Digsby - My New Favorite IM/Social Network Client

Today I logged into my work computer like I normally do. I have my IM client set to automatically sign me in, so i never think about it. This morning that client was Pidgin.

After 30 minutes or so of being at my desk, one of my other colleagues yelled over the cubicles telling me to sign in to IM. I use MSN, and for some reason Pidgin wouldn't let me sign in anymore. Another colleague told me that MSN just made an update to their network and until Pidgin could release an update it wouldn't work.

That is when I decided that maybe it was time to try out some other products. I remembered an article my buddy Karl over at AskTheAdmin wrote about an all-in-one client called Digsby.

Digsby is a little more robust than Pidgin as it not only handles all of the different IM networks out there like AIM, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC etc. It also handles emails, and social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace!

From The Digsby Site:

• Instant Messaging: digsby is a multiprotocol IM client that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber with one simple to manage buddy list.
• Email Notifications: digsby is an email notification tool that alerts you of new email and lets you perform actions such as 'Delete' or 'Report Spam' with just one click.
• Social Networks: digsby is a social networking tool that alerts you of events like new messages and gives you a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to.

You may also notice that I have put up a Digsby widget on the right side of the blog. Now you guys can shoot me an IM directly if you have any questions, or comments right from the page!

Digsby isn't all roses and sunshine though. I have noticed a couple of drawbacks. For one, the installer comes with a bunch of adware. You can cancel through all of that though to keep your system free of junk. The other thing is that it is only available for Windows right now. They do say that they will have a Mac and Linux release eventually, so keep an eye out for it.

So what IM/Social networking clients do you use? I want to know! Post links to them in the comments... Or shoot me an IM via Digsby!

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Don't feed the Pidgin's!

Let's dive right into the fun stuff. That's right, no pre-amble, no mumbo jumbo. Just pure unadulterated fun stuff. I'm talking about things we do on the computer for fun. There are several things right? Games, myspace, email etc. I'm going to talk about instant messaging! We all have our favorites right? My cousin and my brother like Yahoo messenger, while some of my friends prefer ICQ or IRC. Personally, I'm an MSN guy myself. So what are you supposed to do? Install three or four instant messenger clients on you computer? You can, but then they all eat up resources and eventually slow your computer down.

No, the solution is to get a client that will handle multiple Instant messaging services all bundled into one client. There are a few out there, Trillian is one, but to get all of the good fetures you have to pay for it. Let me introduce you to Pidgin. You may have heard of it by it's former name, GAIM. Pidgin services multiple instant messaging services ( AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Group Wise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, QQ, SILC, Simple, Sametime, XMPP, and Yahoo). Of course, like everything else I write about it is 100% free.

The only problem I see with Pidgin is that there is no video conferencing support like with the new MSN Messengers (More accurately Windows Live Messenger), or Yahoo messenger. The old version of the program, Gaim had a version that supported video and voice conferencing. That version is called Gaim-VV and is currently only available for Linux.

So do the math; multiple IM clients equals multiple processes running simultaneously which equals slower computer. Less Clients equals less processing power requirements which equals faster computing. If you are looking to consolidate IM clients, and aren't concerned with video conferencing, then you should probably check out Pidgin.

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