soopageek

I just installed Exodus, and I like it (jabber client). I like I can log in with my gmail or lj SN, but I wish I could combine both lists (I probally can, havent looked into it too closely yet).

The name "Exodus" is GREAT, given the general tone and theme of this entry. I wish there would be an IM Exodus to Jabber. That'd be awesome.

I just installed Thunderbird and so far, I think it'll suit me just fine. Bye, bye Outlook Express!

I still rely on my Yahoo email for too much, slowly moving things over to Gmail (not really in the spirit of avoiding conglomerates, but..) I've never used a POP3 email system..Outlook will never be opened :)

I'm the opposite. I've never liked webmail. I do have a Hotmail account that I had way back before Microsoft bought them that serves as my "public" e-mail address which is one of the reasons I was drawn to Outlook as an e-mail client, after MS bought it they provided support for Hotmail in it. I like having all of my email local rather than residing on some webserver somewhere.

Thunderbird has integration for webmail which is nice. I can check my Hotmail account in tandem with my POPs just like in Outlook.

I'm the same way. I'm so anal about my mail, and I have to have it local and within my sole control. I don't trust webmail, either for privacy or security. So my mail system at home is supremely convoluted and complicated. Even explaining it generally confuses the mess out of people. I have a Linux server running a fetchmail daemon which downloads my mail from half a dozen POP3 services, storing it locally, and serving it up via IMAP to my various computers at home. Kind of the best of both worlds, though at times it's a pain. I can access my mail from any computer in the house (lately with Outlook Express, though I'm considering trying out Outlook); I can switch between any mail client which supports IMAP without having to migrate any data; I can control it exactly the way I want to (including all my anal quirks); the mail is stored in text-based Unix mailboxes, not some proprietary database format like most of the POP3 clients, which means I can easily transfer it from computer to computer, back it up, perform crazy script operations on it like extracting attachments, sorting, and computing statistics; I like it a lot.

I've tried both GAIM and Gizmo and they suck big time. As I type this I'm installing Trillian Pro(I've been using Trillian for years but only thr pay version supports Jabber). I might try out Exodus too, that sounds cool.

Since I have no Gmail (and not intersted in having it) GAIM doesn't really appeal to me. I'm gonna give Gizmo and Trillian both a shot. I didn't realize, however, that Trillian basic didn't support Jabber. I assumed it did and that just the extra cool stuff like VOIP, webcam, etc support was reserved for the Pro version. That sucks.

GAIM actually has nothing to do with Gmail, but yeah, it's the suck, in my opinion. (I think it's called GAIM for the same reason GNU is called GNU? Dunno.) It works just fine, I just think it's really ugly.

I'm using the Pro version of Trillian--I'd used the Basic for years and just recently upgraded for the heck of it. We use it at work because it has a built in IRC client as well. I have 3 AIM screennames, 3 Gmail screennames (I have a work/home/game email address and screenname), MSN, ICQ, and Yahoo on there. Works great!

I agree. Gaim is the only client I use these days. I like it worlds better than Trillian. Yeah, it's not all that pretty, but I could care less about pretty. What I like about it is that it's faster and more lightweight than Trillian (big and heavy and slow, and very bad for my antiquated computers). And it logs in HTML; I'm a whore for chat logging and HTML is important to me because I'm anal about proper formatting. And it's expandable; there are all sorts of useful plugins in such; I could in theory even write my own. And it's open source, which as always rules. My only complaint is that it doesn't seem to be very compatible with my firewall. Trillian usually manages to worm its way through with most protocols, but I had to really tweak some settings on Gaim before it would even connect to Yahoo!, and I still can't get it to connect to Google Talk or other services with a Jabber-based interface. (Gaim does support Jabber if you can get it work.)

I might give GAIM a try since I'm in the mood for client testing, anyway. Right now, Trillian is looking real good though.

I'm not quite as anal as you are about my mail archiving, but I am with you the need to have it local. Partially for security, but also just so I can access it on demand without depending on a website to be available for whatever reason.

I've been fussing with Trillian Basic this afternoon and so far it seems pretty cool. I might not even need Jabber accessibility with it, but being able to access IRC with it might be nice so Pro might be an option if I decided to stick with it. At least Trillian seems to access all the IM networks fairly well. The last time I messed with these all-in-one clients, I never found one I was happy with which is why I ditched it.

I think I'm still gonna give Gizmo/LJ Talk a run anyway just to see what it's like.

Nice coupler. ;)

I have a feeling that whatever I decide it will probably have the capability to still interact wtih the other messenger networks, like Trillian. I've been playing with it this afternoon and... well, I can see you on AIM right now...

..but I can also see my pal Kevin over on Yahoo.

Well, I switched to Firefox a while back, but I had been content with Outlook Express, so Iwasn't really worried about it. It's comforting that in a lot of ways, Thunderbird looks and feels like OE.

The only reason I hang on to my Hotmail account it because it was created for the purpose of being my "permanent & public" email address, regardless of what I did with any other ISP account or, whatever. I use it anytime I do anything of a public nature (sign-up/registration, web-commerce, etc). It's kinda nice because I've had it for almost ten years now and if I ned to do a password look-up on some old account somewhere, it faithfully comes to soopageek@hotmail.com and not whatever email I had at the time. As long as Hotmail exists and is free to use, I'll probably keep it just for that purpose.

I may not be as l33t as you, since my ICQ number wasn't in the first 100,000, but I did have a six digit ICQ number.

I tried integrating everything into an all-in-one client a couple of years ago without much success. Perhaps I just didn't try enough software to find a really good one. I figure it's time for another go of it, but this time I think it's for good. I don't want to go back to having multiple chat clients installed, nor do I want to limit myself to a single chat network. It's just nuts.

Macs are for chicks. ;-)