Simkl is an application that will keep all of your chat histories stored in the clouds. This means you can access a chat from anywhere you have internet access, not just your local machine.
Something to download
Even though everything is stored in the clouds, there is still an application you need to download and run on your local machine. Simkl isn’t magic, it needs something on your machine to record your conversations.
What Simkl works with
Right now you can use a few different instant messaging services. Skype, Windows Live Messenger (WLM), ICQ, Yahoo and AIM can all have their chat histories recorded and stored online. You will also see you do not need to use the actual application. Simkl has been tested with apps like iChat, Pidgin, Digsby and many others.
Why use Simkl?
I asked myself this question when I looked at Simkl. For a freelancer or person who travels a lot for their job, having access to your chat history can save you a lot of headaches. Imagine you are on the first day of your business trip and you get an email from a client asking the exact price of the quote you talked about via Skype chat. Instead of telling them you will need to get back to them in 4 days when you return, you can login to Simkl and look up your chat with that client.
What you can save
If you use any of the instant message services, you can save the chat logs. These histories will be saved for later reading on history.im. Saving your chat logs in the clouds is a fantastic feature for those of you who use multiple computers during the course of their work week. Using Simkl will combine your chat logs so you don’t need to remember which computer you were on when you talked to a certain person. If you are using Skype or Windows Live Messenger, you also have the luxury of storing your voice chats as well. For those of you who conduct interviews through WLM, there really isn’t a good way to record your chats. If you use Skype, you will need to use a 3rd party application to review the dialog.
Having access to the voice conversation recording is ideal if you want to go back later and transcribe the conversation.
What else Simkl does
Another feature of Simkl is saving your instant message contacts. This may not seem important because you can always just re-download the IM application and sign in again if your PC crashes. Well, what if your account gets hacked and you can’t access it? If you are looking for a specific part of a conversation but don’t remember when it was, you can search through all of your logs for a specific bit of text. I don’t know about you, but I am a big IM user and it can be a huge pain to remember who you talked to about what. Searching for a phrase can be a monstrous time saver. What are your must have instant messaging applications or add-ons?
