Internet Relay Chat (IRC) clients don't usually get the exposure that some of the other, more well-known chat clients do, but they can be even more useful than their big-name cousins. While most online chat has evolved into a way to communicate exclusively with friends, family, and co-workers, you can still meet new people with common interests if you use the right program.
Join Jason Parker in this First Look video to find out more about mIRC and to see if Internet Relay Chat is your cup of tea. Packed with useful features, it's easy to see how mIRC has remained popular for so many years.
ManyCam is the freeware tool users who need their Webcam for more than one chat program simultaneously. It creates a "virtual" Webcam that replicates your currently installed camera. It then lets multiple applications access the video stream without conflict.
ManyCam is compatible with Yahoo, MSN, CamFrog, PalTalk, ICQ, Skype, YouTube, and more. Once you've installed it, you need to set ManyCam as the primary input for program that you want to use. It'll automatically start when activate your Webcam through that program. The application includes a bunch of gimmicky features that let you change aspects of the background and foreground. You can map a new pair of cartoon eyes over your face, and they track pretty well to your movements, or you can show that your life is hell by replacing the background with flames.
There is an unfortunate toolbar that will install unless you opt out during setup, but other than that, ManyCam is worthy of a Webcam Oscar for cool and useful tech.
Cerulean Studios announced Friday that Trillian is coming to Mac OS X. The company is quick to point out its previous statement from last year, "We will never port Trillian to Mac OS X," remains true--they remade the Trillian UI from the ground up for Mac fans.
The smooth metal GUI looks perfectly at home running on Mac OS X.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Trillian for Mac OS X is still a very early version, so we can't list it on Download.com just yet. This build will only work for those who have set up their Astra account and contacts list through the Windows version. As a first build, they expect Trillian for Mac OS X to have plenty of bugs. Cerulean is hopeful that brave Mac users will sign up for testing and submit their findings through Bugzilla. One thing is certain: If Cerulean Studios can make their multiservice chat client as strong as the Windows version, developers of Mac programs like Adium and Proteus will be watching this development very closely.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Chat clients are great for interoffice communication and sending quick messages to co-workers and friends. The only problem is once you've chosen a particular chat client--usually decided by what your friend uses--you can only communicate from within that particular client's network. In other words, Yahoo chat users can only talk to other Yahoo chat users. If you've spent any time using chat clients, you know that people use several different apps, making it difficult to talk to everyone without downloading each one.
Fortunately, clever software developers came up with chat programs that would play nice with all the major clients, so you only needed one program to talk to everyone. There are a lot of these programs available for download and most are free. But in addition to the ability to chat with people on several networks, these clients also offer features and options that make them great apps in their own right.... Read more
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