AIM Express lets you use IM without installing a client.

Do you depend on Instant Messaging for communication like I do? Have you ever been caught out there without access to your Instant Messenger?

I know I have been! Your friendly neighborhood Admin has been on location where I did not have administrative access to the computer (imagine that!) nor could I plug in my laptop into their network and do what I needed to do. There have even been times I could not get a cell phone signal or anything on my WWAN card. Some places are actually secure and lock down everything. AOL has an option to forward your IM’s to your cell phone via SMS but without cell service this wouldn’t work either!

Security is one thing but limiting functionality is another. So there are ways around the limitations if you can freely browse the web. Let’s get you back to chatting cybering dumb quick.

I use AIM Express from AOL. If a computer has internet access, chances are you can run one of these lightweight in browser clients. To add some icing to the cake they have just released their newest beta version of AIM Express.

It runs on Adobe’s Flash now and is a lot smoother than previous versions. The client is compatible with Windows and Mac (I’m sure a resourceful young go-getter like yourself could MAKE it work on Linux!) Make sure your system meets these requirements. If it does not, don’t fret we have another option for you. Keep on reading!

System Requirements

Windows

* Windows 2000/NT/XP/Vista
* Flash player 9
* Javascript enabled browser
* Recommended browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0, Firefox 1.5 and higher, Safari 3.0

Mac OS X

* Flash player 9
* Javascript enabled browser
* Recommended browsers: Firefox 1.5 and higher, Safari 3.0
On a regular basis I use Digsby for my cross platform IM’ing needs but when I can’t use Digsby I run this flash based chat. It is really easy to use and as always it is free. All you need to do is browse on over to here and launch it. As long as you have flash installed on the machine you are good to go!

But just like I stated above there are ways to get this to work on a machine without Flash. In this situation you need an older version of AIM Express. The previous version is still available and will run on older setups or more locked down environments.

As you can see there are no system requirements and the Browser requirements are pretty easy to match on most systems.
Browser Requirements

To use the AIM Express service, be sure that your computer is running one of the following Web browsers:

* Internet Explorer 5.5 or later
* Firefox 1.0 and later
* Mozilla 1.4 or later
* Netscape 7.1 and later

Note: Web browsers must allow pop-ups from AIM.com in order for AIM Express to run properly.

If your system does not meet the requirements, you can still access an older version of AIM Express.

(By): Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at askTheAdmin.com today.