The idea behind SeaMonkey is to provide users with an all-in-one Internet application for their needs. SeaMonkey is based on the Mozilla platform which is also used by the Firefox web browser. Unlike Firefox it includes additional tools and internet applications like an email client, IRC chat client or news feed client. It shares code with both Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Experienced Firefox users may weight in that they can install add-ons that add the functionality to the browser. While that’s true for some features like the IRC chat, it is not true for others like the email client. When you look closer, you will notice that SeaMonkey has integrated some of those add-ons in the browser.

Users basically get Firefox plus already installed add-ons and additional integrated tools like the email client. That’s handy for Internet users who are not tech savvy enough to install add-ons for instance, or users who want one software for all their Internet needs. SeaMonkey offers to import data from Thunderbird if the email client is discovered during installation which is handy for users who want to make the switch.

The release notes list the new features of SeaMonkey 2.1, among them integration of data synchronization, the Firefox add-on Personas which can be used to modify the browser’s theme more easily, a new data manager for managing permissions, cookies, passwords and form data, and improved plugin handling.

The release benefits from Mozilla core platform changes, resulting in better startup and shutdown performance, better memory management, better HTML5 support and protection from out of date plugins.

Windows 7 users benefit from jump list and download progress support and Linux users from desktop notifications.

Interested users can download SeaMonkey 2.1 from the official project website. The Internet software is available for Windows, Linux and Mac, and is offered as a localized version.

As a note on the side. SeaMonkey 2.1 is still using the old Firefox design, making it an excellent alternative for users who do not want to make the switch to Firefox 4 because of the design.

Empathy is a messenging program built upon the Telepathy protocol which is based on Gossip. With the help of Telepathy, Empathy can easily communicate with other GNOME applications, for a seamless, integrated desktop experience. Empathy supports: Multiple protocols, file transfer via XMPP and local networks, voice and video support, limited IRC support, conversation theming, sharing of location, conversation logging, and much more. In this article I will walk you through the installation and setup of Empathy.

Installation

Empathy is quite easy to install. But before you go on with the attempt at installing, you should first check your Applications > Internet directory for the Empathy entry. If it’s there, you need not bother with the installation. If it is not there, continue on with this section.

To install Empathy follow these steps:

• Fire up your package management system (Synaptic, Ubuntu Software Center, gnome-packagekit, etc).
• Search for “empathy” (No quotes).
• Select the Empathy entry and mark for installation.
• Click Apply to install.

No you will find Empathy in Applications > Internet.

Adding your first account

When Empathy is open click on Edit > Accounts to open up the accounts editor. In this window follow these steps to create a new account:

1. Click the New button.
2. Select the type of account you want to create from the drop down.
3. Click the Create button.
4. Enter the credentials for the account you want to create.
5. Click the Connect button.

Figure 1

Once you click the Connect button you will be immediately taken to the main window (see Figure 1) where your buddies (if you have any) will all show up.

Figure 2

Empathy should behave precisely as you would expect it. After you create your account(s), one of the first things you can do is edit the personal information for each account. You can change your alias as well as your account avatar for each account you have configured. To do this click on Edit > Personal Information which will open up the PI Window (see Figure 2). You can change the information for different accounts by selecting the account to change from the drop down. To change the Avatar, simply click the icon button and locate a small image to use.

Connecting to IRC rooms

You can do away with your IRC client by using Empathy. To connect to an IRC room follow these steps:

1. Click Edit > Accounts
2. Click the Add button.
3. Select IRC from the account type drop down.
4. Click the Create button.
5. Select the server from the network drop down.
6. Enter any credentials you need to enter.
7. Click Connect.
8. Close the account creation window.
9. Click on Room > Join from the main window.
10. Select IRC from the dropdown.
11. Enter the room name you want to join.
12. Click Join.

A new window will open dedicated to your IRC chat room.

Gotcha

One of the issues you might come across with Empathy is that you can only send files to buddies on Jabber, Google Talk, and People Nearby services. All other accounts are out of luck.

Final thoughts

Empathy is an outstanding chat client that can be used for multiple and various services. Give it a try and you’ll find yourself never going back to your old client.

Installation

Take a look in your Applications > Internet menu. Do you see an entry for Xchat? If not fire up the Software installation tool you use (be it Synaptic, gnome-packagekit, or Ubuntu Software Center), run a search for “xchat” (no quotes), select xchat for installation, and click Apply to install.

Once installed you should find the Xchat menu entry in the menu listed above. If, for some reason you do not find it there you can issue the command xchat to start the program.

Connecting to a server

Figure 1

For the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to instruct you how to add the irc.freenode.net server. When you fire up Xchat click on Xchat > Network List. From this new window (see Figure 1) you will need to click on the Add button. When you do this a new listing will appear, under the Networks section, as New Network. Replace that with irc.freenode.net. Once that server is added, select it and click Edit.

Figure 2

In this window (see Figure 2) you might want to add a favorite channel and, if you know you will always connect to this server, select it to Auto connect at startup. You can also add the command for joining your favorite classroom (for example /join #ubuntu-classroom. If you configure Xchat to automatically log into a server and to automatically join your favorite room (in this case #ubuntu-classroom) you can get into that classroom as soon as Xchat starts up.

That is really the only options you need bother with for now. Go ahead and close this window and go back to the main Network List window (Figure 1).

I suggest adding your nick name under the User Information section. Add a couple of choices, but we are going to now register a username on the irc.freenode.net server. By doing this you can ensure that no one on this server will be able to spoof your username.

Registering a username

Figure 3

Go back to the main Xchat window (see Figure 3) and enter the command /server irc.freenode.net. NOTE: What you are seeing in Figure 3 is a live chat. You won’t see this dialog until you are actually logged into a room.

The first thing you need to do now is to choose a nickname (username). Once you have chosen your nickname enter the command /nickname NICKNAME (Where NICKNAME is the actual nickname you want). You have temporarily changed to that nickname. Now you need to send a message to the server to register your nickname. Do this with the command /msg nickserv register PASSWORD EMAIL_ADDRESS (Where PASSWORD is the password you will use for your nickname and EMAIL_ADDRESS is the address the registration instructions will be sent to.

After a moment you should receive an email with a command like:

/msg NickServ VERIFY REGISTER NICKNAME fkibvcovlllo

Where NICKNAME is the nickname you chose and fkibvcovlllo is a random string sent to you as a registration code.

Once you have done this your nickname is registered. Anytime you log onto the server you have registered with, you will want to first send the command:

/msg NickServ identify PASSWORD

Where PASSWORD is your registered nickname. You will issue this command AFTER you have connected to your server.

Final thoughts

If you have never used an IRC chat application you will be surprised how handy they are. If you can find a good “classroom” to join (such as the #ubuntu-classroom) you will discover some outstanding resources for support.

Some services offer free SSH accounts, to edit and access files anywhere, host websites, use them as proxies (or IPv6 gateways) and some even let you run processes like IRC bots and compilers.

Generally, such free Shell accounts impose a monthly bandwidth quota of a few megabytes, so you don’t use too much of their resources. Some providers are more generous than others, though, and some charge for additional space and bandwidth.

Most SSH providers offer Unix-based hosting. Mitja Sladovic offers a very large list of such free providers.

The most popular service is the SDF Public Access UNIX System, established in 1987. Free users are offered email hosting (POP or IMAP), games, access to the text-based ‘Lynx’ web browser, web hosting, various network utilities and 80MB space. For access to gcc, php etc., one must pay a one-off fee of $36. In order to validate your account, and receive access to network utilities, one must send them $1 or €5 (in order to deter spammers).

Blinkenshell is another interesting option. Free accounts get 50MiB of space, access to several compilers, an IPv6 tunnel, hosting, email, IRC access and even the ability to have MySQL databases. One can’t use Blinkenshell for IRC bots, though. A few services do provide access to eggdrop, a popular IRC bot, such as Polarhome and aeshells.

Naturally, novices may struggle with such services as no graphical interface is provided. These services do, however, provide a rapid way to compile applications on different platforms (like Linux and BSD) and allow boring processes, like IRC bots, to run for you.

Update: Freeshell is still the number one destination for free remote SSH accounts.

Given the growing number of social networks, chat addresses and email accounts I had I found it a brilliant solution to keeping it all under check. I also liked the simple but effective design and of course there was that warm early adopter glow of being there to support a growing service from the very beginning.

6 months later and I started to use Pidgin.

This wasn’t a deliberate choice at first, I started dual booting Ubuntu and of course Pidgin is the default chat client. I was immediately impressed by what I saw, it was fast, a lot faster then Digsby and supported a whole lot more chat networks while additionally having some great plugins available.

While Digsby is great in the way it keeps track of social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter the reality is I wasn’t actually using those features very much at all. When I did use them it was through Flock. It did have the very real advantage of Facebook Chat integration which I did use a lot, however I quickly discovered that Pidgin also had a plugin available to achieve this.

Also I found Pidgin had support for IRC Chat which is something I have begun to use a  fair bit lately.

The fact was I was using Digsby, a IM client which was way too resources heavy and susceptible to RAM spikes when Pidgin would do the job better.

I felt a little guilty, but I’m not writing Digsby off at all. I still think it’s great and I really like the direction it’s going in, but I just found a better alternative for my needs at this point in time. Digsby is still a very young client and has a lot of potential. A promised update is coming up to address lots of performance issues and hopefully introduce some new features and I’m looking forward to that.

For now however Pidgin is my stop-gap.

Hydra IRC is another client that I heard about only recently and it works pretty well. It does come with all the features that one would expect from an IRC client like DCC file transfers, multiple server connections, multiple user identities, channel monitoring and a wealth of other features.

Some would say that the initial layout of the IRC client is a bit messy with lots of information panels everywhere. At start you have the following windows: Server List, Channel List, Channel monitoring with three additional tabs, event log with three additional tabs and the main channel window. Another window is added to the mix when the user connects to a server. This one displays the connected users that are currently in the channel.

The good news is that every window can be removed or minimized to display only the needed ones. Beginners will probably be a bit lost at the beginning because of the sheer size of options and servers to chose from.

IRC is still a nice way to find information pretty fast. Almost every network has channels for programming languages or operating systems where users can receive help when they need it. I’m not sure about the file sharing scene on IRC though if it is still that active and I did not have time to check this out.

Hydra IRC is definitely a nice client for IRC, best of all it is completely free.

The benefit of a web client is obviously that all the installation and configuration of the IRC client is not necessary. It should also protect the user from all those worms that are spreading on the various IRC networks. Mibbit offers a search over all networks which no client provided back then when I was using IRC. A list displays all the channels sorted from most populated to least that contain the keywords entered in the search.

A click on the result tries to load the IRC channel in a new tab. Mibbit is offering tabbed channels which means that it is possible to connect to more than one channel at a time which is definitely a must on IRC. The layout looks similar to software clients, the page contains a message pane, a user pane and one pane to write messages.

Interaction with other users is rather limit. It is possible to send them a private message, do a whoise or ignore them. I was not able to find out any details about data transfers and think that those are not supported.

Mibbit is a good alternative to IRC clients if you are on IRC to chat, and only to chat. If you are an admin or voiced user or use IRC for file sharing, trading or other stuff then you are still better of using a software client. This is however a great way to connect to IRC with devices that do not have their own IRC software, thinking about video game systems like the Wii, handhelds and mobile phones.

IRC can be best described as a big chat that supports file downloads as well. Servers like Dalnet, Undernet and Quakenet host thousands of channels of all topics including coding help, game talk, cooking, flirting and downloads. I use it mainly to get an answer to a coding question that I have because you always find some experts that are most of the time happy to help you out.

Talkative IRC is a solid tiny IRC client that is best suited for users who do not want to fiddle around with settings all the time. Connecting to an IRC server is just a click away, it takes some time to find the right server for your needs but once you are in you should begin downloading the groups that are hosted on the server.

Those groups can be filtered afterwards and useful ones can be added to favorites to make it easier to connect to them the next time you are online. Commands are also supported which means that you can for example join a group directly with /join #groupname.

Talkative IRC can be configured to join groups automatically during program start. New networks and servers can be added as well, by default only seven networks are listed.

Chatzilla opens in a new window, you should take a quick glance at the preferences before you connect to a server. If you do not want to exchange files you should disable DCC in the options. Supported Networks are Efnet, Dalnet, Quakenet and Undernet plus some additional ones. Clicking on a link of a network connects to one of its servers. It is now time to join channels, do so by clicking on IRC > Join channel.

The channel search looks similar to the one offered by mirc, type in a word (xbox, games, counterstrike) and the channel list will display every channel with such a name or topic. Double-Clicking a channel in that list joins that channel and you see the list of users on the right side and the main channel window with the public chat in the middle. If you right-click a user you can open a private chat or send that user a file for instance.

I like this add-on. I sometimes search for specialized information and find that only on IRC. For example if you need coding help you might want to join a channel like #html or #php. The people there are skilled and willed to help you if you phrase your requests properly.