IM, upgrading, why not just vote Republican already?
Hey Becks, how 'bout that repeal of habeus? Awesome, huh? I know you're with me!
So, you know, some of your friends with Apples not only have really awesome IM clients, but also really awesome computers. Just saying.
I'm immune to banning. It's one of my super powers.
So what's your really awesome IM client, B?
Some googling says that Adium is a nice mac client.
God, I've been suckered into giving advice on the "best tasting cigarette" thread.
Hee. Admit it, Ogged: in your heart you're already one of us.
Don't waste your time trying to convert me to getting a Mac. My computer's from work. I don't have a choice.
Becks is only following orders. Becks uses IM. Becks is a Nazi.
Fact: Ogged has IMed me. Ogged is a hypocritical Nazi.
I'm sure Ogged will claim he didn't enjoy it but oh yes he did.
And none of this name-calling is solving my problem. Grrrr.
Like everything else, IM is hopeless. Don't try to fool yourself about that.
"Habeas", Ogged, with two a's . If you misspell that word you stay in jail. The judge just laughs at you, especially if you're a terrorist too.
Those were extraordinary circumstances, you nazi messenger. But no worries, let me smurf you up a client that you can smurf with to your heart's content.
I need an RSS reader. I also need to know how to use one, but can figure that out after I know which one to use.
Mac or Windows? Or just use Google Reader.
I use this and like it a lot. Google Reader is also very good though, if you're not a crack monkey about refreshing.
I use bloglines, which I believe is passé, but it works fine for me.
OK, I got motherfucking AIM 6.1 to work by turning off my firewall (ZoneAlarm). But running firewall-less seems kind of dicey. I've been having some other firewall issues with ZA lately as well. Anyone have a recommendation for another free firewall?
I recall Tom recommending against software firewalls altogether, and I've been running without one for the past year.
I recall Tom recommending against software firewalls altogether, and I've been running without one for the past year.
And a small town in Belarus has never been so prosperous.
The software formerly known as gaim works on Windows.
I'm behind a router and don't do any cafe computing, so I don't worry about it.
The Verbot on software firewalls was a little ambiguous, as I recall; he didn't think that you should stop running, say, ipfw or iptables.
cafe computing
Did you just make this phrase up? It's perfect lifestylereporterese.
I did indeed, young Ben.
Tom's comment on software firewalls.
In my experience one can never find a good iptable when cafe computing.
I believe there was a recent post with photo documentation of your cafe computing, actually, Mr. Ogged.
Screwed up the html in 41, but it's just upthread of what I linked in 40.
I occasionally cafe compute but I'm not very stupid about clicking on things. (Although stupid enough to upgrade software, costing me 3 hours on the weekend.)
(But if someone has a trustworthy link to 6.0, I might use that in the interim.)
FileHippo has a ton of old versions. Including 6.0.28.1, which I downloaded last December and which works. I think it wants to upgrade, but you can tell it to fuck off.
I also need to know how to use one, but can figure that out after I know which one to use.
FeedReader works great. It's pure Win32 and not .NET, so it doesn't explode and it isn't fat and generally runs on everything, there are no bugs and it just generally works. The UI has a coupla very minor quirks (you can't highlight the text in a post in a window and cut and paste it, it wants to search instead; you have to click on the title of the post to go to a page) but they're updating regularly. So it is totally unlike most of the other readers I've tried which are either too fat or way way too buggy.
m, HTH
The pidgin software Ben recommended in 36 is really good. A little ugly, but a good aggregator for AIM and Google Chat.
Huh. I was going to recommend Gaim, which I'm running at work. It's no Adium, but what is?
Trillian is much better, but it doesn't support Jabber unless you pay, and what's up with that?
Speaking of cafe computing, I've now been in this cafe long enough that I'm hearing "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel for the second time.
Also, I completely support getting more people hooked on IM, since I'm usually bored at work.
Nother stupid question, Great News keeps asking me if I want sites' Atom feed or RSS feed or RSS1 feed or RSS2 feed. What's the difference?
IM is nice if, like me, you
1. work in an office with over a thousand people in it
2. you hate talking to people on the phone.
In the "add feed" window, if I can't find a link to a site's feed, I just type in the URL of the site. Then Great News says it has found several feeds, and asks which I would prefer.
But anyway, what's the difference?
They're slightly different protocols for publishing content; the format doesn't matter (GreatNews can read them all), but the content might be different for each: one might be an excerpt, one full posts, one posts and comments, etc. For blogger blogs, the Atom feed is usually the default with full posts. Blogs on other platforms should have links to their feeds on the front page.
If you care about the technical differences, you can read this.
"never, ever upgrade software because only pain and heartbreak is down that path" mantra
I try to remember to keep the old installers (or the last that worked) but I should remember just not to upgrade at all until its unavoidable.
I also found Trillian to work quite beautifully, especially since it aggregates MSN and AIM with no problem (as well as ICQ and Yahoo). It also does the auto-logging. Don't know if the newer version covers Google Chat though.
My Windows friends swear by Trillian.
I'm a GAIM user myself. I believe Trillian
has plugins that talk to all the major
IM systems.
It's quite nice that in one window, my friend
who has IDs on 4 different IM systems shows
up as one icon when they're online, on any
of those systems.
The title promised a much, much more interesting post than this actually was. I feel cheated now.
53: Or 3), you have an annoying coworker who wants you to be responsive to verbal commands at all times and who is irked by your new noise-cancelling headphones, yet you need to present a thin veneer of cooperativeness to keep the whole situation from blowing up.
Chet comments in verse now?
I completely disagree with the advice about software firewalls in 40. Software firewalls are another layer of protection, and if you use wireless, Windows, or look at strange things on the web, you need all the protection you can get. If it takes two vulnerabilities to compromise your system rather than one, it will be more difficult to compromise your system. If analogies weren't banned, one could think of adding another lock to a door. They both do about the same thing, but the second one makes the whole enterprise much less worth it to the interloper. Software firewalls are also generally updated automatically if problems are found, which may or may not be true of a router.
Zone Alarm, on the other hand, is mostly broken.
The good, free software firewall is Kerio, now known as Sunbelt Kerio. Google it. There is an upgrade to paid but it adds nothing of any interest to firefox users. Zonre Alarm is horrible, Norton is evil. KPF has never broken anything for me.
Trillian is a pretty good multi-IM client for windows, though I do find the multitude of windows and stuff very confusing sometimes. There may be a skin somewhere for it that is neither fugly nor illogical. I'd certainly try it rather than all 80 tons of AIM.
It does do Google talk, though with a slightly strange interface that shows not only who you are tlaking to, but what client they are using.
"There may be a skin somewhere for it that is neither fugly nor illogical"
I think you misunderstand the nature of skinning. Illogically fugly disasters are the whole point.
Even with the factory supplied ones?
in re firewalls, I think I could probably do without one on the desktop machine, which only I use; but on anyone else's, and the laptop, I not only run a firewall, but noscript on firefox as well as adblock. IE is, so far as possible, banned. I even follow the great rule of computer security, which is not to surf porn sites. I think that makes me reasonably secure, though I am still creeped out by the insecurities every time I use a hotel's network. However, my longing for friendly electrons is stronger.
I've been cafe computing without a condom for nearly a decade, and I've never caught anything.
Gaim is the only decent AIM alternative client for Windows that I know of. It also has a fully Mineshaft-appropriate name and connects to other IM services in case your annoying cow orkers insist on using an inferior one. Trillian also works but is infuriating, to me.
naim is the one I use, the only text-mode AIM client that seems to work.
Another shout-out for gaim, which is now Pidgin. It works with pretty much ever chat protocol (google, aim, icq if you're old-school, msn, ... etc) and it's a nice simple interface. I used Trillian but it's too bloated and flashy for my taste.
The thing that bugs about Trillian is that the main window (the one that shows all of your buddies) is invisible to Alt-Tab, so you *have* to use the mouse to bring it to the front. I have no idea why they did that (or even how).
I like Trillian but then got swooned by Meebo, which is web-based (nice if you find yourself on someone else's computer and DESPERATELY needing to share every thought with your handful of BFF'ers).
Occasionally, though, Trillian would not work with MSN or Yahoo, but I usually thought it was evil from Redmond or Sunnyvale that had rent a hole in the Trillian time-space continuum.