HOWTO: Create iChat Links

I’ve always wanted to post or share my iChat link. But, couldn’t because of various obstacles. Either the email client didn’t know what to do with it or the web-based platform (in this case WordPress) didn’t.

There is a little known protocol ichat:// (much like http) which you can call from a URI. Example: ichat://geraldb28@mac.com (see? WordPress yanks the ichat:// part off and wraps it up in an http://)

THAT should have created a verbatim link. But, it didn’t. See, WordPress doesn’t play nice with that protocol (or at least recognize it and treat it with the respect it deserves… grumble, grumble).

So, I’ve tricked WordPress into accepting a different input but achieving my end goal. Wolf in sheep’s clothing, sort of. By going to http://www.tinyurl.com/ (see THAT created a link didn’t it!?) and plugging in my ichat://geraldb28@mac.com and creating a TinyURL… See!? That WORKS and you can simply click to launch iChat (if not already running) and voila! we can simply get on with our chit chat.

Share the joy. DIGG it. Whatever. I’m just glad to have taught myself something new today… even if the rest of you already knew how to do it. 🙂

iPredict iChat For Windows

It’s going to happen: iChat for Windows will be announced at Macworld Expo next week.

There’s just too much going on in that one app to remain bottled up for OSX alone. You wait and see. Next week. iChat for Windows. Oh, and one more thing