I’ve noticed that many of my friends now use Gmail chat, and it got me thinking. Ever since I realized DreamHost can run a Jabber server on your domain, I’ve wanted to move to Jabber full time.

Now that a bunch of people I know are regularly using Jabber accounts, it seems feasible. So I’m going to start phasing out my msterry3k AIM account in favor of my mike@mterry.name Jabber account.

If you have a Gmail chat account and you worry about only seeing my pretty face when you check your email, know that you can log in to your chat account from any Jabber client ((I recommend Pidgin for Linux/Windows, but some people prefer Trillian on Windows)).

If you don’t have a Jabber account yet, one may be closer than you think. If you have a Google account, you’ve got the aforementioned Gmail chat account. If you have a LiveJournal blog, you have an LJTalk account.

If neither, you can sign up for one for free from jabber.org (most clients will let you register for an account there from inside the client).