Chapter 6. Instant Messaging

Theoretical considerations aside, after selection and installation comes the time to actually use the technology. Then we must address such issues as usability, performance, reliability, availability, and of course security.

Part of this practicality must be determined by the selection of software and network model. However, the whole is always more (or less) than the parts, and when the dynamics of a practical network come into play, nothing is quite as it seemed on paper. Time after time, a seemingly decent design is committed to use only to reveal interesting and unexpected flaws determined by its context of usage.

In this part of the book, we therefore examine some of these issues from the perspective of real ...

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