1. Gbuddy: So your friends use AIM way more than Gtalk – but you suffer from Google withdrawal symptoms every time you login to AIM. Fear not! Gbuddy allows you to search YouTube videos, images, code, and get driving directions along with vanilla Google searching all inside your IM. With features such as group search and transit planning, this chatbot is sure going to be your personal aide on AIM for quite some time!
2. MyBot: Interested in Artificial Intelligence (AI)? This bot will surely give you hours of fun if you keep talking to it. Acting akin to the original ELIZA (which it even refers to – along with HAL9000!) with advanced programming, MyBot will keep you enthralled for the time you log on to your AIM account!
3. GossipinGabby: A ubiquitous bot, GossipinGabby is usually added to your AIM accounts by default. Search for news and related gossip of celebrities and other flamboyant personas that you want to keep tabs about!
4. Ping.fm: Already outlined in another post this is a great service for those social media fanatics who cannot level up in Mafia Wars on Facebook without telling their Twitter and Tumblr followers the great news. Add it up to your AIM account as well for awesome socializing!
5. MrMovie.com: Do you love movies? Can’t stay without constantly digging up news stories about the upcoming movies? MrMovie helps you look for movies by Title and also displays the price of the DVD along with articles on actors, actresses, directors and producers of movies. This is an amazing addition to your IM list on AIM. Go for it!

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• Watch Latest Hollywood Movies Online with Watch-Movies.net and 66Stage
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The spotlight in this releases falls on the new voice and video support for XMPP networks, that Google’s GTalk IM works on. Other important features to look for are theme support and p2p file transfer for the Yahoo Messenger network.

Feature List in Brief [Full Changelog]:

• Voice & Video support, voice support with GTalk and voice and video support with the GMail web client.
• Theme support in libpurple.
• Support for receiving handwritten (ink) messages on MSN
• Support for receiving audio clips on MSN.
• Show when the user was last logged in when doing "Get Info" on an offline buddy, provided the server supports it.
• New XMPP and Google Talk accounts require SSL by default.
• P2P file transfers in Yahoo Messenger.
• Sending text messages (address to +<countrycode><phone number>) from Yahoo Messenger.

Now here’s the raw deal. Pidgin released 2.6.0 yesterday and just after a few hours, also released 2.6.1 to fix some bugs. But neither of the new versions are available to download from the Pidgin Download page. The Window version that is available is still lingering on 2.5.8 and Ubuntu repositories and PPA haven’t yet been updated with the new version.

So, Windows users will have to wait while they update their site with the 2.6.1 version, but Ubuntu users should rejoice, as the latest version of Pidgin, i.e. 2.6.1 can be grabbed from GetDeb. So if you use Ubuntu, get yourself the .deb file and enjoy.

There’s still one glitch though. The WebUpd8 blog points out:

The biggest setback this far is that these features [voice and video] are not supported on Windows – but the Pidgin devs are working on it! And it also appears that the package from GetDeb does not provide voice/video support because Jaunty does not have the required library versions, so you probably must wait until Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

Disappointment! Anyhow, if you just want to try out the other features in this release, either wait for the Windows version, or get the deb file as linked above.

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The new features that will be rolled out in this new version includes several exciting changes including several performance enhancements and CPU usage reduction by about 50%.

In addition to this you can also lookup and search your buddies in your buddy list as well as on the web.

Another new feature is the ability to set invisible status for GTalk, which is not yet available in the basic GTalk client.

Disgby New Features Overview

• Performance: Performance optimization from the ground up, reducing overall CPU usage by about 50%
• Buddy List Search: Press Ctrl+F to easily search your buddy list or the web
• Emoticons: Added four new emoticon packs to choose from
• File Transfers: Improved the reliability of AIM, ICQ, and MSN file transfers
• Conversations: Added an option for new IM windows to start hidden and blink the tray icon instead of popping up a window
• New Infobox: The infobox now uses the same user interface control as the IM window (WebKit), making it much faster and more versatile
• MySpace: Added support for setting status on MySpace
• Google Talk: Added support for the Invisible status on Gtalk
• And More: Over 100 other bug fixes and enhancements!

Here are some exclusive screen shots of the new application.

More screenshots coming soon.

What do you think of the updates that will be made available later today? You can head over to the Digsby Blog to catch up the announcement later today.

Download Digsby

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If you are a Gtalk user, you can use a software called Gtalk Autoreply to send a autoreply to be sent out if someone pings you when you are away from the computer.

Once you have downloaded the software you can set a custom message to be sent out when you are away, the message is customizable.

After enabling the Autoreply if anyone pings pings you on Gtalk they will see the message you setup, definitely useful if you use Gtalk a lot, however we would like to see the ability to disable the accompanying link in the autoreply message, the developer took note of this and has removed the link going out in the autoreply message.

Download GTalk Autoreply

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Just came across another Winamp plugin, that will allow you to set the currently playing song from Winamp as your Yahoo Messenger status.

This plugin can change the Yahoo! Messenger status text with the current playing song information, such as the title, artist, song name, or playlist entry number.

YMS Status Changer Features

• Flexible text formatting;
• Global hotkeys support;-
• Customizable behavior (e.g. not to change the status while invisible, etc.);
• Special effects with the status text

Download Yahoo Messenger Status Changer

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The audibles will automatically show up and there is no need to download anything from Yahoo.

Related: Cool Hidden Emoticons for Yahoo and Useful Shortcut Keys

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Related: Yahoo Messenger 9 Features Reviewed | Yahoo Messenger Tips and Tricks

In this post we will give you a extensive list of shortcuts that can be used in Yahoo Messenger.

General Use Shortcut Keys

• Windows Key + Y – Bring Yahoo Messenger to Focus, works even if Yahoo Messenger is sitting in the system tray.
• Ctrl + G – Buzzes the contact you are chatting with.
• Ctrl + H – Show or Hide offline contacts in main messenger Window.
• Ctrl + Shift + P – Open preferences window.
• Ctrl + M – Provides a option to send a Instant message.
• Ctrl + T – Provides a option to send a SMS message.
• Ctrl + L – Provides a option to make a call.
• Ctrl + K – Provides options to Call a phone number.
• Ctrl + Y – Send a email message.
• Ctrl + Shift + A – Provides options to add a contact.
• Ctrl + Shift + 0,1 or 2 – Switches between different messaging formats provided by Yahoo Messenger 9 and above.
• Esc key – Closes a active message window.
• Ctrl + D – Sign out of Yahoo Messenger.
• Ctrl + Shift + D – Sign out of Yahoo Messenger client and sign in to your mobile device.
• Ctrl + Shift + F8 – Change your display Image.
• Ctrl + Shift + C – Send you contact info in a active chat window.
• Ctrl + Shift + M – Send you messenger friend list in a active chat window.
• Ctrl + Shift + R – Request contact details in a active chat window.

Messaging Window Editor Shortcut Keys

• Ctrl + B – Toggle bold on or off, or convert selected text to bold.
• Ctrl + I – Toggle italic on or off, or convert selected text to italic.
• Ctrl + U – Toggle underline on or off, or convert selected text to underline.

Yahoo Messenger Emoticons / Smiley Shortcut Keys

All the emoticons Yahoo has can be sent using your keyboard, most of the popular are for happy, for sad, for winking, for big grin and so on. Yahoo messenger provides you with a complete list of shortcuts for typing in emoticons, in addition to the normal emoticons there are also several hidden emoticons which are not even available from Yahoo Messenger and requires you to use keyboard shortcuts.

Want more such hidden emoticons, check out the Yahoo Messenger page for hidden emoticons.

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