ICQ and NetMeeting work extremely well together, provided both parties have the latest versions. Information on versions of both ICQ an NetMeeting is found on the Version Watch page.

ICQ (a buddy system on steroids from Mirabilis) provides a platform for determining the online status of people in your "contact circle" and  a mechanism for determining their current IP addresses (the ubiquitous www.xxx.yyy.zzz number that determines who is who on the internet), the two pieces of information necessary to initiate a NetMeeting call. Of course the ILS servers provide that same information but they tend to be unreliable and clumsy. ICQ provides a quick message sending and chatting protocol and a method for establishing a NetMeeting call.

An interesting feature (the server/client selection in the calling dialog) in the current version of ICQ allows NetMeeting calls to be made to individuals behind NAT routers, proxies and firewalls. Assuming an ICQ connection is possible the caller can reverse the Caller/callee relationship so that the person behind the NAT can be the caller and initiate the Netmeeting call -- usually the only way that Netmeeting calls work from behind the NAT.

Mirabilis also provides web access to status information about individuals (if they so allow). Samples of the use of this information is found in the sample contact center page in this web and in the footer of the web pages. I have noticed that this status information occasionally does not operate correctly ( i.e. it fails to download the graphic -- I am not sure if this is a Mirabilis site overload problem or what).

Basically it consists of an image tag:

where "any-ICQ-number" is a valid ICQ number and "x" is a number between 1 and 9 indicating the style of image required.

Sample styles:

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)

As of this writing three possible statuses will get displayed:

1. offline (when user is offline, invisible or disconnected)
2. online (when user is online --even if unavailable, occupied or do not disturb is set)
3. indicator disabled (when user has set "not web accessible")

You can control your online/offline status visible on the web by setting your invisible/visible status. Through some experimenting with the invisible status I have uncovered a strangeness-- it may be a bug or it may be by design -- I am not sure.

If you go from "disconnected" to "invisible" state your reported status will be "online". However if you go from a "connected" state to "invisible" your reported status will be "offline".

An unfortunate consequence of this is that if you shut down in the invisible state you are seen to disconnect -- when you reboot you return to the "invisible" state but are seen to come from being "disconnected" and are recorded as "online". A quick change to "connected" followed by a change to "invisible" resets the desired web visible state. (Note as of July 15,1998 - the first time I noticed it so it might have been this way for a while) this quirk no longer exists -- when you are "invisible" and reboot your status stays "offline".

You can also, in your privacy set-up, make yourself visible to a certain group of individuals (perhaps your immediate associates) regardless of your invisible status. They will see you with an eye icon indicating that you are visible to them.

Other web based accesses include: