Instant messaging on Windows Mobile without using your text messages
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Wannabe yuppie
Joined: Dec 2000
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From: Madison, WI
Instant messaging on Windows Mobile without using your text messages
www.octro.com
I can't take credit for finding this, Dweezel showed it to me. But damn if it ain't friggin awesome. There's versions for both WM5 Pocket PC and Smartphone. You install the program, it logs in based on your gmail account, and then connects to your other IM accounts (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Takes a slight bit of geekery to get it working ideally (see below). But after getting it set up you have a status bar on your home screen that shows if you are online and if you have any new messages, then you can go back in to your Octro app and do instant messaging. It only uses your regular data connection, not any text messages, so if you have unlimited data this will not run up your text bill.
Now for the bit of geekery....
I can't speak for Pocket PC but for Smartphone I needed to get the most recent, "unsigned" version. Also when I installed it, it automatically set to add a panel to the home screen but it turned my font blue. To get it to just take whatever your home screen is and then add the Octro panel, go to the windows mobile preferences and select whatever your home screen had been. Then go back in to Octro prefs and click the check box for 'Create OctroTalk Home Screen From Current' and exit all the way out of the program. Go back to your windows mobile prefs and select OctroTalk as your home screen, it should have the proper font color now.
It may sound complicated but it took about 5 times as long to type that then figure out how to do it and do it.
I can't take credit for finding this, Dweezel showed it to me. But damn if it ain't friggin awesome. There's versions for both WM5 Pocket PC and Smartphone. You install the program, it logs in based on your gmail account, and then connects to your other IM accounts (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Takes a slight bit of geekery to get it working ideally (see below). But after getting it set up you have a status bar on your home screen that shows if you are online and if you have any new messages, then you can go back in to your Octro app and do instant messaging. It only uses your regular data connection, not any text messages, so if you have unlimited data this will not run up your text bill.
Now for the bit of geekery....
I can't speak for Pocket PC but for Smartphone I needed to get the most recent, "unsigned" version. Also when I installed it, it automatically set to add a panel to the home screen but it turned my font blue. To get it to just take whatever your home screen is and then add the Octro panel, go to the windows mobile preferences and select whatever your home screen had been. Then go back in to Octro prefs and click the check box for 'Create OctroTalk Home Screen From Current' and exit all the way out of the program. Go back to your windows mobile prefs and select OctroTalk as your home screen, it should have the proper font color now.
It may sound complicated but it took about 5 times as long to type that then figure out how to do it and do it.