I'm a pretty geeky guy, but there are quite a number of technological trends that I've known for a long time before I actually start using them, and where I simply don't know how much I'm missing. A particular field of software that suffers from this is communication software: namely instant messaging and voice-over-IP. I had an ICQ account in the 90ies (when I was working at SinnerSchrader in Hamburg), but basically used it to make lunch plans with a buddy and not much else.

Well that has finally changed. Within weeks I got a new ICQ account, a Jabber account, and started using Skype.

Jabber rocks. For all kinds of things, not just for messaging -- it's also a great notification mechanism, and all the scripting languages I care about have stable Jabber support. mabber from Cologne offer various great Jabber services -- as a Safari user I can't yet use their web client, but still, they rock too. And the new GMail/GTalk Jabber web client might come in handy, too, once a year -- yay for web applications.

(Speaking of Jabber and scripting languages -- I'm watching the progress of xmppd, an all-Ruby implementation of a Jabber/XMPP server, and it's starting to get interesting. Still in very early stages, and I haven't actually installed it yet, but if the current speed of development continues it'll turn into an exciting Jabber solution within the next six months.)

Adium is a mostly excellent and very well designed multi-protocol instant messaging application. I use it for ICQ, Jabber and GTalk and have not the tiniest complaint -- though the only thing that's a bit irritating is the fact that the application workflow is occasionally a bit more verbose than I'd like it to be (e.g. I'd like to see some menu bar icon enhancements).

And after finally starting to use Growl I'm delighted -- and looking forward to upcoming messaging UI innovations from the Gnome community who apparently are closely watching Growl, and starting to develop similar solutions and more.

Then I've just started using Skype, and I'm hooked. The Mac OS X application is slick and beautiful -- there are a lot of popup windows, but that's a problem no messaging application has solved yet (at least not to my knowledge). Using Skype is actually a little weird at first -- I'm using good headphones, and the aural experience is distinctly different from the phones I'm using. Very (very) good sound quality, to a point where the conversation is starting to feel more intimate, and where sonic nuances are much more pronounced. (Depending, of course, on your audio setup.) From what I remember you don't even get compression artifacts like on mobile phones. And SkypeOut is way cheaper than most other international phone communication solutions, not that I've actually used it yet (still hesitant to give out my credit card information without having a good reason).