ICQ - I was hoping that thing had died - I used it many years ago almost when it started and had some awful experiences in the times when firewall was more akin to 'firewood' - hacked /crashed badly. I took all the necessary precautions, chosing to create restore points and undertake the task on the kids pc ! where things werent as critical if it was still a dodgey application or someone tried a nasty :-)
No problems with installing, but pulled my hair out trying to find the icq number quoted ... it just wasnt there. After reading the dicussion forum I found the correct number and can report the answers to the task as :
1. The advanced netstudies icq # is 337293557.
2.Authorization seemed to be given automatically
3. The about section contains the following text
'This is the icq identity I use just for my advanded netstudies students'
ICQ has changed quite a bit, I was impressed but glad to get this one finished because on the incorrect information and finally uninstalled it after having a chat with one of the students.
I looked at the IRC additional task and have to conclude that my favourite is MSN. It integrates better in to Windows and is a standard app really with good documentation. Since starting this course Ive made a few conversations with students and is really easy to use and user friendly, even my folks are now using it and we're having chats all the time.
