So I have made the extra bar below the post to show if the author has any im services.

But to allow it to appear or not appear depending on the author requires a check to see if the author has given any im service info just as in the pop_up_profile form. Now my question is how do I check the database to see if the posters author has given an im service?
I tried to follow the same way as in the pop_up_profile but can't figure out how to query the database and match the author with their profile settings.
If I can figure out how to make them appear if a user has the im service specified in their profile then it will be done.