Hello v1.0

The start of our review/ tutorial for using Google's Hello (photo sharing messenger)...
Before Yahoo! Messenger v7 and their Photo Sharing was Google's Hello (http://www.hello.com/) and cool it was... and cool it still is :) Hello is a very basic one on one IM (Instant Messenger) whose main feature (and draw card) is the ability to easily and quickly share your digital photos (along with easy access to recently viewed pictures), individual web cam shots (it doesn't have a web cam feature but you can take and capture photos from your cam to send), it allows you (using Microsoft Internet Explorer only) the send screenshots of webpages and it ties in nicely (yet remains independent of) Picasa and Blogger. If you're looking for a basic IM client that allows you to have general text chat, file transfer and share photos then Hello is just the ticket and at under 2mb you'll be more than happy with what Hello can offer. There is limited help documentation available at Hello: Help Content but they do provide a Supprt Ticket system (shared with Picasa) and you can ask your Hello questions and look for support at the (shared) Google Group Picasa.

Current version:
Hello v1.0 build 651 (as @ 29 May 05)
file name: Hello651.exe
download: 1.46mb
installs to C:\Program Files\Hello
photos received stored in C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Pictures\Hello\{friends name}(to change location Tools > Options > Location > Change)
Ports Used: TCP: 4060 and 15000 UDP: 6000 and 6001
Hello: http://www.hello.com/
Hello Account Signup & Download: https://secure.hello.com/download.php
Hello Download: http://www.hello.com/setup.php
Hello Cleanup Tool: http://public.picasa.com/Hello­Cleanup.exe

System Requirements:
Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
300MHz processor
64 MB of RAM
50 MB free disk space
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
Note: as at this version Hello doesn't support proxy servers

Hello will start with windows for easy access (disable via Tools > Options > Logging In ), it will log you in automatically and save your password both very handy features if you're not on a shared computer (disable via Login screen or via Tools > Options > Logging In), you can have multiple accounts (so long as you have your own individual email account) so you don't have to share friends etc with other family members/friends in the same household (all they need do is create another account at Hello Account Signup & Download) and you also have a very basic profile option (Tools > Edit Profile which can be left blank if you wish) that lets you insert name, location, weblink to your website or blog etc), tag line (like a signature) and include a photo of yourself (or anything else).

The downside (personally) to Hello is that you're not able to login as "invisible" or temporarily block users, both very hand features we've become accustomed to with other IM programs and the main IM window is just HUGE, agreed this can be resized but it's still very limited and it still consumes an awful lot of the screenspace which can be very frustrating if you structure your screen with multiple application windows. Once logged in you're presented with your friends list to the left of the window and to the right is your profile and shared history, photo sharing (or just chatting) re-uses this space with photo sharing to the left and chat to the right and it creates tabs across the top which is a without doubt a cool feature as it makes managing multiple conversations and your friends list so easy simply because you're not scrapping it out with multiple (huge!) windows all over your screen.

Photo sharing is a walk in the park, you can use Picasa for easy access to your albums but this isn't required** or essential** as Hello supports drag and drop of images from any folder. Simply drag Hello to one side of your screen, pop open the folder you have your images in eg your My Pictures folder, then left click on the image you wish to share, hold and drag it across to the left hand side of your Hello IM window and release... tada! the image will start to transfer across to your friend. The cool thing about photo sharing is that you aren't limited to sharing one image at a time so if your scrapping it out with screenspace simply select multiple pictures (left click on the first image, hold down the control (Ctrl) key on your keyboard, then left click on the other images you wish to share, they will highlight blue, release your ctrl key then drag your images across to the left hand side of your Hello chat window).

** It may just be me but....
Drag and drop of images from your folders is really quick and simple, you can drag any jpg image across and it shares perfectly but bmp, gif and tif etc images appear to be sent by file transfer, unless you're using Picasa in which case it will share your photos directly in the IM window just like jpg's. If you're unable to get this working with other image formats while using Picasa head to Tools > Options > File Types (tab) and enable the formats you wish to use, select the image/s then hit
Picasa aside, Hello also lets you save chat history but it seems this process is manual, to save your chat history (as a plain txt file) right click in the right hand side of your window (where your chat text is) and select Save Log As..., then navigate to the location you wish to store the file, your friends username is inserted by default, if you have multiple logs then make sure you change this file name so you don't overwrite previous logs.

Yes Hello has smileys (Huge ones!)... read on....

{mos_smf_discuss:Other IM Information & General Chat}