My laptop at work stopped working due to the fact I didn’t purchase a Vista license fast enough. The lack of activation is a detriment to my productivity. The license is on order but until it gets here I’m using an alternate PC at work to do my job.
I’m an avid fan of Trillian, so much I even purchased Trillian Pro. I’ve been using IM on the Internet long enough that I have friends on Yahoo, MSN, GTalk, ICQ and AIM and I don’t want to use multiple utilities to communicate. The fact that Trillian supports Secure AIM is definitely a plus in my book.
With the laptop out of commission I didn’t want to try to use my old Trillian buddies.xml file to reinstall the application. I decided to try Meebo out to see how well it worked and if it would “do the job.”
After about eight hours of use I have to admit that Meebo is pretty darn slick. Of course it’s Web 2.0, AJAX-y and full of pretty buttons and an easy to use interface. Honestly, Meebo works almost flawlessly.
It’s free and simple to create a Meebo account. You don’t have to, but if you want to be able to save your IM connection info you will need to register. Registration also gives you access to Meebo chat rooms, which work like IRC or Yahoo Chat style chat rooms.
Once you’ve added your account information to Meebo you are up and chatting. You can easily add or delete more accounts as needed, though for my use I have only added MSN, Yahoo and AIM. The chat is pretty responsive and has the same functionality that almost all of the actual chat clients use. Specific features for Yahoo and MSN Messenger are not integrated, such as themes and sound effects, but I personally find that a blessing.
Once the laptop is up and running I’ll go back to Trillian, but I have to admit that if I ever have to use another system for short periods of time I’ll hop back on Meebo.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I switched from Trillian to Gaim/Pidgin a while back, since it is platform independent (and free!). I haven’t really found anything I can’t do with Pidgin that I could with Trillian (except for SecureIM, but I use Off-the-Record Messaging now and both Pidgin and Trillian have plugins for it). Pidgin is not skinnable, but I really like its simple interface as is.