IMs from outside sl

I have been told it's possible to send IM to friends in SL even when I am in rl, or unable to login . Can someone explain how please?

If you receive offline-IM's, you can simply reply to them (in a certain interval - the details are a bit fuzzy) and they get them delivered as IM's. Your email address does NOT get shown that way, but of course footers etc. will be transmitted.

There are also system you can set up that relay a message. You get a fixed email address, put the recipient name in the subject field and the text into the message body. There is one HUGE PROBLEM though: those messages get send from an onject, so NO message window pops up. The text will be seen (for the recipient) as if it comes in open chat. Also if they are busy they won't see it at all.

As above said, you can reply to those emails you get about offline IMs.

There is also SLim http://secondlife.com/SLim Which is an instant messenger client for your SL friends list. You can talk to people online with it, or other people using SLim.

You can also use the Zonkster service http://www.zonkster.com/index.htm

You can go to the slurl to get a "it's really me" code to verify to the receiver that it is actually you sending the message or you can still just send it without the code and the message will state that it is an unverified message.

You can also use METAbolt
I use this while at work sometimes ....