If you have a copy of BeOS running on your desktop, here’s something to liven it up. Provided on the CD with this issue are three programs to enhance your Net experience with BeOS. These are an instant messenger, a chat client, and an e-mail program. So let’s get started and set them up.

IRC with BAXTER

Baxter is an IRC chat client for BeOS 5. Once you mount the CD, go to \cdrom\beos, and double-click on BaxY_x86.zip. An expander application will unzip the zipped application. You can define the destination path to expand the software. To run Baxter, go to the directory where you’ve expanded it, and run Baxter.

To configure the client, select preferences. Here you can define a variety of options ranging from IRC colors, display, log, notification, and aliases to give a duplicate name, appearance, and sounds. Select the desired chat server from the server option, and enter your login name and password to start chatting.

Instant messaging withBeAIM

BeAIM is the AOL instant messenger for BeOS. To install it, follow the same procedure outlined above for Baxter, and expand the file beAIM_x86.zip by double-clicking it. This creates a folder called BeAim 1.0. Open this folder and run the BeAIM file to launch the AOL instant messenger login box. Here, you need an AOL account name and password to be able to use the messenger. You can register with AOL from www.aol.com or Netscape at www.netscape.com. Simply fill up the registration form on the site to immediately create an account. You can now start using this account using BeAIM.

E-mail with I.Scribe 

Scribe is an e-mail client that you can install for BeOS. The installation procedure is the same as for the other two programs. You’ll find a file called iscribe-beos in the \cdrom\beos directory. Expanding it will create a folder called iscribe-beos, from where you can run the program I.Scribe. To send and receive mail, you need to configure the Scribe mailbox by going to the file menu and choosing options. You can also import your mail and address book from other mail clients like Outlook Express 4x, 5x, and Netscape Mail client. You can maintain your contacts by right-clicking on the contact icon.

Sanjay Majumder