Module Two - Newsgroups & Chat

I have been part of newsgroups for Photoshop & Illustrator in the past. I am not at present and for similiar reasons as below don't wish to have to join a newsgroup just for this. Too much System Admin work. I understand the process and will use them again as and when appropriate.

I have organised a ICQ no. and looked at Trillian, but ultimately have real issues having any of these on my computer. All of these utilities install on your system and are quite invasive. I point blank refuse to have MSN function on my computers. I looked at yahoo and installed that. Now I have to uninstall Firefox and update to get rid of the bloody thing. I'm that annoyed I've barely done any study for the last two weeks. Most of these types of utilities have vulnerabilities that allow code to execute on your machine. i.e.

"The susceptibility comes from an unchecked buffer in the code that handles the input of a parameter in the MSN Chat control. By invoking this parameter in a specific manner, an attacker could overflow the buffer and gain the ability to run code in the user's security context."

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1087191

If you have broadband, you have serious vulnerabilities. I don't want to spend all my time acting as a system admin for my home network.

I do have skype on my machine, which has a chat function. I have used this to chat & speak with at least 2 other NET11'ers. As an optional task in the future it would be good to have those students with broadband experience skype (IP telephony). You can chat & talk, see & be seen, bringing the online student community closer.
That would be Nikki.