Hi all, happy Friday and 5 weeks before the start of the fall semester! Today’s tip is inspired by a question from by one of our colleagues. He was curious about which multi-service instant messaging clients are considered to be the best. It’s very common for people nowadays to have IM accounts with AOL (AIM), Yahoo Messenger, Windows Messenger, Google Talk, etc. and also have friends that only use one service exclusively. This creates the need to have multiple pieces of software open in order to keep up with all of your friends and co-workers. Below are my recommendations to get around this problem and keep up with everyone you IM with in one place. Please note that you’ll have to have pre-existing accounts with each service you want to use before trying the applications below.
Meebo – (all operating systems, all browsers) Many of us in the library use Meebo on a daily basis for our Reference IM service (add BoatwrightInfo to your buddy list). Meebo is “portable” in that it’s a browser-based application. To access your IM accounts, just got to http://meebo.com. From there you can login to one of your existing services, OR if you want to have all of them available to you in one browser window you need to create a Meebo account and add all of your services. Once finished you’ll have access to all of your buddy lists in one place and can talk with your all of friends regardless of the service they’re using. Note that in order to provide free service, Meebo includes minimal advertising in the browser page which can easily be hidden.
Pidgin – Pidgin is an open source Windows application that you can download from http://pidgin.im. While installing, it will prompt you to add your accounts, and once completed you’ll be able to see all of your “buddies” and can simultaneously send messages to multiple services, just like Meebo.
Adium – Adium (http://adiumx.com) is Pidgin’s equivalent for the Macintosh and really quacks. 
Hope this helps to simplify your computing experience a little, have a good weekend!
Today I want to pass along an important upgrade to an oldie but a goodie: Skype. A few years ago Skype was on the cutting edge computer-to-computer voice and video chat. What really set them apart was the ability to purchase credits and use Skype as a voip service allowing you to make calls from your computer to land line telephones, and vice versa. Since then the field has become crowded as both Yahoo Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) now offer the same services. However my personal opinion is that Skype is still best in class when it comes to video and voice quality in a computer-to-computer “call.” We recently used it in a library presentation to video conference with another librarian who lives in Missouri. I simply pre-arranged the chat, initiated the call during the presentation, turned on my laptop’s webcam and voila, free video conferencing!
The reason I’m mentioning Skype this week is that they’re preparing to release version 4 which will offer an updated user interface and other enhanced features. You can download the Windows version here:
http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/beta/
A few possible uses include videoconferencing with remote colleagues or calling in to family and friends while away on business. The main requirement is that each user have a webcam as well as built-in microphone or headset w/microphone. Download it and give it a try! If you’d like to test it out, let me know. My screen name is andy_morton.
Now that May is upon us (and the semester is ending) most of our thoughts are probably turning to summer! That means summer vacations, family gatherings, weekend trips, etc. For many of you an essential item for these events will be your digital camera. When you think about how easy it has become to photograph all of your life events and the random things you come across, you also quickly realize how much you need a way to organize all of your photos! Like all other gadgets, digital cameras have become much smaller over the past few years and therefore easier to take with you everywhere you go. Also virtually all cell phones now come with cameras, so most of you now have a camera with you at all times. Because of this it’s very easy to quickly a mass a collection of thousands of photos. Once that happens it’s critical you find good software to manage your pics! This week I want to recommend a few of the best options to do this.
- Picasa - Picasa is my personal choice for managing my photos. During installation it offers several configuration options. You can let it search your entire computer for all photos, select only specific directories (such as your My Pictures folder on Windows PCs), or only load the photos you choose. Personally I recommend the first option, especially if you have a lot of photos. It could be that you may have forgotten where some of them are stored! Picasa also offers options for editing and touching up your photos. Picasa is free (and wonderful).
- Windows Live Photo Gallery (For Vista and XP computers) - Microsoft has done a good job of improving the photo management abilities they included in XP. Windows Live Photo Gallery does the same thing as Picasa. It searches your hard drive and creates a chronological view of your pictures based on the EXIF timestamp. Windows Live Photo Gallery is also free.
- Adobe Photoshop Elements - Elements will do all of the above functions but also offers a more editing options as well as the ability to create photo scrapbook projects, etc. Elements sells for $99.99 unless you can find it on sale at an office supply store.
Of all these products, I highly recommend Picasa. I think it will meet all of your management needs and also has some very easy ways to share your pictures with family and friends, which is what we’ll review next week. Keep in mind that managing a large collection of photos can quickly get out of hand, just like a large cattle herd (or cats for that matter)!
Enjoy your weekend! -Andy
Good Friday afternoon library staff! Today’s Friday afternoon tech-tip is a service that is near and dear to my heart as I’ve been a long time user. It also came in very handy last night as my parents now have DSL service and I fully expect to be their tech support person. Fortunately, I installed the software I’m telling you about several months ago while they were using a standard dial-up connection.
LogMeIn - http://logmein.com
LogMeIn offers several tiers of service, but I find the free version meets ALL of my needs (look for LogMeIn Free in the “Products” section at the top of the page). LogMeIn allows you to remotely connect to any PC that you own from anywhere you have web access and have full desktop control. To get started, do the following:
Visit http://logmein.com and create an account. You will then need to “Add a Computer.” to your authorized list. Be sure to be using the computer you wish to access in the future, as a small client will be installed. In Windows, you will see it in the task tray. It’s very light weight and won’t bog your system down. You will also have to give the computer a name, so choose something that you will remember in the future (if you’re going to add multiple computers).
In the future, when you need to access the computer, go to the LogMeIn website, login to your account, and you will then see your “stable” of machines. Assuming the computer is on and connected to the internet, you will be able to login and have full remote control access.
I’ve used LogMeIn to email myself a document that I left on my home computer, upload files to Flickr, and yes, provide technical assistance. Let me know if you have questions or would like further details!
Enjoy your weekend!
As an addendum to last week’s tip, don’t use Foldershare to try to synchronize your local files (My Documents and Netfiles for instance). SyncBack SE is the right choice for this and should meet your needs. Foldershare is strictly focused on computer to computer sharing. There’s a fully functional and free version of SyncBack SE available at:
http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware
I’ve used it in the past to automatically sync selected folders with Netfiles. Let me know if this is something you think you could make use of or if you have more questions.
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