Archive for the ‘Applications’ Category

Review: Empathy Instant Messenger v 2.24.1 on Fedora 10 Preview

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

I’ve mentioned that Pidgin is replaced by Empathy Instant Messenger, which is embedded in to Gnome 2.24 (and in the future versions too).

Empathy Instant Messenger as being defined from Gnome.org is a set of reusable instant messaging widgets and it uses Telepathy Mission Control. Telepathy is a project that is building a unified framework for many different kinds of real-time communications. And Mission Control is just a component of Telepathy.

Enough with introductions.

If you used Pidgin, you wouldn’t find it difficult to use Empathy. For initial setup, it will ask for accounts. It supports Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk, AIM, MSN, Jabber, Salut, Gadu Gadu, GroupWise, ICQ and QQ.

For some strange reason, I can’t resolve any server for Chat Rooms; there’s no option for Conference, Voice Chat and Webcam, as opposed to its features defined on Gnome.org.

Impression it gave me was it seemed okay. I didn’t have trouble with connecting online, it handled well both my GTalk and Yahoo Messenger accounts. But what bothers me is, there’s not much to configure in Preferences. A new chat message received is not set to pop up window therefore you wouldn’t notice it. Unless you look at your contact list one by one and see an IM icon or Empathy’s icon on the taskbar if blinking.

I can’t say all of these are caused by me, using Fedora 10 Preview. It’s been ages since I last used Linux GUI and Instant Messenger used be Gaim then Pidgin. And besides, Fedora 10′s Gnome is already a stable release. But I’ll get back on this for sure. I’m just pretty excited to explore.

reviews: ym messenger & IE7

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

ym messenger, to be or not to be real time

been noticing it for months, yeah, months of using ym messenger, may it be any version. i’ve read on the internet that ym is real time messaging tool that can be used anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

for all we know, it’s true. BUT actually, it’s not. it has time delay of about 5 to 10 seconds for text, 3 to 5 seconds for voice. how i found out? a couple of tests on my own with my colleagues without them knowing that i’m observing ym’s behavior.

nothing, just want to uncover the truth behind instant messaging. chances are that msn, googletalk and skype does the same. another is that i want to share simple facts.. hehe

before i forget, real time conversation is too essential when talking to a client.

IE 7

i don’t recommend using internet explorer. how awful am i, am i not? hehe. but seriously, internet explorer sucks. and to tell you the truth, ie7 sucks even more than its previous versions.

i’m a fan of opera and firefox. tried using ie7 since it’s the latest release by microsoft and i hoped and prayed that it won’t cause me any trouble. *toink!!* i was wrong. it always hangs up though i’m opening only two tabs. while in opera and firefox, they run with as many as i want tabs… hassle free.

there’s really something wrong with microsoft. even simple java script doesn’t work. i think they are blocking it. or did not include it. but still, it makes a code degrading. based on experience huh.. sort of. but let’s not talk about it.

ah yes! you can’t personalize ie’s environment unlike firefox (one thing i really love). that’s why mine is sooo gooood to look at. i also have cute menus and other add-ons that makes my life better than it could have been with ie.