Collection Spotlight

Adium: One Instant Messenger to Rule Them All

- 2007.08.22 - Tip Jar

del.icio.us Bookmark in del.icio.us

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Memory To Go Special: New 2008 iMac 2GB $42 / iMac Intel Core2 DUO & MacBook Pro 2GB $36 - 1GB $20. MacPro 8 Core Memory 8GB kit $286 / 4GB kit $143 / 2GB kit $93 -- Free shipping available. LIfetime warranty.

Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com

LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, iMac's, Apple Batteries and Apple A/C Adapters. Also Great prices on Used Apple Computers. Call 1-800-941-7654 Click Here.

OWC: OWC Mercury On-The-Go FW400/800/USB2/eSATA Portables High Performance A/V Rated, **Bus Powered** **Up to 500GB in the Palm of your Hand** Macworld Editor's Choice, CNET 'Very Good' - from $75.99!

Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you.

Author's note: This is the first in a new mini-series I am doing which I am calling "Spotlight on Software". I will still continue to look at old Macs in my collection, but I'm mixing it up.

Adium duckThis week, I want to talk about one of my favorite Mac OS X apps, Adium. For those who aren't familiar with it, Adium is an instant messenger program. But it's not just any old instant messenger, for it combines most other instant messengers in one handy app. This includes, but is not limited to, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Instant Messenger, Microsoft Messenger/Windows Live, and Google Talk.

It combines instant messengers - so what?

I would like to run as few programs as possible and to have less clutter in the Dock and less open windows - and I know there are others out there who feel the same way. That is a major plus to anyone who keeps a half dozen windows open at once, as do I.

This, however, is not this pony's (or should I say, ducks) one trick. It has several more up it's sleeve (or feathers), all of which, make this the best IM app out there, even beating Gaim.

Free and Open Source

First off, it is free open source software (FOSS).

What does that mean? Let's say you write a simple Web browser and decide to make it FOSS. You include the source code with the application, and then another person comes along and decides to add tabs to your browser. They can take the source code and modify it any way they want, but when they upload the program, they must also upload the source, so the next person who wants to modify the code doesn't have to decompile the program first.

Almost all programs come with a software license, and FOSS is no different. It may be under the GNU GPL (General Public License), which is the most popular, but others exist. This way others can easily make changes to the software without getting in trouble with copyright.

Lots of Options

Adium's purple icon in the DockSecond, Adium is highly customizable out of the box. It comes with a number of themes and windowing options, including making it transparent and have it stay in front of other programs. You can even change the Dock icon's color.

Adium can handle an unlimited number of IM accounts, which is great for a lot of people.

Adium's buddy listThe greatest feature of all, however, is that it's officially extendable through the use of plugins. This makes it easy to add other IM protocols, themes, sound sets, or whatever. Most of these plugins are FOSS as well. This feature is highly supported by the development team, and they even have tutorials to help you with plugins, if you are so brave. The developers of these plugins are also quite helpful. I recently had an issue with one and got a prompt and helpful response.

My verdict on Adium is I love it.

The only major downfall I can see is there is no Classic Mac OS version, which I think many people would benefit from. If they could make it work back to System 7, that would be great. The official MSN client only works on Mac OS 9.2.2, and another one, Mac Messenger, only works on as far back as Mac OS 8.6.

You can run a version of Adium with an version of OS X. If you want to run the latest (version 1.1), you must be running Mac OS X 10.4.0 or later. You can run version 1.0.6 on an Mac running OS X 10.3.9, and version 0.89.1 will run on older versions of OS X. All of these versions are universal binaries.

If you're running Mac OS X 10.2.8, you can run of Adium 0.89.1, but it's somewhate outdated as most plugins only work on version 1.0 or higher. But you can still have the "One Instant Messenger to Rule Them All" experience. LEM

Link: Adium

If you find Leo's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Collection Spotlight Columns

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2008 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.


Have a question?
Ask an expert!

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Best Used Macs
Video Cards
Email Lists
InfoMac's Low
End Mac Forum

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
MacMall
TechRestore
MacResQ
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.