Five cool Adium plug-ins

Adium is a terrific free instant messaging client for Mac OS X that connects you to AIM, Jabber, GTalk, Yahoo, MSN and more all at once. The application is feature-packed as it is but, like so many other applications these days, users have developed plug-ins to make it even better. The complete list has been conveniently compiled in one place, but here's five cool ones to get you started:


1) Capture: Sends a screenshot to the person you're chatting with simply by typing "/capture".

2) Blue Colts Adiumy: This icon set tricks out your Adium duck icon in a Peyton Manning jersey. Not a Colts fan? Don't worry, there are lots of teams and different sports to choose from (but, alas, no Chicago Bears to be found).

3) "Airplane!" Quotes: A random quote generator that's activated by typing "/airplane" into the chat window. This plug-in is very cool but ought to be used sparingly because a little Leslie Neilsen goes a long way. Trust us.

4) /brb: This plug-in sends a random "away" message instead of the standard dry and boring "brb" (not that it's boring when you say it, of course). There are over 60 different messages in this script including, "it seems my walls need ironing," "time to heat my watch," and "my penguin is giving birth."

5) iTunes Now Playing & Album Artwork: Use this plug-in to change your buddy icon to show the artwork of whatever song you're playing on iTunes. It will also display track, artist, and album info if you choose. Then, when iTunes is off, it defaults to one of the buddy icons already in your account.

These Adium plug-ins may not do a lot to increase productivity but any day you can work "And don't call me Shirley" into a conversation is a good day, right?

Tags: Adium, instant messaging, InstantMessaging