Proud Geek

I’ve been trying out and reviewing instant messaging programs that can run on the Palm Treo 650 (and probably other Treos that run using the Palm operating system as well). See my past reviews of Mundu and IM+.

I recently tried out WebMessenger for the Palm Treo 650. In a nutshell: Mundu still comes on top, followed by WebMessenger and then IM+.

There were quite a few things I liked about WebMessenger:

• Could view multiple IMs from one person or different persons via the background pop-up window (that appears when I’m using another application on the Treo) - nice feature.
• Includes Skype - and can chat via Skype network.
• Can set up chatroom (public or private) and invite other buddies to join in. Couldn’t figure out how to get it to work, but then again, I’m such a Proud Geek that I don’t read the Users Manual …
• Plenty of preferences and customizations.
• Vibrate notification (whether while running application, or in the background, or when Treo is off) is very nice.
• When returning to WebMessenger, and new IMs are pending, a small envelope appears on the upper right corner. Clicking on it shows a list of all buddies with pending new IMs.
• When adding an IM account, you have the option of importing the buddy lists organized by their existing groups or into a single group on WebMessenger.

And there were some things I did NOT like — especially the first two:

• Each time I came back to the application (ie from a pop-up window in the background), at times I had to wait five seconds for it to “Resume services.” Five friggin’ seconds nearly each time I returned to this program.
• Couldn’t send a response via the background pop-up window.
• Organization of buddy lists seem a bit complicated.
• When a buddy sent me an IM with formatting, I got a bunch of HTML codes.
• Can’t format my own IMs - can’t change size or colors.
• When I return to this program, I couldn’t see anything telling me of my current on-going conversations (that didn’t have new messages pending).
• Leaves weird error logs inside the “Memo” application on my Palm 650.

Next instant messaging application I’m going to try: Agile Messenger. No, waitamin, there’s no version available for Palm Treos running on the Palm operating system. Aw heck. Ok, I’m going to try EQO next.