Page 176 of 826

There are two fantastic instant messagING programs that computer users may want to take a look at. We all know that instant messaging is a way that allows people to communicate using their computer with other users via an internet connection. Many people use these messaging services to communicate with friends and family members, while others use them to conduct business. These services can also allow web conferencing and file sharing.

Most of us know the most popular messaging services such as Yahoo, MSN Messenger and Google Talk. Most users of instant messaging are on one of these services. This can make it difficult if you have lots of chat buddies on several different network services. You may find yourself with lots of different applications open at one time, just to communicate with your contacts.

However, as mentioned before, there are two great applications that can make instant messaging with many different services a breeze. They are Pidgin IM and Miranda IM. One of the best features about these programs is that they are available at no cost. That’s correct — free. And even though they are offered at no charge they will not cause chaos and mayhem on your computer by adding malware or spyware. The reason for this is that these programs are part of the Open Source community and are safe to download.

Pidgin and Miranda enable users to consolidate all of their contacts and chat buddies from disparate networks on to one simple to use application. By using Miranda or Pidgin you will be able to see all of your contacts in one window and can chat with them seamlessly. This eliminates the need to switch back and forth between different chat applications.

Sally was very interested in converting her physical DVD disks to electronic media files that she could play on her iTunes, iPod, iPhone or AppleTV. But, the problem was that there was no easy way to convert the huge DVD files and make them fit and play smoothly on her mobile and iTunes supported devices. Then Sally came across a really great, Open Source program called Handbrake. Little did she know this free software tool would be the answer to her problems.

Handbrake is an awesome utility that will not only compress DVD and other video sources into a single file, it will also create a final video file that is formatted and encoded properly for your Apple device. Sally looked at BestBuy and a few online retailers for a product that would compress and reformat her video library but came up empty handed.

She then looked at the Open Source software sources on the Internet and was very surprised to see the large number of utilities that claimed to do exactly what she wanted. After a few mis-starts with some spyware soaked programs, Sally read a recommendation for a good number of open source software programs, among them was VLC player, Xvid, and Handbrake. To her surprise, Handbrake installed easily and didn’t have any embedded spyware, gray ware or malware. She got the install done and was compressing her first DVD within 10 minutes. The program is so easy to use and has many automated features for even the novice end user that has attempted a video transfer. Sally was really impressed with the results as well. She could strip out the previews, menus and just start the movie exactly at the main title screen. Handbrake had so many flexible options that she started a huge conversion project for her favorite movies. Many people don’t know about programs like Handbrake because they assume for anything to be any good, they must pay a lot of money for it. In this case, the Open Source development efforts of people involved with Handbrake look out for the end-user and have produced a great and stable video compression product that helps get your media where you want it.