see 46 About Instant Messaging Services .
| 1. | Open the Instant Messaging Screen Scroll to the Instant Messaging icon on the Home screen and click the trackwheel. The Instant Messaging screen appears, offering an array of instant messaging services offered by your provider from which to choose. NOTE If your device doesn't include an Instant Messaging icon on the Home screen, refer to the documentation for the device to find out how to access instant messaging services. | | 2. | Select an Instant Messaging Service
To use one of the services shown on the Instant Messaging screen, simply scroll with the trackwheel to select it and then click twice. In the example, I've opted to use Yahoo! Messenger.
| | 3. | Sign In to the Instant Messaging Service Every instant messaging service requires you to sign in before you can carry on IM conversations. To sign in to an IM service, you must have already created an account with the service. If you don't currently have any IM accounts, just visit the website for the desired service and create a new account. After creating an account, you'll have a user ID (or user number) and password you'll use to sign in and use the IM service. WEB RESOURCE http://www.aol.com/ http://messenger.yahoo.com/ http://www.icq.com/ Creating a new account for an IM service requires you to visit the website for the service you want to create. For AOL Instant Messenger, just use your existing AOL account. If you don't already have an AOL account and you'd like to create one, visit the AOL website. Visit the Yahoo! or ICQ websites to create accounts there. Sign in to the IM service by entering your user ID (or user number) and password. Keep in mind that when you enter a password, your device automatically switches into multitap mode so you can more easily enter the exact characters in the password. If you want to save the password so you don't have to reenter it in the future, enable the Save Password option. When you're ready to sign in, click the trackwheel and scroll to select Sign In on the menu that appears. Click once more to sign in. | | 4. | Change Your IM Status
After signing in, you might want to change your IM status from time to time to reflect your current availability. You can always sign out, which obviously makes you unavailable for instant messaging, but you might opt to simply change your status to busy when you don't want anyone contacting you with IM. In Yahoo! Messenger, you can choose from three statuses: Available, Busy , and Invisible. Available is the default state, which means you are available and will appear as such to anyone who has you in her IM contact list. Busy reflects that you are connected but currently unavailable for chatting. And finally, Invisible makes it appear as if you are offline but you can still monitor your own contact list. Other IM clients might have additional statuses, but these three are fairly common across all IM clients. Sometimes the names are slightly different (AOL Instant Messenger uses Away instead of Busy ), but generally the same statuses apply to all IM clients.
To change your status in Yahoo! Messenger, click the trackwheel and select My Status from the menu that appears. Click once more to view the My Status screen, which allows you to choose a status. Scroll to select a status and then click the trackwheel twice to accept it.
| | 5. | Sign Out and Exit the IM Client
When you're finished using an IM service and don't want to remain available, you should sign out . To sign out of Yahoo! Messenger, click the trackwheel and select Sign Out from the menu that appears. Then click again to sign out and make yourself unavailable for chatting. Select Exit from the menu to exit the IM client. If you don't sign out, selecting Exit only minimizes the IM session and you remain available to receive messages.
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