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These days, it's all about staying connected. Sometimes you're stuck at your desk and you need to ask someone an urgent question. Sometimes you're on unfamiliar turf and you need a guide. This month, we look at an improved instant messenger and a Wi-Fi service that helps you find local businesses from your laptop. Both are as free as air.

Open This Window to Better IM

If you haven't checked out MSN Messenger recently, you're in for a treat and a trade-up: Windows Live Messenger. Fresh out of beta, this new client for Microsoft's instant messaging service adds many improvements to an already-excellent piece of software.

MSN Messenger won our IM shootout earlier this year, in competition against six other programs. But Windows Live Messenger one-ups its former self on several counts. It maintains the same clean, uncluttered look but refines it further with smaller icons and a subtler color palette. Unlike some hyperactive-looking IM programs, WLM doesn't appear out of place on a workplace desktop.

WLM introduces new ways to locate and organize your cohorts. A search box helps you find your contacts. If you know someone better by a name other than the one they use as their handle, you can enter that name (or even just a few letters of it) into the search box, and WLM will pull it up for you. Better still, once you've found the screen name, you can change it to whatever name you'll remember most easily.

My favorite new feature, though, is drag-and-drop file sharing. It's dead easy to use, and it provides updated information about your file's status--waiting for acceptance, then transferring--so you know exactly when your friend or colleague receives the file. PCWorld.com visitors say that the new-to-Microsoft offline messaging feature helps them out, too.

Windows Live Messenger is free. If you're a regular MSN Messenger user, you've probably already received the upgrade. If you're not a regular user, this new software may persuade you to give the service another try.

Where the Heck Am I Now?

It's just you and your Wi-Fi-enabled notebook on the road--and you're hungry, lost, and eyeing some gathering thunderclouds with trepidation. What to do? Skyhook Wireless offers a free and easy answer with Loki, a browser toolbar that pinpoints your location to give you the scoop on local food, maps, news, traffic conditions, weather, and more.

On the toolbar, a button labeled 'Find Me' locates you with reasonable accuracy; a Tuner button invites you to fill in a street address for better results on services. By default, Loki shows maps in Google Maps, but you can switch to Windows Live Local, Yahoo Maps, or one of the other three services that Loki supports.

Likewise, the channels that Loki offers through its Channels button hail from multiple sources. For instance, the Nearby HotSpots channel searches for Boingo, GoogleMob, JiWire, and T-Mobile listings. If the channels don't address a pressing need, type the object of your desire into the 'Search locally for' field. Loki gave me solid results on such varied search terms as "haircut," "museum," and "comic books."

Loki comes in two flavors--an Internet Explorer plug-in and a Firefox extension. Both are in beta form at the moment, but I've found the Firefox version easier to install; the IE version seems a bit buggy. (Perhaps this explains why the toolbar is named for the Norse god of mean jokes.)

What do you think of these programs? Is your favorite file missing from PC World's Downloads library? E-mail your comments to Laura Blackwell. Messages containing attached files will be deleted unread. Vendors seeking coverage for their software should submit the files with PC World's file submission tool before writing.