Jabber’s priorities

Jabber allows you to connect to the same server, with the same user ID, from several machines simultaneously. I had already known that at the time I tested some Jabber clients, but had forgotten it because I had no use for that.

Now that I have two workstations on my office (and the number should grow over time), I rediscover the functionality, get some documentation and… get disappointed. They had a great idea, something that gave them a real edge on other IM systems, but they limited themselves to one particular case study instead of exploring all possibilities.

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Konfabulator Windows

Their server is about to implode, but it’s time to try out Konfabulator for Windows. Shareware, at $25, it’ll have trouble, but nothing’s impossible: Konfabulator has the advantage, over all its clones, of being designed for the final user. A nice slideshow explains how it works when you first run it; the menus are clean; the option windows are standardized; you only have to double-click a widget and it’s added — and, of course, there’s Konsposé. On the other side of the fence, all the free clones are heavy, poorly designed, sometimes even made for programmers who want to define their desktop layout by editing a text file (makes me laugh when people talk about Samurize as a viable competitor). What Konfabulator brings over from the Mac world isn’t just prettier widgets: it’s a well-designed interface, and it makes the hell of a difference.

Of course, I doubt this difference is worth $25 to most people. But, who knows — the market base is so much larger than on Macs, it may be workable.