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Jeff HesterKeymaster
Oh, you chatted with Osama too?
I actually saw someone on Odigo once using Osama bin Laden as their nickname. And if I saw God using a particular IM, should I take that as a sign to abandon all others?
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterThat’s a good one, Windahoner.
Yeah, the ghost smiley disappeared completely. If you don’t have the older version of Yahoo, you won’t even find the file on your system. Maybe it’ll be resurrected sometime in the future!
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterHey UnderDOC… how about posting a summary of what Grimbo does (for the benefit of those just hearing about it for the first time?).
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterWelcome to BigBlueBall… Great question about inserting smileys without keying them in. Of course, you have to do something to put them in. They don’t want to make it too easy, or else they wouldn’t be “secret,” would they?
In MSN Messenger there is a third-party addon called Messenger Plus that lets you assign any keystroke combination (sentence, paragraph, etc.) to a hot key. I don’t know if there’s a similar tool for Yahoo Messenger, but I think that’s what you’re looking for, right?
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterOk, I took a look at MS Portrait, and here are my initial findings:
Did some testing on two systems:
- System 1: Dell Pentium III laptop running Windows 2000 Pro and an Intel Deluxe webcam.
- System 2: Gateway Pentium II desktop running Windows ME and a Logitech QuickCam Pro.
Installation was a bit of a pain. I had to download the installer (as described in the README) and the application. Two installs and two reboots later, everything was up-and-running.
You can setup Portrait to automatically scale the video quality (frame rate, color vs black & white, etc.) automatically, or if you know what your bandwidth is, you can specify it. It will actually do video even at speeds below 10kbps!!! Not very good video, mind you, but it does work!
Connecting with other users is easy if you are both running MSN Messenger. Portrait provides a list of your online buddies. You send them a request to start a Portrait session. The message they get includes a link to click. If they already have Portrait installed, it’ll launch Portrait and connect the two. If they don’t have Portrait installed, there’s also a download link provided.
You also have the option of connecting via an ILS server (ala NetMeeting) or directly by IP.
Once you connect, it just works. It basically functions like NetMeeting, but with just three features: video, audio and text chat.
I tested at DSL speeds, and the audio and video quality was excellent.
If anyone is interested in testing, look for me on MSN Messenger as [email protected]
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterAwesome Tony. I haven’t used a Mac since 1984, so I’m not up-to-speed on the options for Mac users.
I did take a look at their site and the screenshots look pretty cool. If Fire does everything it claims to do, it looks like a powerful little package.
As an aside, if there are any Mac users out there who would like to help out here at BBB, the door is open!
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterHi Handi and welcome to BigBlueBall!
I don’t know what it is about the IM “tricks” but there are a lot of people who don’t want to share. I don’t get it, but I guess it makes them feel special to know what others don’t.
As for posting images, I’m not really sure. The closest thing I’ve seen to that was something posted at one of my favorite sites for stuff on Yahoo Messenger: WackyB. They had some recent posts in their forums on creating text with a background image.
For example, copy and paste this into your Yahoo IM window and send it:
<font size=16 style=background:url(http://home.kimo.com.tw/aoeex2/0023.gif)> Merry X-Mas from http://wackyb.co.nz
You should see a Christmas greeting from WackyB with twinkling stars in the background. The trouble with this is that the background image only appears behind text.
So, Yahoo Messenger provides some limited support for HTML, and there must be a way to do it (you’ve seen it), but I don’t know what it is… YET!
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterFirst off, AIM is free to users, but not to maintain. AOL has to pay for their servers, ongoing development, etc. Theoretically these costs are subsidized by advertising.
Secondly, modifying AIM to block the ads is a violation of your user agreement.
Thirdly, believe-it-or-not, AOL does provide an ad-free version of AIM. It’s a Java version called AIM Express. It runs on Windows, Mac 8.5 and up, Linux, and any other operating system that supports JDK 1.1.
That said, you have a couple of ethical options. You can choose to ignore the ads, or you can use another instant messenger that doesn’t use ads.
There are a lot of ad-free options on the Windows platform (Trillian, Imici, Jabber, even Sametime). On the Mac side, I’d recommend one of the Jabber clients (http://www.jabbercentral.org/clients/).
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterHmmm… don’t know about the “away” message, but to check if someone’s read your profile, you can create a URL to a web page with a counter. If you view my AIM profile, you’ll see a link that goes to here. This profile is hosted at http://www.aimprofiles.com. They have more instructions on how to do this (using their site, of course).
It’s not a perfect solution, because it requires the person viewing your profile to follow the link. But it’s better than nothing!
You could also create a link that went right to your member profile here at BigBlueBall. I don’t have a counter on those pages at the moment, but I could add it if there’s an interest.
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterHere are a couple quick screen shots of the new Trillian interface with the default skin:
The friends list:
The Yahoo chat window:
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterThis new version is sweet! I had downloaded an earlier version, but it ended up collecting dust in the far corners of my hard drive due to a number of problems, not the least of which was it’s lack of support for multiple users on the same pc and the annoying habit of dropping my connection to MSN.
The first impression: Trillian 0.7 looks fabulous! They’ve done a terrific job on the default skin. And Trillian is one of the few decent messengers that allows true skinning of the client (similar to WinAmp). And the changes extend throughout the product; the setup screens, the friends list, the chat window. Very nice.
During setup I noticed that it now supports multiple users! Yea!!!! So you can install it on your home PC and keep your kids (or your ‘rents) from logging into your accounts.
Trillian now supports a lot more of the special features of each instant messenger, like file transfer.
But the really good news (for me) is that it maintains the connections to the various IM networks reliably. I’m currently connected through Trillian to AIM, MSN, ICQ, and Yahoo, and haven’t lost my connection to any of them yet!
I’ll keep this one on for a while and let you know how it goes after a week or so.
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterROTFLMAO!!!!!
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterWell, if it was anyone but you, Ed…. LOL
It is possible to get your tongue stuck on some really cold metal object. Would that happen in the freezer? I’m skeptical.
Too bad “Rescue 911” is so old…. TV shows didn’t have their own web sites back then.
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterOh yeah? Well, someone at work told me a story about this guy that was so gullible, you could tell him the most far-fetched stories and he’d believe them!
And I think that one might be true!
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.comJeff HesterKeymasterQuote:quote:
Sorry Jeff. First I heard of that kind of problem intalling Magi. (Maybe Groove ruined your machine for Magi)LOL – Yeah, I’m sure.
Quote:quote:Certainly, judging by the Groove forums, that software is far from trouble-free, including on installation.You are correct, Groove is not perfect. But my personal experience with Groove has been much more positive. Groove comes across as an application that a lot of time and money has gone into, while Magi comes across more like something some guy has been working on in his spare time.
Quote:quote:In any case, you’re correct that this is a Groove forum and I won’t intrude re Magi. (And, no, I don’t work for them. Just a satisfied user.)No problem! Just hit the “New Topic” button and start a topic on Maji!
Quote:quote:In that respect, how is Groove working for you?Good question! I haven’t used it for a real-world project, but in the testing I’ve done all the features worked as expected with one exception. When you send a message to another Groove user, you get a status popup near the system tray. It still shows messages in the queue from when I originally sent them, even though I know the other person received them.
Also, Groove seems to be a memory hog. It has a “quiet” mode where it sits in the system tray, but I choose to close it down except when I really want to run it.
It has a very clean user interface, and a helluva lot of features.
Jeff Hester
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