IG Web Media Blogspot

How many (IM)instant messenger accounts have you got? This very popular pastime is spoilt for choice with the number of excellent packages out there! If you are looking for a solution that allows you to access all your IM accounts at once, look no further than Pidgin. This software lets you chat to multiple contacts simultaneously online, regardless of what IM network they use. It supports AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger(MSN Messenger), Yahoo, IRC and Jabber which includes Google Talk. Do remember that you will need to have an account already set up on each of the different networks you want to chat on.
We all have our favourites and mine are Windows Live and Skype!

Happy chatting and enjoy the Pidgin english....

I have recently seen that us Brits are top of something at last! The UK is the most active online population in Europe, with approximately 22 million people logging on to the internet every day. Comscore, an internet tracking company have released figures stating that the

"average British surfer spends a total of 34.4 hours online a month, longer than our fellow Europeans."

The UK does not have the proportion of the population online (62%)compared to say Netherlands and Scandinavian countries (upto 83%). We use the internet 3 hours more each month than our US surfers, but they have 66% of the population online. The UK still needs to improve on broadband services and faster backbones but it's good to see we're embracing the technology and running with it!

Personally I think that the internet offers so many different outlets of learning, socialising and entertainment that TV is starting to take the backseat, plus you don't get bogged down in more repeats!

ISP's are always broadbanding around super speeds, but do "they do what they say on the modem!" Is your 4Meg really that and what are your upload and download speeds in comparison to others. I'm currently running a 4Mb service from Virgin Media(formerly NTL) and have been pleased with it's performance, but sometimes it has times when it goes slow due to heavy demand. I've come across a very good site to checkout your broadband performance;


Speedtest.net was my first choice because it has a very cool interface. I ran a test and was got the following results, 3,939Kbps download and 381Kbps upload.- see image above. You can compare your results with typical county, country and world results which give you some interesting stats.

Check out your speed and see whether your broadband comes up to scratch!

We are all under the same time pressures and as a result we need to become more effective at finding the information we are after. I have come across a couple of really cool ones that allow you to preview the site along side the results, so you can instantly see where the link will take you. This prevents you from following useless links and saves valuable time!

Snap is a search engine that provides a preview of the site and lets you download a range of toolbars and utilities for both Windows and Mac.

SearchMash is the other one from our good friends Google. This displays search results from the web along with matching images, blogs, videos and Wikipedia entries all on the same page.

There are a plethora of search tools that offer quick word searches, clusters of results and help you get to the data fast. Have fun and let me know of any other favourites of yours!

With millions of mobiles in circulation and new models coming out everyday there is always the temptation to want to upgrade. I normally cascade them down through the family but if you want to exchange your old one for money, whilst donating to charity, then look no further than Mopay! It is an easy process and as it accepts over 2,000 different handsets and PDA's from 27 manufacturers it caters for the majority of us. All you do is input the phone's unique id number, found by entering *#06# into the phone, and then send it freepost in return for cash. Cooool and it's nice to know you're doing your bit for charity....

There is so much on the web about the social networks for teenagers, the Myspace & Bebo generation, so what about us adults! Well yes, cool social sites out there that cater for the more mature web user can be found. So if you enjoy the idea of meeting people from around the world, sharing videos and photos then check out these sites:

Gather.com - this has a fun homepage that draws you in with a selection of recently added content, articles and images for you to comment on. It's easy to find your way around and is fun to use.

Vox.com - this site encourages interactivity and like most social networking sites, invites you to create a blog. It gives you an impressive 2GB of storage, so that's plenty for content, images to upload plus you have great control on exactly who can see that content.

There are plenty of others out there and one of my favourites is LinkedIn.com which I suppose is a bit like Friends Reunited and MySpace, with a mature makeover!
On all these sites do remember to adhere to the rules and be careful not to divulge any personal information either in your personal pages or in messages sent to others. These sites can be a great source of information and friendship, so have fun!!

As a web designer, I'm always on the look out for yet another cool font that compliments my design ideas. Hence I have hundreds of font files filling up my hard drive, many of them that have never been used. I decided to take the matter in hand and after a few Google searches came across AMP Font Viewer from AMPsoft. What a cracking bit of freeware; that was installed in a flash and is now managing my font files superbly. I can browse all the font styles quickly, delete any I don't want and install new ones. It is definately worth remembering that you shouldn't have more than 1,000 files in the Fonts folder, as it kills the PC's performance. Keep it under 500 for speed!

It's also worth checking out some of the other utilities that AMPsoft offer.

If you're after Font inspiration look no further than acidfonts and 1001freefonts plus of course Adobe which has some of the best fonts for professional designers and publishers, that are used in many commercial publications.

Happy fonting!