[underground]

I'm a complete newb to the concept of IM, so would like to know what client to use - I instinctively feel that MS Live Messaging would be inappropriate as a way of them finding out things about my configuration that I'd rather keep to myself.....

[Houdini]

I can't answer this question but Herr Brenner in the other room says a newcomer would be wise to check out ICQ, and avoid MSN shit like the pest.

[Bubba]

Use Trillian - it unifies connections to all of these networks: ICQ®, AOL Instant Messenger(SM), MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC.

Plus there's plugins for things like Skype too...

[underground]

Thanks for the replies guys. Bit academic as the guys I want to talk to are 11 hours behind in NZ... and i want to do a video call...

Gonna look for some plugins, or possibly just plump for MS Live messenger 

[squeek]

Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) is good and open source.  It supports lots of protocols/apps. Skype supports video (in beta), but it's not very good in my opinion and degrades the audio quality.