One option is offered by Dexrex, a company that is providing the means to backup these messages and SMS online. Support are a wide variety of clients and networks including Skype, Windows Live, AOL, Yahoo, Jabber, ICQ, Blackberry and Google Talk. It is possible to sign in with the network accounts at the Dexrex website to initiate the backup of the data. Some users might be concerned about security and privacy.

There is obviously always a risk when entering data in third party websites. Dexrex uses the https protocol to transfer data between the client computer and the server. Backups can either be started using the Conversation Importer, a Java program that can import old conversations, or so called Extensions which run in the background and import messages in realtime.

The conversations are available online after transferring them to the server. It is for example possible to search the conversations, use filters to filter by contact or date or to share conversations with trusted users. It is even possible to edit conversations online. SMS archiving is currently only supported for Blackberry cell phones. Users need to download an application to their Blackberry to backup the SMS.

Dexrex provides an easy way of backing up conversations and SMS from Blackberry devices. It can be a a useful services for users who work with multiple computer systems and messengers.

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The client Coccinella takes the second path by adding new features like a whiteboard to the Instant Messenger. It can connect to any Jabber/XMPP messaging server (including MSN, ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and Google Talk). But first the basics. The client has all the usual standard features like client lists, group chat, file transfers, avatars, emoticons and secure connections.

Besides that Coccinella supports Voice over IP connections and the previously mentioned whiteboard. Take a look at the screenshot below to get an understanding of how the chat whiteboard works.

That feature comes in pretty handy if you want to visualize information or just draw a nice heart to your loved one. The chat client comes with installers for Windows (Windows 98 to Windows XP, no Vista support yet), Apple Macintosh and Linux. The source is also available at the download page of the website.

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There was not much choice in those days either with only a few clients to choose from and ICQ was very popular then. I’m not sure how this has changed but I assume that users are preferring those multi network clients instead nowadays.

ICQ 6 is the latest version of ICQ and it displays advertisement and toolbars that can be removed quite easily. The application ICQ 6 Banner Remover can remove the advertisements and the toolbars from ICQ.

The correct build number of ICQ 6 has to be known to be able to apply the patch to the application. Click on Main > Help > About ICQ to display the build number. Now head over to the Murb website and download the ICQ Banner Remover that can be applied to that build number.

Several tweaks are automatically selected in the application. A click on the Start button removes the elements from ICQ. Make sure that ICQ is closed before applying the patch.

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The Pidgin Encryption plugin adds encryption to Pidgin by generating a public and private key during activation. Let me give you a short rundown on that encryption scheme. The public keys are accessible by all of your contacts which can use them to encrypt their messages. The only person who can decrypt those messages is the one with the private key that builds a pair with that public key. It comes down to swapping the public keys so that messages can be encrypted and decrypted on the fly.

Thankfully Pidgin does most of that automatically. There is no need, like in other applications, to transfer the public key on a different way to the other users. The keys are automatically created and the public key is automatically transferred to all contacts. There is however the possibility to exchange the keys using different way to increase the security. Meet your friend at a secret location and hand him the self destructing disk with your public key..

You obviously need Pidgin for that and the Pidgin Encryption Plugin. You can regenerate your key in the preferences and change the default size of 1024 bits to a value between 512 and 4096 bits. Make sure that both “Automatically Encrypt” boxes are checked. A list of the public keys of your buddies is also available in the preferences.

By default the conversations take place unencrypted. A user needs to press the TX button to encrypt the messages. If the user on the other end is not using the plugin he will see a notification that the message is encrypted and that he needs the plugin. If that is the case the TX button will show to be secure while the RX button will be plain. (I guess TX stands for Transmit while RX for Receive)

To always use encryption when chatting with a specific user you need to right-click that user and select Turn Auto-Encrypt On. To avoid man in the middle attacks you need to compare keys with your buddy. This can be done in the Pidgin preferences. I suggest another way of communication to compare the keys. (phone, irc, voip)

A last tip. If you use multiple computers you probably want to make sure that all use the same keys. You can do that by moving the keys from .pidgin directory in *nix or in the application data directory in Windows to the new computer. The keys are stored in the three files:

• id.priv (private keys)
• id (public keys)
• known_keys

Each line of the files represents one key which means that you can also copy only selected keys to the other machine.

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Eight Instant Messaging networks are currently mentioned on the Instantbird homepage, those are: AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, QQ, XMPP and Yahoo!. Several others are however available as well if you want to add a new network. It runs pretty solid for such an early version though and it will be interesting to see how this project evolves in the future.

The roadmap looks promising and is outlined at the developers website of Instandbird. Localization, smiley and sound themes are for instance scheduled for version 0.2 of the client. It will take some time but if the developers manage to put the same effort and dedication into this project than the other teams are putting into developing Firefox, Thunderbird and Songbird they will surely create a remarkable software.

Instantbird is Open Source and available for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Macintosh.

Read More:

Instantbird Homepage
via Download Squad

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Popular web services like Meebo get blocked from school, university and work networks quite frequently and it is always nice to have an ace – Koolim – in your sleeve. Koolim should work even if the computer you are working with is protected by a firewall.

Koolim supports the major Instant Messenger networks: AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk and ICQ plus several lesser known networks such as Jabber, X-Fire and Gadu-Gadu.

Every user has the option to either log into any of the IM networks by entering his username and password or by signing up to Koolim and handling matters from the inside.

Read More:

Koolim Homepage
via: Genbeta

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