The frustrating thing about changing computer is that many of the data get left on the old computer. I am online most of the time and use Gaim alot to stay in touch with clients, partners and friends. On a new computer, suddenly all the contacts are “lost“.

It actually turned out to be very straight forward to move Gaim profile to a new computer.

On the new computer I just had to

1. Install a copy of GAIM
2. Copy the former .gaim folder which located on the old drive
Documents and Settingsusername Application Data.gaim
to
c:Documents and Settingsusername Application Data
3. Start Gaim. All the accounts and contacts will just appear. Perfect!

Related Post:

• Integrated instant messaging with Gaim
• Official support of QQ in Gaim

If you, like me, have an account in each of these instant messaging (IM) services then you probably have all these client programs installed.

These client not only take up valuable space in the notification area (especially on a notebook), they are also notorious memory hog. Each comes with heaps of “features” that I never use and are piling on more with each new version. Worst, some like QQ forcefully install programs you don’t need and changes your system settings.

Wouldn’t it be great if a single program can replace all of them?

Enter Gaim.

My Gaim screenshot showing multiple IM (ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, QQ, GoogleTalk), multi-accounts and multi-language (Simplified Chinese) supported.

I use it for work and for personal contacts.

Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client .

This mambo-jumbo jargon simply means that it can support multiple instant messaging services like ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, GoogleTalk, all in a single program.

In fact it supports more – AIM, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu (never heard or use it before).

With plugin it can also support other IM protocol, for example QQ, a very popular IM service in China. (Currently my QQ support is broken but I’m waiting for the official support .)

Gaim was not my first integrated IM. Like many open source applications it takes time to mature. When I first discovered Gaim, it was not very usable.

For a long time I use Trillian, a commercial integrated IM that started as a free download. However as it grew successful commercially, the free version was neglected to the extend that connection to services like yahoo and ICQ are frequently down. (Note: This is based on past experience, I do not know about now since I had switched to Gaim)

Before that I also exprimented with Jabber during its infancy. At that time, Jabber was pretty promising. GoogleTalk is based on Jabber .

I cannot recall why it was dropped in favour of Trillian. Most likely that Yahoo support which was necessary for work.

Instant messaging is becoming an important channel for business contact. The ability to handle multi-protocols and accounts allows small business to stay in touch with customers easily.

What I like about Gaim?

• Supports all my IM account in one program
• Multiple account from the same service
  This is especially cool, perfect when you want to separate work from personal contacts. I can have 2 Yahoo accounts running at the same time, one personal, one for work.
• Chinese support
• Able to group together same user from different IM service

Room for improvement

• Better file transfer
• Better interface
  To be fair, the GTK interface had improved tremendously but still rear its ugly head here and there. Especially bad when selecting file and folders
• Smaller icons
  I can’t stand large icons. Most likely can be solvewith themes.

Chinese support

Excellent support for Chinese in both IM list and in chat. Language for user interface and menu can be selected during installation.

Where to get it?

• Gaim is at http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
  Windows version at http://gaim.sourceforge.net/win32/
• Current version: 1.5.0
• Function: multi-protocol Instant Messaging client

Related Post:

• Moving GAIM profile between computers
• Official support of QQ in Gaim

Tim Ringenbach is mentoring Mark Huetsch on this project to bring QQ support to Gaim. QQ is an extremely popular IM network in China, but doesn’t have much of a foothold in the rest of the world.

This is a big plus for Gaim and QQ users.

“Extremely popular” is not even close to describe the usage of QQ in China. To many Chinese, QQ is the Internet. Many user do not know how to use the web browser but is totally at ease with QQ.

Suffice to say if you are in China and without QQ, you are out of the conversation.

There is already a hack using OpenQ to suport QQ in Gaim for a while. However it is often broken when QQ release a new version. QQ as a proprietary platform make every effort to be as incompatible as possible.

Looking forward to this.

Related Post:

• Moving GAIM profile between computers
• Integrated instant messaging with Gaim