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AIM will be discontinued today

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Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#251

Post by ImSkeptical »

Frondo wrote: post #245
ImSkeptical wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you need to keep it on some kind of cloud storage drive arranging an annuity or trust to keep paying the bills. Then, you have a script on a cloud server that posts on Craigslist once a year or month, hiring someone to duplicate your setup on a new cloud provider, opening a port for one of your existing nodes to connect to and verify, and also ask that person to modify the reproduction script of the clone,…

Haha, a never-ending hell for the kids you leave behind when you die. Love it. It should email them monthly messages, too. "Your dead parents data is STILL SAFE."

I'd include in that email an estimate of how much money has been spent on the preservation campaign so far.

"If your ancestor hadn't decided to dedicate X dollars (inflation adjusted Y dollars for current year) to this project you would have inherited calculateInheritant(tauntEmailRecipient, currentYear, familyTree, preferredCurrencyDenomination). PS - please reply to this email with contact information for any new descendants. If email is going out of style as a communication protocol, please reply with a program that, when executed, will take from standard in a filename that contains a message, and as a second parameter a contact address. Attached to this email you'll find a project spec describing this program more rigorously.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#253

Post by khedoros1 »

benburleson wrote: post #102
mynewtb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why let Google invade your (and your friend's) privacy just something easily done locally.

Most people (including myself, an average HN reader) don't actually know how to do this locally.

As an average HN reader, that's probably not a big problem. Surely, you're accustomed to researching and learning to use new pieces of software that do the things you'd like?

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#254

Post by leetcrew »

kbenson wrote: post #194
kuschku wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get the impression that Pidgin, Trillian and the other one I can't really just gave up at some point. > I'm using Pidgin, mostly out of nostalgia, but the default configuration basically can't connect to any mainstream messenger these days (Facebook, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Skype or Viber). Plus the UI is so dated, especially regarding emojis. Pidgin supports Telegram and Facebook. Well, it did support Facebook, Face…

I have it in my head that Apple started this (or at least gave it the major push to mainstream), with iMessage. My impression is that with a major chat provider with other lock-in (the phone, which has it's own lock in, the app store), Apple was able to provide a good chat experience, add extras hard to do with a more heterogeneous ecosystem (facetime, automatic evasion of SMS fees for iphone-to-iphone messages), and…

i would widen the scope a bit. pidgin is a good example of the modular, open source model that used to be somewhat common in consumer software.

looking back, there certainly seems to be a correlation between the rise of Apple and the death of those kinds of programs. these days it seems like only products that target developers follow that model.

personally though, i think it was the transition to mobile that really did it. almost overnight people's expectations for UI design got way higher, and most of them don't really care about modularity or open source. they just want something that mostly works and looks designed. aesthetic appeal has never the strong point of OSS.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#255

Post by khedoros1 »

wil421 wrote: post #233
tunesmith wrote: post #182

One thing I'll miss about AIM is that it's a communication modality that doesn't exist right now. It was everywhere, and on MacOS it was integrated into the OS. For most people I knew, they had it set to join when they got on the computer. So it meant that you knew when your friends were at the computer, and you knew when you could have long "in the background" conversations with your friends. It was just a different…

We have cellphones now no need to know when someone is online. AIM and AOL before it were great when you don’t have text. No one needs that now when you have texts app or snap chat. The one thing I do miss are times when you could just find a random classmates username and message them. When you do this with text it can be a little more awkward if you don’t know each other. Why do you need to know if a freind is only…

Apples and oranges. I'd never use text on a phone for any kind of long conversation; it's just for quick messages, synchronizing meet-ups, and such. Part of it is that I don't enjoy reading or writing on a mobile device; it's a kind of second-class experience. Part of it is certainly that my patterns of availability have changed.

And part is because someone's status could give you insight into whether they'd like to talk or not before you sent a single message. Maybe some of the modern mobile-oriented systems still do that? I don't know; I don't have any friends that use them.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#256

Post by digi_owl »

mrweasel wrote: post #101
Cknight70 wrote: post #64

Something I'll miss about AIM and older chat clients is how compact they were. Most of these newer chat programs seem to assume you're going to have their application take up the entire screen.

Most modern audio players have the same issue. WinAmp/XMMS took up very little of your screen, while most modern players will assume that full screen is what you want.

Foobar2k on Windows and Deadbeef on Linux seems to do much the same job of playing music while staying minimal.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#257

Post by adha »

wl wrote: post #238
wil421 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have cellphones now no need to know when someone is online. AIM and AOL before it were great when you don’t have text. No one needs that now when you have texts app or snap chat. The one thing I do miss are times when you could just find a random classmates username and message them. When you do this with text it can be a little more awkward if you don’t know each other. Why do you need to know if a freind is only…

The point is that with AIM (or instant messenger, generally), you knew who was up for chatting. If someone wasn't up for chatting, they either would have an away message or wouldn't be signed on at all. Sure, I can text my friends at any hour. But they might be out at dinner. Or at a concert. Or trying to sleep.

> The point is that with AIM (or instant messenger, generally), you knew who was up for chatting. If someone wasn't up for chatting, they either would have an away message or wouldn't be signed on at all.

That's an interesting feature I think, but nothing is preventing that to be implemented on a new or current chat program. It would solve the distraction problem of always being available and online.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#258

Post by syntheticnature »

zeep wrote: post #166

That's a last minute warning... I never used AIM... is ICQ still being used...

They posted about it over a month ago (perhaps up to three), and if you used it you were getting regular pings about its upcoming demise.

As for ICQ, last I knew a Russian company bought it from AOL and it is still operational.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#259

Post by LocutusOfBorges »

tunesmith wrote: post #182

One thing I'll miss about AIM is that it's a communication modality that doesn't exist right now. It was everywhere, and on MacOS it was integrated into the OS. For most people I knew, they had it set to join when they got on the computer. So it meant that you knew when your friends were at the computer, and you knew when you could have long "in the background" conversations with your friends. It was just a different…

Telegram Desktop comes pretty close to this ideal.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#260

Post by Macha »

nasredin wrote: post #230
rtx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First it became live.com

Where does "MSN" and "Passport" fit in this orgy? Hotmail->Live->Outlook Hotmail - young rebellious teenager with 2 MB of storage Live - "experimenting" phase, "monopoly conviction? I do not recall!" Outlook - Older YUP, approaching middle age, quite cynical, but still might change, albeit with reluctance and complete lack of enthusiasm

Passport was what is now your Microsoft account (aka .NET account, Live Account, etc)

For a while hotmail was MSN hotmail and Windows Live Messenger was previously MSN messenger. Now MSN is just Microsoft's portal page.

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