HOW-TO: Post YM Status Icon in Forums

I used to trade (mostly sell) stuff online and in forums. And for practicality sake, it is important for me to be reachable most of the time. Giving up your email address online has its pros and cons but face it, you would think twice about giving away your mobile number.

So is there another alternative to getting reached and notifying the buyer you are reachable? YM has been one of the popular chat systems since its inception and it is widely used. And I have been intrigued by forum posts with icons showing the user is online. And I assume you would like to put your own online or offline status just as I am.

This is really simple to do. To get straight to the point, below is the code. On some forums the syntax may be different but the URL is pretty much the same.

[img]http://opi.yahoo.com/online?u=YOUR_YM_ID_HERE&m=g&t=14[/img]

Replace the string "YOUR_YM_ID_HERE" with your Yahoo ID and it will show your YM status as an icon or image on your post.

The images should look like the ones below. First offline:

... then online.

There you go, YM status as icon on your post.