Well, since the ICQ, AIM, Yahoo pages are all so freaking cluttered and I never wanted to have more than one IM program open, I investigated and I found the right thing for me. GAIM is an simple program that does everything that messengers like ICQ and AIM do, but it can do it for multiple things at once. For instance, now I can be logged in my AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, and MSN instant messanger accounts all at once. Here's what you need to do if you want to go down this path:
Click Here, (I already selected the right thing so it should be the version you want.) After a few seconds, a box will pop up, asking you if you want to save the program or open it (and where you want to save it to and all that good stuff.) From there, just open the file you downloaded (it's an executable so you just need to double click on it,) then you go through the install process which should consist primarily of clicking "next" a few times (plus that, "I agree"
) After that, start the program up (if it doesn't do it automatically after the install) and then click on the "Accounts" button, then "add." From this window you select what messnger you want to use, all you do is type in the information from the account you have at home (username/email adress [depending on client] and your password.) You can have it remember your password and all that stuff. After that you can click on the "account" button and you can choose which of your accounts you want to log on/off of.
This explanation makes it sounds big and long, but it's just because I wrote it out as a step-by-step, you should be able to do it, but it was just in case.
I love this program because I can be in all of my accounts at once and be away in one but not the other, and yadda yadda. I'd suggest that anyone who is fed up with messengers that eat system resources (like MSN which has an update program that starts up with windows and slows the HECK out of everything,) and want something that can allow you to do all of your IM stuff without having more than just 1 program open, then I'd suggest giving this a shot. Any questions?