ICQ
- Close Encounters
Sun Review Feb.26, 2000
ICQ (I seek you) is a popular, easy to use Internet tool that notifies you in real time when friends or colleagues are online. You can chat, send messages, files and website addresses (URLs), or play games while still browsing the Web.
How
does ICQ work?
When you install ICQ, the program will ask you to register at a server (a
computer that shares its resources with other computers), which is connected
to an entire network of servers on the Internet. You will receive a unique ICQ
number (aka Universal Internet Number, or UIN). You can also enter personal
information along with your ICQ number to allow other ICQ users to recognize
you when you log on.
Once you've registered, you can compile a Contact List of friends and associates who use ICQ. As soon as you log on to the Internet, ICQ sends a message to the Internet community to announce your presence, and alerts you when your friends sign on or off. Once you know who's on, all it takes is a click of an icon to initiate chat, implement URL transfers, send messages, or exchange files with your friend(s).
Getting
started:
Download the ICQ program from www.icq.com/download.
Once your download is complete, locate the file on your hard drive (it should
be called ICQ99b.exe or ICQ99b_nomfc.exe) and double-click it to start the installation.
Follow the Wizard instructions to complete the installation process.
Ne parlez pas anglais? Try ICQ in different languages at www.icq.com/languages.
If your needs include audio/video-conferencing and/or program sharing, check out Microsoft NetMeeting 3.0 (www.microsoft.com/netmeeting). This is by far the best Internet conferencing solution for Windows users. NetMeeting is available FREE, and is now also included with Windows 2000.
The latest release of NetMeeting features multi-point data conferencing, text chat, whiteboard, and file transfer, as well as point-to-point audio and video conferencing. The whiteboard is an amazing feature: you can cut, copy and paste information from any Windows-based application into the whiteboard and share it with your fellow Netmeeters. You can also share programs and even use NetMeeting to operate a computer from a remote location. The only thing seriously lacking about NetMeeting is a Macintosh version.
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