All Your Messengers In One Program (Trillian)

Member Name: Lisa.Marie

Product:	Trillian
Date:	07/08/03 (880 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to use, less space taken up, free

Disadvantages: none

*~*~*INTRODUCTION*~*~*

Well seems that I use all messengers out there, well at least the well known ones, like MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and IRC, the only one I don?t use is AOL. I have found a nice little program that compacts all of those messengers into one program this program being know as Trillian. This helps with the desktop clutter from having all the messengers all over the desktop and open, now your desktop can look cleaner and tidier and still beable to talk to all your buddies. Let me tell you more about it and what it does.

*~*~*DOWNLOADING / INSTALLING*~*~*

The download is free and doesn?t take long at all, if you have a fast connection it will take few seconds to download. Choose a destination and then download the file. Then once downloaded click on the trillian setup icon, to install it this will also only take a few minutes to install, choose the appropriate destination and click OK, this will install to your destination.

*~*~*STARTING TRILLIAN*~*~*

The starting process of trillian is easy this requires you to add all your login and password to the appropriate messenger you are signed up to. This is easy process to complete and will only take a few minutes to do, then you are away and using the program.

*~*~*WHAT IS TRILLIAN?*~*~*

Trillian is a program to let you have a clean and uncluttered desktop when chatting to your friends and family on those famous chat messengers, MSN, ICQ, AOL, Yahoo, IRC. This program will let you add all your messenger login and passwords to it, which then you can chat away and not have a desktop full of messengers. Trillian is also skinable and very easy to use too, it is like any other messenger you will use, just double click on your contacts to speak to them. There is many options again with this messenger but more to do with the setting up of the program.

You will see the messenger icons clearly on the messenger and like any other messenger you still hav
e the basics like the status, the change of names, font, blocking, sounds, and also the searching and adding of contacts. You can edit any away message to what you want, which acts like a automated response.

You don?t have to have the messengers setup on your computer in order to use trillian, unless you want your contacts imported, but I think they get imported anyway and will confirm all the ones that you want in there and the ones you don?t.

You can also have a buddy icon for each of your buddies, which is a small picture in the corner of the message box of your contacts. Each message window is the same as the ones you will see in any chat messenger, you will have a number of features at the bottom of the window. These will include things like background colour, block, foreground colour, bold, italic, underline, and of course the famous emotions. The emotions will change depending on what skin you choose and there are many to choose from too.

You can download more skins for trillian but you can only use the ones for the version you have downloaded not for pro. These don?t take long to download and are easy to setup and add too. Once downloaded them, you then have to unzip them in to the program folder where trillian is set to and put them into the skins folder. These will then be visible in the preferences / skins then choose from the list, in order to use the skin though you will have to shut down and reopen trillian for the skin to be visible.

*~*~*FILE / PREFERENCES*~*~*

Here is where you can setup trillian to how you want it, how you want it to look. Here is a low down of what you will find in the preferences

Contact list, Events, basic options, message history, file transfers, buddy icon, proxy, profiles, skins, buy now, about, and also the chat messengers that you have signed up to.

There are many options there to help with the setting up, and all is easy to toggle with and understand. Th
ere is also help so if there is something your not sure about then go to help button inside the File option at the top of your trillian. Also you will notice next door to the file button there is the tools button in here you will find the connection manager. The connection manger is where you can see your messages and your details, and also the connect button if you are not already connected. Here is where you can also add an account too.

In tools also you can see there is global disconnect and reconnect, this is for any messengers you have running or not, to be all connected or disconnected all in one go instead of going through them all in disconnecting/reconnecting.

*~*~*AVAILABILITY / PRICE*~*~*

You can download this software from http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/trillian/index.html and here is where you can also download the skins too but remember y0u can only use the skins for that version.
The .74 is the free download, and the pro cost you $25 which is around £15, with this you will get plugins availability.

*~*~*LAST THOUGHTS*~*~*

Well like I said I use every messenger out there apart from one, this has become very handy to me, it enables me to keep all my messenger under one program, which saves space on your computer and keeps it clean and tidy. Also the fact you can download skins too, makes it worth the while as you know I hate anything plain and always try and look for things that can be skinned. All in all a good reliable program, and well worth the free download.

Thank you all for reading, Take care Lisa xxx

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