IM stuff

Posted on November 22, 2005 No Comments

A couple weeks ago, when Google Desktop(GD) left Beta, I decided to try and use the “real” MSN Messenger and AIM chat programs. It seemed logical enough — GD can index chats from those two and, combined with the timeline feature, I saw where that would be very useful both at work and home. I really like GD’s “Browse Timeline” feature. It has saved me a lot of time when trying to locate web sites I’d visited or chats I’ve had.

I’ve been using Gaim for quite some time. It is essentially an “all-in-one” IM solution that tends to work very well for me. It uses less memory than multiple chat programs and doesn’t have all the advertisements, glitz and extra chrome that the “real” clients feel the need to bundle in. And, after two weeks of using said “real” clients, I’m going back to Gaim. I don’t care that it won’t necessarily all be indexed into my Google Desktop repository. While there are some aspects of the current MSN Messenger that I like, I see NO redeeming features from the latest AIM. Yep, I’ll miss Nudge! And I’ll miss that little thing that lets you put a quip or comment next to your name in messenger. But running both takes up an unacceptable amount of memory (yes, I’m a mem miser) and I’m tired of having little ads all over the place. Even along the bottom of my chat window?!? Intolerable.

side note: Most chat clients do have the option to at least archive or log chats. Which is why I’m somewhat baffled that I’d need a special GD plugin to handle Gaim chats. I’ve found where they the archives are stored and they’re just in .txt files. Why do I need both a Gaim plug-in and a GD plug-in for this?!? I’m sure I’m missing something obvious, but I don’t get why GD won’t just index the txt files. Bah.

Oh, another side note. One of my favorite features of Gaim has always been activated via the History plug-in. From the brief description:

When a new conversation is opened this plugin will insert the last conversation into the current conversation.

In other words, if you have a brief chat and close the chat window, yet the other party elects to respond 15 minutes later, you’re not left wondering what the heck he’s going on about — the history of your last session is there in the window! Instant context. I was pleased (and perhaps a bit startled) to see that this is a feature in the latest version of MSN Messenger. Perhaps it has always been there? From the menu, just go to tools-> Options. Select Messages in the left pane and look for “Message History”. Check both boxes there. Top one turns on logging and the next one adds the feature I just described. Tres cool.

heh - final note: Gaim lets you know when the other party closes their window. For some reason, I like to know that.