Love your GMail account but want to do more with it? If you're a Windows user, there are plenty of great (and free) apps that take advantage of your massive inbox in the cloud!

GBridge sets up a Hamachi-like VPN and offers loads of cool features for your Windows desktop, including file sharing, backup and synchronization, and remote control via VNC. Since the developers added support for Google Apps domains, this has become a great way to keep your office team connected.

GMail Drive is an oldie but a goodie. I've got several of gigs available, and there's no chance I'm going to fill that up with actual email anytime soon. Plug GMail Drive into Windows, and you can drop files into your extra space just like any other folder on your system.

g2peer allows simple file sharing with your friends via your GMail account. Don't need the other features from GBridge? g2peer is a good option. Your pals at the other end don't even need to install the app to get files from you since it supports "command line" interaction via GMail - check the help page to see how it works.

Pidgin, a popular, crossplatform, multi-protocol chat app, just got an important update to version 2.6. It's important because this is the first time Pidgin has supported audio or video chat over Google Talk. Even my favorite chat client for the Mac, Adium, doesn't yet support those features. Unfortunately, audio and video chats don't yet work in the Windows version of Pidgin, but they should be available soon.

The other very important update better (read: actually working) file transfers on Yahoo! and Google Talk. There's also some preliminary theme support, for those of you who enjoy building themes, but it's that feature is too new to have a selection of themes to choose from.

If you're not comfortable compiling an app, you can wait on Pidgin for a little while until the pre-compiled native apps show up. Speaking of native apps, Pidgin doesn't look bad on a Mac, per se, but it can't compete on looks against a Mac-like app like Adium.

[via Lifehacker]

Pidgin is a great multi-protocol IM client. Out of the box it provides support for 15 different protocols, including most of the important ones: MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, ICQ, and XMPP to name a few. Two glaring omissions include Facebook IM and Twitter - both of which are built-in to Digsby by default.

Thanks to the developers of two plugins, a couple quick downloads and some simple instructions can remedy the situation with minimal effort. To top it off, the finished product only uses about 20mb of memory - under half what Digsby consumed on my machine.

If you want to see the actual screens, skip to the gallery now.

Clarification: Ping.fm does not do this. Yes, it will update multiple statuses for you via IM, but it won't let you chat with Facebook friends or send you Twitter updates for people you follow.

Let's start with Twitter.

If you don't have a Gmail account, go sign up for one so you can add a gtalk buddy later on. You'll also need to go to Twitter and follow twitter@twitter.com.

Pidgin doesn't officially support Facebook Chat (yet?), but it can be customized with useful add-ons like the new Facebook Chat plug-in. Once installed, the plug-in allows Pidgin to log-in to a Facebook account, pull the buddy-list, and send/receive messages.

Adium, arguably Pidgin's counterpart on Mac, also received support for Facebook Chat in the recent 1.3 beta release, though, the feature is absent from the most recent official update. If you're a risk-taker who enjoys putting his/her computer in jeopardy for the sake of testing new software, give it a shot.

We've also covered a couple of other methods of taking Facebook Chat outside the site:

1. There's a Firefox plug-in that adds the social-network's IM service to a sidebar.
   
2. The social software/service one-stop-shop known as Digsby also added support for Facebook Chat earlier this year.

[via Lifehacker]

Your co-workers use MSN Messenger, your family is partial to AOL Instant Messenger, and your friends use Google Talk. There are plenty of utilities that let you keep in touch with all of your contacts regardless of the IM platform they're using. But while we love Digsby, Trillian, Pidgin, and Adium most of the time, there are a few features missing from those apps:

• Support for voice and video chats
• The ability to invite friends from different IM networks into a single chat room

And that's where Instan-T comes in. This multi-protocol chat client for Windows supports AOL, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Messengers. It also supports voice and video chat across each network, although we've found that feature to be a bit finnicky. When we tested out a voice chat, we were able to the person speaking on the other end, but she couldn't hear us. We'll chalk that up to a hardware problem.

Probably the most interesting thing about Instan-T is that it lets you set up a chat room that you can invite contacts from any service to participate in. Just click on a contact name and select multi-person chat. They'll receive an invitation with a URL to click on that will open up a Flash-based chat room, which also features voice and video support.

We'll be honest. The Instan-T interface is a little cluttered and confusing when compared with other multi-protocol chat clients. But the application definitely shows promise. If you want to try the service without downloading and installing anything, you Instan-T also has a Meebo-like web based instant messenger. The web client supports Internet Explorer and Firefox, which means you should be able to access the service whether you're using Windows, Linux or OS X.

[via TechnoBuzz]

So a funny thing happened on the way to Pidgin 2.4.1. The developers of the open source, cross-platform, multi-chat protocol client recently implemented a new feature. When you're typing in a text box, it will start out just large enough for a few lines of text. And if your message gets longer, it will automatically resize. Pretty cool, right?

But the developers decided to eliminate the ability to change the text box manually. And that led to a rather intense debate in the Pidgin community. And the result is that there are now two branches of Pidgin. There's the "official" build which lacks image resizing because the developers didn't want to back down or even offer the option of changing the default behavior with a plugin. And there's the new Funpidgin build which has the same default text box behavior as Pidgin, but allows you to manually change text box sizes via a plugin.

We're going to ignore the question of which version is actually more "fun," and just point out that Funpidgin can basically do everything that Pidgin can, plus you can resize the text box manually. Funpidgin also has a few other features that Pidgin lacks, like the ability to adjust buddy icon display sizes.

[via Ubuntu Unleashed]

Digsby, the instant messaging, social networking, email super-tool we first told you about last month launches its public beta today. That means you can sign up without an invitation code. The latest version of the Digsby client also has ton of new features:

• Twitter support
• Audio and video chat through a partnership with ToxBox
• Spell checking
• New "listening to..." status box will automatically update your status with currently playing songs from iTunes or Winamp
• Block contacts by right clicking in the IM window

If you're still not exactly sure what Digsby does, it's basically a single application that lets you communicate with your IM contacts, friends on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, or anyone else thanks to email notifications. You can configure Digsby to display a pop up alert every time you receive an email, every time a friend sends a message via Twitter, or every time someone changes their MySpace or Facebook status. You can also see a list of recent updates in each category.

Digsby historically has been a bit of a memory hog compared to lighter weight instant messaging programs like Pidgin. But considering just how many features Digsby has that Pidgin lacks, the memory use doesn't seem excessive.

The application is available for Windows XP and Vista. Mac and Linux clients are in the works.

Facebook is adding new privacy controls today which will give you more control over your interactions with people in your friend lists. For example, you can share photo albums or applications with your professional contacts while hiding away the good stuff for closer friends.

The company also confirmed plans to launch a web-based instant messenger service that will let you communicate with other Facebook members in real-time. TechCrunch has the video you can see above showing how Facebook Chat could work. But the application is still in development and there could be some changes before it's officially launched in a few weeks.

As IM clients go, Facebook Chat doesn't look that impressive. You'll only be able to communicate with other Facebook users, not AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger users. But Jabber support could be added in the future, which would let you access Facebook Chat with third party software like Trillian, Pidgin, or Adium.

Simkl is a web service that saves your instant message history to its servers so that you can access that searchable history from any computer with Internet access. You'll need a Simkl account and some money (1 month of archiving is $2.99 and one year is $24.99). You'll also have to change a setting in your IM client to use Simkl as a proxy (so that it can save your messages).

If the thought of a third party (besides the actual service provider) archiving your instant messages doesn't bother you, you can try out the service for a week for free. The history viewer is web-based, and you can do full-text searches on your IM history.

Simkl supports most of the popular IM clients including Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Pidgin, iChat, ICQ, Trillian, and Adium. Keep in mind that many of these IM clients like Pidgin and Trillian can log your chats individually, but if you use multiple computers with different IM clients, Simkl can unify your IM logging.

The open source Pidgin multi-chat client is great if you want to manage your AIM, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, and Yahoo! Messenger accounts all from one application. But what if you want to chat with your Skype contacts? While Skype isn't one of the services supported when you first run Pidgin, you can enable Skype chat with the Skype API Plugin.

The plugin comes in Linux and Windows varieties. Linux users can install the plugin using a DEB package or by copying a file to the Pidgin plugin directory. Windows users just need to copy a DLL to the plugin directory. There's also a Skype plugin for Adium for Mac users.

Now the bad news. First, there's no support for voice calls, which should come as no real surprise since Pidgin doesn't support voice chat for any protocol yet. Second, you need to run Skype in the background or you won't be able to login to your Skype account using Pidgin. Which kind of defeats the purpose if you ask us.

[via Lifehacker]

Puppy Linux 3.0 was released this week, and like earlier versions of Puppy Linux, it's a tiny distro, weighing in at under 100MB. But it's packed with features, making it an excellent distribution for older computers with small hard drives and slow processors. You can also run Puppy Linux from a LiveCD or throw it on a flash drive and run it from any computer that will boot from a USB drive.

Eagle-eyed readers will note that OpenOffice alone is larger than 100MB, so what kind of applications does Puppy Linux 3.0 include?

• AbiWord for word processing
• Gnumeric for spreadsheets
• SeaMonkey for web browsing
• Pidgin for instant messaging
• XFinans financial management

Of course, if you want to install OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, or other programs on top of Puppy Linux you're free to do so. But you might want to take it easy, seeing as the more apps you add the more memory you'll use, which kind of defeats the purpose of having such a lightweight operating system.

It looks like some Puppy websites aren't responding at the moment, so here are a few alternate download links.

Multi-protocol instant messaging client Pidgin has hit version 2.2. And when they say multi-protocol, they mean it. Pidgin supports AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo!, and Zephyr.

In other words, there's a good chance this open-source program is the only instant messaging client you'll ever need to install on your Windows or Linux PC. There are a bunch of updates since the last release. One of our favorites is the return of optional protocol icons which make it easy to tell which of your friends are using MSN Messenger, and which are using AIM (and so on). Here are some of the other changes:

• Yahoo! Chat is fixed
• AIM file transfer issues fixed
• Properly restore idle status time for AIM and ICQ accounts that reconnect after being disconnected
• Remember "enable sounds" setting for a conversation

If you've got friends and family using 17 different instant messaging applications, Pidgin is a great way to keep in touch with everyone without installing 17 different programs. And the best thing is when you turn it off, they all go away. You know, unless they e-mail, call, or stop by your house for a visit.
[via Digg]

Chat client Pidgin IM (formerly known as Gaim) version 2.00 beta 7 is out, with a final 2.0 release scheduled for later this week.

The program performs very similarly to GAIM 2.00 beta 6, with some cosmetic changes, including a new Pidgin logo (which unsurprisingly looks like a pigeon). The redesign does include some under the hood changes as well, so the developers caution that this beta is actually less stable than earlier beta releases, and recommend backing up your Gaim directory before running Pidgin.

Some preferences may be lost, or buddy icons may not work, and some plugins may fail to work. In previous versions, you could easily tell whether your contacts were using AOL IM, MSN Messenger, IRC, or other chat protocols at a glance by looking at the color of their icons. Now you're presented with a green circle for each of your contacts. Hopefully this will be one of the items fixed before the final release.