Developer Alexander Chukov has recently released a new build for the iPhone's iChabber instant messaging homebrew. Dubbed r38, this new version will carry Jabber support, aside from the Russian and French localization. Further details are available in the full article.


Download: iChabber r38

A lot have been said on Apple's Mac OS X Leopard, especially when the consumers finally got to see it running during the recently concluded WWDC. The new operating software wouldn't be arriving officially until October but those in the know are already saying that a number of useful small updates will come with the commercial version.

Apple is quite known for doing this to its products - never really telling the consumers everything that has changed. Just think of it as a finders-keepers game from Steve Jobs and the rest of the crew. And when you really think about it, it's not really harmful. If anything, it encourages users to play around with the software, learning it fully in the process.

Anyway, until the official release date comes, we're still tagging these under Rumors. But it would really be appreciated if these turn out to be true:

• A new version of Quicktime included with Leopard will reportedly allow full-screen mode without a QuickTime Pro key, echoing the feature added months before to iTunes.
• DVD Player will also see a major update with an HD options pane for Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs as well as the opportunity to add DVD cover art and change movie region support on the fly.
• Sun's unique file system will appear as a non-default, read-only format out of the box with write support possibly arriving as a separate update in the future.
• ZFS in Leopard will support some of the trademark features, such as instant and low-storage "snapshots" of a disk volume, and cloned copies that can be modified with only a small penalty in terms of disk space.
• iChat may also have received a substantial upgrade: Those contacts with mobile phone numbers can be sent an SMS text message.
• Google's influence is also allegedly present in the instant messaging app and will let Google Talk accounts mix with today's AIM, Jabber, and .Mac users.
• Users choose the default IM program, similar to the way Safari is used to choose the default browser, and will also be able to explicitly share more than the Public folder on a network.
• Even Dictionary will have the choice of switching from the Oxford dictionary to Wikipedia.

Chat junkies who also happen to be Mac users have a reason to be a little bit happier today; Adium version 1.0.2 has just been released. This instant messaging client might just work better for you, if you try it. It's free, it's fast, it supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Yahoo! Japan, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Novell Groupwise, and Lotus Sametime, as well as a beautiful WebKit message display, tabbed messaging, encrypted chat, file transfer and of course, the cute little green duck.

Adium version 1.0.2 features the following improvements:

• Fixed the crashes while performing DNS resolutions
• Fixed the situation in which an AIM file transfer could fail
• Fixed a crash when sending formatted MSN text (#5753)
• Fixed linkification of .eu domains
• Various performance improvements to the log viewer when opening it and performing searches, particularly in searching while indexing occurs.

Download Adium Version 1.0.2

More of the Adium Version 1.0.2 changes after the jump.

Adium X is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that allows user to connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber (including Google Talk), Yahoo Messenger, Bonjour (compatible with iChat), Gadu-Gadu, Novell Groupwise and Lotus Sametime. If you think that's a lot of chattime, this freeware is also available in Brazilian, Portuguese, Canadian English, Australian English, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Spanish and Swedish! No wonder Adium X was voted on of the top ten freeware for the Mac OS!

Anyways, the good people behind Adium X has updated it to v.1.0b3 and its changelog includes:

• Fixed a crash when closing message windows
• Fixed connecting to AIM on non-default port settings
• Fixed MSN HTTP connect method
• Fixed a rare crash involving invalid idle times
• Fixed a crash when connecting with a SOCKS4 proxy over AIM
• Fixed a crash when connecting to gadu-gadu
• Fixed the Run Applescript action (#4456)
• Fixed a crash in the log viewer on OS X 10.3

However, this is still a beta and things may not always work properly. But if you still want to go give it a try you can download it right here at QJ. Adium X requires Mac OS X 10.2.7 ("Jaguar") or later; Mac OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") or Mac OS X 10.3.9 ("Panther") is recommended. Adium X 0.88 and later are Universal applications which run natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macintosh computers.

Download [Adium X v1.0b3]

We have been covering the Adium X for quite some time now. It has been mentioned as one of the top 10 free Mac Apps around and it has became a factor on why some people choose to switch to Mac. Anyways, the people behind Adium has released a new beta version -- the Adium X 1.0b1, which is all for the improvement of communication and instant messaging.

In case you are in the dark about Adium, it is a multi-chat account client with tons of customizable options, which is such a joy if you IM a lot. This one can connect to MSN Messenger, AIM, Jabber, Yahoo and the likes. With that said, if you have this app installed in your Mac, you won't have to travel from one window to another since this baby gets you covered.

Before you download this one the Adium guys just want to remind you that "backing up a copy of the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Adium 2.0/ before using betas or alphas is probably a good idea." Here are some things that are new in this version:

* Major AIM, ICQ and .Mac improvements. This includes working File Transfer, and faster sign on.
* Improvements to the default look and feel of Adium.
* iTunes integration is much faster, and updates as soon as the song changes.
* Added global user profile and buddy icon settings. (Personal Preferences)
* General Account improvements. Accounts can now be disabled when not in in use, and friends can now sign on from your Adium without saving their information.
* Added an Xtras manager to better handle browsing and removing Xtras.
* Major improvements in privacy settings.
* Redesigned Previous Chat (Log) Viewer
* Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later (Universal Binary)

Since this is still a beta version, there are still some issues in v1.0b1. The bugs list includes some problems receiving some ICQ messages and an irregular crash on mac OS X 10.3.9 in the log viewer. This latest version also has a large download size, but it's all for the good - size is due to the inclusion of debugging info.

Download: [Adium X 1.0b1]