Tag: chat

More internet

Chat/instant messenger

There are many different free chat programs/instant messengers. The ones I use now are Adium (for Mac users) and Skype (available for Mac and PC). If you’re on a PC, I’m told you can use Pidgin. Adium (and Pidgin) are multichat programs, which means you can use them for many different chats – ICQ, AIM (and/or iChat – for Macs), Yahoo etc.

You don’t necessarily have to use a chat program though. There’s a site that lets you chat, using most of the major instant messenger ID:s – Meebo. A note to LiveJournal users – if you don’t know how to use LJ talk and would like to, look no further. You can add it to the chat client of your choice or add it to your Meebo account. Even if you do use a chat program at home, you can access all your IM:s on the Meebo site. Very practical.

RIght now I’m only on LJ (a sort of Jabber chat) and Jabber (again). Skype uses a different software but that too is free to download and the cool thing about that is that you can use it almost as a telephone. In fact, you can buy a ‘real’ phone and use Skype in it. That means you can make phone calls for free (well, in this case they’re called voice chats, but it’s more or less the same). So for Skype you can choose between text chat (ordinary chat), voice chat and video chats. The sound quality is usually very good.

Online fiction archives

If you like to write stories, like me, you might want to upload them to an online archive. For original fiction, I’ve used Fiction.Press. It’s a sort of spinoff from FanFiction.net. It’s easy to use and posting your fics there can get you feedback from your readers. Or you can read other people’s stories and comment on them.

If you write fan fiction, there are several different options. I use

FanFiction.net
FanWorks.org
and
Archive of Our Own.

They all work pretty much the same (FictionPress too). You have to use ratings and warnings. Usually, there are different categories too.

Search engines

Many people agree that Google is the best search engine. For various reasons that I’m not going to go into, I haven’t used Google for years, but it seems I might change my mind about that. In the meantime I’ve found alternatives. Some of them are very nice.

Dogpile
Ask
Zakta
Clusty
Mamma – as everyone knows, mother knows best… 😉
Gigablast
Wikipedia – not really an ordinary search engine, it’s far more than that, but it works fine as one anyway. Available in many different languages.

Skype – a newfound love

I tried it years ago. Being a geek, there are few things online that I haven’t tried, but I didn’t like it. I’m talking about Skype. Skype was a very primitive ugly looking chat program, or so I thought. It also crashed all the time and the voice chat was very bad. My opinions about it might have several reasons. Of course it could be that it was a primitive ugly looking unstable program, but it could also have other reasons. I had a n old computer back then. The mac version might not have been so good back then. And since I didn’t like voice, I might have seen the interface with less than objective eyes.

A couple of weeks ago I thought it was time to give the program another chance. One of my close online friends used Skype only, these days and I wanted to keep in touch. So I downloaded it again. My first impression wasn’t much different from the last time I tried it. The interface still looks very old. I didn’t give up though, so I went on trying all the features and after a few minutes I was hooked. Here’s a few of the things I love about it:

– The sound quality is amazing. It sounds like I’m talking on the phone.

– You can “share” your desktop which means you can show it to those you talk to.

_ It’s really cheap calling to landlines, even in another continent.

– Computer to computer calls are free.

– You can have video chats

– You can keep your anonymity since your “phone number” could be your username.

– If you pay a small sum, you can have a “real” phone number.

– For a set amount of money you can have unlimited calls.

So far I’ve only tried the computer to computer voice chat, but I’m sure it works just as well as a regular phone. When I can afford it, I’ll buy this cool Skype phone too. It’s a phone that handles Skype and can be connected all the time. When I have that, I can replace my IP phone and be able to call very cheap all over the world. It will be great:)