.:: to BEE or nut to BEE ::. Review on BeeNut

While lurking around the topics section, I encountered this one. The name fascinated me. BEENUT? If you look at that for a couple of minutes, the dirty side of your mind might come up with something and the clean side of your mind will wonder what's common between Bees and Nuts.

After logging on to the beenut website, I saw my first Beenut - an acorn shaped nut with yellow and black stripes and a pointy backside. heh... real cool...

In a NUTshell- BEENUT is a multi-purpose chat client that allows you to integrate your yahoo, MSN, ICQ and QQ chat accounts into ONE chat program. In other words it allows you to communicate with your amigos on Yahoo, MSN and other messengers - all from one place.

How I got started

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Beenut is backed by a decent site ( http://www.beenut.com) that gives you all the whys and whats of the software in an organized way. The software is still in its BETA version though. Still, the sight of that beenut prompted me to click on the DOWNLOAD button. The file is 8 megabytes... time to grab a can of ginger beer.

The ginger beer can is half empty, the download complete. Installation time. Its easy BEEasy...

I have BEENUT on my machine... YAY!!

Create a BEENUT ID

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Now that I got the BEENUT, I need a BEENUT ID! Back to the site... fill up a form... and I got a Beenut ID! All I have to do is pop the BEENUT ID into the BEENUT chat client.

You'll need to provide a valid email ID because they send your password by mail. Once you get the password, you can go back to the site and change it.

Now to explore Beenut...

First Outing

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Once I entered the Beenut ID and password, Beenut asked for info about my chat accounts. I filled in my Yahoo and MSN messenger ID details and started the darn thing.

Beenut was camouflaged on the right hand side of the monitor. Had to move my mouse that way >> to reveal it.

The interface looks like MSN with tabs on the side for the different accounts that you configure. Clicking on each tab revealed the corresponding list of chat friends. I had a couple online on Yahoo and we were able to communicate (IT WORKS!!!).

The chat window is pretty cool because you dont open multiple windows... you just switch from person to person by clicking on their ID's from a list. No moving between windows. Thats cool.

Feature-wise its got video and sound capabilities and many of the features that MSN sports. It also has the ability to log your conversations for future readings (or blackmailings heh heh).

You can also save your multiple account info on the BEENUT server so that if you ever roam around the planet, you can access them all with ONE beenut id.

Not bad for a beta version. Beenut scores.

Features

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It would be mundane to copy and paste the features that are clearly illustrated on the Beenut website. All I'll say is that for a Beta version, this is packed with quite a bite.

The one cool feature I did find was that it helps you stay INVISIBLE from your MSN chat friends. Yahoo can do it with its stealth settings but now you can do it on MSN too with Beenut.

Too early to quote on security features but it seems robust and it looks like a lot of thought went into its development. Trillian beware.

Best feature - ITS FREE.

Overall

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Beenut, once they release a stable and complete version, would be invaluable to those who use more than one of the specified chat clients.

take a peek at https://BEENUT.COM for more.

~finis~