****************************************************************** Sys Admin Magazine -- News and Reviews June 2003 ****************************************************************** This month, Marcel reviews a sampling of Instant Messaging clients available for the Linux desktop. ****************************************************************** Sponsored by PureMessage by ActiveState =========================================== Webcast: Enterprise Trends in Email Security and Protection Join ActiveState for a free, webcast featuring Maurene Grey, Research Director, Gartner Research, as she presents the latest spam risks, trends, and filtering requirements for the enterprise environment. Find out more: http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabcVyaaYQ3fa2sokSb/ ****************************************************************** Review: Instant Messaging Clients A Comparative Review by Marcel Gagné There was a time when sys admins and others used a little program called "talk" to send quick messages to one another in real time. It was a means of communication that I will bet is largely unknown to most of the net-connected folk of today. Modern netizens were introduced to electronic communication through a much less interactive form of communication, the email message. These days, a new kind of communication has evolved -- call it mini-email. The one-liner. The short and sweet message. The instant message. The net-connected society has grown to love those quick, always on, means of sending each other information. My own parents (who live in another province) send me daily one-line weather reports via their Linux instant messaging client. But are we just looking at a pleasant time waster? Instant messaging (IM) is no longer strictly the playground of teenagers or friends and family looking to keep in touch across the networked world. It is rapidly becoming a serious tool for business as well. In some environments, IM is being added to the list of business critical applications. Nothing beats being in constant touch with employees and team members, even if those people are scattered in offices around the globe. It's also a perfect means of communication for people on the move. Plug in, get online, and you are immediately available, wherever you are. If your enterprise is ready to wade into the IM waters, you will soon discover that IM is a many-headed beast with protocols galore. There is MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, AIM (now Oscar) and a raft of others. You could run a client of each, but manipulating every package with its various idiosyncrasies may be more than some people are willing to put up with. The real solution is an IM client that supports all those formats so that you can chat with people regardless of which IM provider they have chosen. With this requirement in mind, I'll tell you about some of the multi-protocol IM clients available for the Linux desktop, namely Gaim, EveryBuddy, Ayttm, Eb-Lite, and Kopete. To read the rest of Marcel's review, visit: http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabcVyaaYQ3ga2sokSb/ ****************************************************************** LINUXWORLD CONFERENCE & EXPO - EARLY BIRD SAVINGS! LEARN how companies have achieved higher profits and increased their productivity by utilizing Linux PARTICIPATE in LinuxWorld's world-class education program and benefit from interactive training in the all-new Hands-on Labs! DISCOVER the latest innovations and technologies from the hottest companies around HEAR the latest developments and updates on the state of open source at our analyst roundtable discussion ATTEND exciting keynote addresses from Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, IBM and Oracle Register today! http://click.sysadmin.email-publisher.com/maabcVyaaYQ3ha2sokSb/ When Registering, enter priority code LSUR ******************************************************************