E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

Meebo – Taking Instant Messaging with You wherever You May Go

Although some time ago I mentioned how I was finding out how more and more I was starting to give up on Instant Messaging and begun to move towards other more powerful real-time collaboration tools that would include both Instant Messaging and VoIP capabilities, amongst other features, there are times where I would still need to make use of IM vs. VoIP related tools like Skype, specially when I am in a hurry. Instances like while on the road travelling or while working in a different workplace than my usual workplace are clear examples why I would still need to have access to my online contacts and eventually I may still need to get in touch with my colleagues and friends through some more traditional methods, like good old Instant Messaging.

That is why web offerings like Meebo come to my rescue and help me save a couple of headaches here and there. Although it hasn’t even reached the Beta status, it seems to be a very stable service that would allow you to connect via the Web to four of the most popular Instant Messaging clients available out there: AIM or ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, Jabber or GTalk and MSN. Yes, indeed, all of the most popular IM protocols are out there with Meebo.

The great thing about this new web offering is that I no longer need to have any of those IM clients installed in my machine or while on the road to still be in touch, real-time, with those who would need to reach me for whatever the reason. This is just a terrific idea as it will help people consolidate their efforts and clients into a single approach, that is, a single web site where you can connect to any of them and no further hassle. Pretty amazing, eh?

Well, it gets better. If you have got a user id or a screen name for the various IM protocols you can actually log in to all of them at the same time and they will be integrated into a single contact list all of them separated accordingly. Pretty much like what other meta-IM clients, like Gaim or Trillian do. But without the need of having to install anything else. And on top of that, if that is not enough, all the different passwords are encrypted using 1024-bit RSA keys, which sounds to me like a good way to protect your privacy. Really nice.

As I said, this new web offering is still under the Alpha status, but I am sure it will grow further to become a very good option to help people on the move to work seamlessly with their online contacts wherever they may be and still have access to not only the information but also the experts providing that information. I shall be keeping an eye further on this particular offering as I am sure they will be adding a whole bunch of new features as it progresses further into Beta and then perhaps a full production environment. But so far things are looking good, very good !. Now I would love to see Skype or Damaka, or even Gizmo Project being added to the list of options available and at that point I think we would all be off to a superb effort of integrating all IM and VoIP clients into a single point of entry. And that would be way cool, folks, don’t you think ?

Technorati Tags : Instant+Messaging, VoIP, Meebo, Damaka, Skype, Google+Talk, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, AOL, Gaim, Trillian

WordPress 2.0 Now Available for Download

While continuing with the metablogging topics I have been discussing over the last few days I thought it would be worth while mentioning as well something that a lot of people have been talking about already and many of us have been waiting for: the new release from WordPress to version 2.0. Indeed, WordPress v. 2.0 is now ready for download.

If you are wondering what this new release will bring into the table of options available out there for us webloggers and if you have read through the official WordPress web site and still want some more I would recommend you take a look into 10 Things You Should Know about WordPress 2.0 by Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger. Over there you will find a comprehensive overview of what you can expect from this release and also get a grasp of some of the items we have been looking forward so much.

For instance, you will be able to read some more about how WordPress v.2.0 will be integrating different Social Networking components by making use not only of the already existing options available but also by introducing XFN (XHTML Friends Network). If you would remember, not long ago I commented over here in my weblog as well how other weblogging platforms like SixApart were starting to look into powerful social networks components like community building so it is going to be an interesting fight between the two weblogging platforms to see which one will be the winner in providing that cutting edge advantage of allowing people to connect with just something more than different conversations. I can’t wait to check it out actually.

The same way that I can’t wait to check out the built in Anti-Spam component from the latest version of WordPress v.2.0: Akismet. I mean, I have been quite happy while making use of WordPress Hashcash 2.3 (I still have to get the first spam comment go through having an open policy towards comments here in elsua) but I am looking forward to a seamless installation of the weblogging platform where I wouldn’t need to worry about installing an extensive list of plugins. So if I can manage to cut down that list of manual installs of different plugins, the better.

Thus as you can see I will eventually be migrating my weblog to WordPress v.2.0, since there are too many good things to be looking forward to, but I may just take a few days more to go through it since with the holidays and all there is other much more important stuff to get busy with. But not to worry that the upgrade will eventually be taking place. And you will all be kept up to date as to how things are going.

Along the Coastline

And here we go again, folks. Like every week, here is the post where I will be giving you some details on the recent pictures I have shared in my Flickr account. This time around the pictures are taken from a ferry boat trip I did a few weeks back from the lovely harbour from Arguineguin to Puerto Rico and then finishing off in Puerto de Mogan. A round trip of about 2 hours approx. and worth while doing if you fancy taking a look into what the South and Southwest coastline of Gran Canaria looks like from the sea.

And to give you a little bit of an idea of what you can see in this week’s pictures shared in my Flickr account here you have got three of my pictures from the whole series:

This time around you may have been wondering how I have actually grabbed those pictures from Flickr and the answer is quite simple, actually. I have been able to grab the pictures with the HTML tags using a new beta offering called QuickrFlickr, now renamed to QuickrPickr. This is a really nice offering that would allow you to enter a Flickr username, then select the number of pictures you would want to display and then you have got four different formats to choose from and after selecting the pictures you would want to use you can just push the button to generate the HTML and the next window will just display the pictures, the additional text you may have included and in the end the HTML tags you could use to embed them in your weblog or web site. And after checking it out how simple it is actually to use it I have decided to give it a try a few times and see how it would work out. So far I am quite impressed with its ease of use and also how nicely it gets to display on different web sites, including my weblog. So if you are a big fan from Flickr you may want to have a look and give it a try. I am sure you will find it quite interesting and really worth while giving it a try. And if not check out the results above.

(Update) : I am not sure what is going on, but just after I posted this weblog post, which in the preview looked ok, it looks like things have gone awfully wrong because I just cannot get those three pictures displayed, as can be seen on this particular screen shot. Somehow, the embedding of the images does not seem to be working and since I do not know if it is due to Flickr blocking the displaying of the images or QuickrPickr currently not working as expected, in the end I have gone back to the usual method of embedding the images and, hopefully, this time around it will be working all right. We shall see what happens next week.

Technorati Tags : Gran Canaria, Puerto Rico, Arguineguin, Puerto De Mogan, QuickrPickr, Flickr