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Before anyone starts pestering me on this, I want to mention that I've been using *nix based systems for a long while now. I'm a software engineer, and I worked at a linux based ISP for two years on top of it. I've installed countless distro's and eventually stopped using them all (mostly for gaming reasons). The one problem I have every time I go back to loading up gentoo (still my fav) is lack of applications I like.

Example: Trillian for windows / Adium for mac (click on Xtras, top right of screen). They're pretty looking, they're functional and have lots of addons. Linux has gaim (which I love actually, but it's the point of the matter. I don't have the option to switch from "clean and basic interface" to "fun with extras").

I'm a web developer, and my favorite database program to date was for Mac (Yoursql .. or look at this image). It's small, it's light, and it does 99% of what I need (which is just quick look ups and checking data). In this case, I LIKE not having 20 ways to do the same thing with an interface with a billion options. And no, don't tell me to use phpMyAdmin, or to use the command line, that's the easiest way to DETER someone from using linux. Yes I CAN use the command line (all my queries are written from scratch, I dislike those gui query builders).

Next is editors. Simple fixes here and there, I use Vi(m). But for my Php/xml/html/javascript/css, I want to see a program that just does web languages. For Windows and Mac there are TONS of them. For linux, there are a few, and most are either bloated to hell (eclipse, since it handles ALL programming languages for the most part) or just unstable with practically no features (line numbers? good color switching between php/html/css? tabs for multiple windows?). Given Bluefish is good stuff, but programs like this (IMHO) are few and far between.

Mac, I believe has it down the best. There are many programs, and (which is also the problem IMHO) many of them are not meant to do EVERYTHING. In the end though, you have a bunch of options(programs) to choose from, and they're really well built for what they need to do (lots of planning to put only what is generally NEEDED, while spending time to make sure the DESIGNS look good and are simple. The whole "i don't like it because it took too many mouse clicks" mentality that mac users have), instead of one or two programs that are meant to try and do everything =/. As much as I hate to admit it, eye candy is a major player. It's sad because Desktop wise, linux is AMAZING at it Linux vs Vista (I'm not trying to bash Vista here, i'm just making a point).

While I mentioned web development based things, I'm sure this is generally true for most people in most aspects of computing (I've had a lot of friends mention this about various things). I believe that biggest problem is the idea that "a program should do everything" mentality. When we build some more basic programs that are quick, clean and easy to use for any and all purposes (even basic text editors), then I believe that many more people will start to use linux because they won't be so lost from needing to search all over the internet for "a program to do X" (ubuntu / gentoo / suse all that those threads in their forums, the stuff really isn't that easy to find...) or overwhelmed by seeing the 500 options when they just wanted to write a few notes to themselves. Ubuntu was a great step at simplifying and getting people curious to install, now we just need to add more "stuff" to keep people here! The "Ready for Desktop" can be thrown out as it IS ready for desktop. Now we just need to work on the "Simple and Easy to Use" .. which will eventually lead to the new,shi

It requires Apollo/Flash to run "properly" (whatever it means). They are also moving towards ad-supported and bundled "partner" software model as per this post in their blog.

There's also Trillian http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/, which is pretty but not OSS. Basic version if free, but you pay for a "pro" version if you want advanced features. I used it for a few years but switched to Miranda http://www.miranda-im.org/, which as the parent has noted is OSS, but Windows only. It is customizable to a ridiculous degree but works great right out of the box. I currently use it for AIM, ICQ, GTalk, YIM, Sametime and IRC.

I tried GAIM a couple years ago but hated the GUI too much to look at it every day. I'll take another look at it now.

So does Trillian.

While I'll bite my tongue on your choice of clients, it seems that somebody is or was working on an OTR plugin for Trillian.

You might want to read through this thread here:
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/forums/showthread.p hp?threadid=69580

You can almost certainly use OTR through Trillian using OTR's proxy mode (where you point Trillian to the localhost as a proxy server for AIM, and OTR encrypts the messages and then sends them out to the real AOL server -- this method is AIM-only), and there does seem to be significant interest in getting a native plugin so that it works as easily as GAIM and Adium do.

Supposedly (according to one post in that thread above), the makers of Trillian have a plugin available for download so you can use OTR, and you can get it from this login-required link:
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/forums/showthread.p hp?s=&threadid=80721
(You need some sort of 'premium' membership or something.)

I would be very interested if you wanted to check it out (if you have a membership) and report back, and I'd also be curious if they're distributing source. It's a bit sleazy of them IMO to be restricting downloads of the thing to members only, but maybe that's just because it's beta. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt there, I suppose, since the Cerulean people have played pretty nicely with OSS efforts in the past, I've heard.

While I'll bite my tongue on your choice of clients, it seems that somebody is or was working on an OTR plugin for Trillian.

You might want to read through this thread here:
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/forums/showthread.p hp?threadid=69580

You can almost certainly use OTR through Trillian using OTR's proxy mode (where you point Trillian to the localhost as a proxy server for AIM, and OTR encrypts the messages and then sends them out to the real AOL server -- this method is AIM-only), and there does seem to be significant interest in getting a native plugin so that it works as easily as GAIM and Adium do.

Supposedly (according to one post in that thread above), the makers of Trillian have a plugin available for download so you can use OTR, and you can get it from this login-required link:
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/forums/showthread.p hp?s=&threadid=80721
(You need some sort of 'premium' membership or something.)

I would be very interested if you wanted to check it out (if you have a membership) and report back, and I'd also be curious if they're distributing source. It's a bit sleazy of them IMO to be restricting downloads of the thing to members only, but maybe that's just because it's beta. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt there, I suppose, since the Cerulean people have played pretty nicely with OSS efforts in the past, I've heard.

You mean the Trillian SecureIM with absolutely no verification on the key exchange (and therefore no attempt to stop a man in the middle attack)? The one that it would be trival to implement a server which kept a plain-text copy of every message invisible to both sides? If you really care about protecting your messages, use something like OTR, which is actually secure. According to this topic, if you have Trillian Pro, there is a plug-in you can use like the gaim-otr plugin, otherwise you can use otr-proxy with any AIM client. Personally, I use gaim-encryption more, but that, of course, is gaim-only.

Surely that's what Trillian did ? One log-on, and contact with yahoo or msn (or AOL, or others that I never used)

for the Trillian engineers! Seriously Instant Messaging needs to be opened up into SOME standard. I think MSFT/YHOO just got tired of being AOL's bitch. It isn't like they care about you you know.

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I second Microsoft Power Toys and add some more:

* AutoIt for simple automation tasks and creating small programs with graphical user interfaces

* Firefox, of course. Opera is also a good choice.

* Daemon Tools for mounting ISOs as virtual CD/DVD drives

* Trillian--AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, and Yahoo messenger client


* QuickTime Alternative

* RealPlayer Alternative

* IrfanView--small, free, fast image viewer



* SysInternals utilities--useful for admins

* Scanner--shows hard drive usage as stacked pie graph of files/folders

* 7-zip: similar to WinZip or WinRAR or StuffIt

* Foxit [PDF] Reader--a lite alternative to Adobe


Following ones aren't free but are very useful Windows-only programs:

* FinePrint--n up printing, universal print preview, etc.

* MaxiVisa--use a networked computer like a secondary display

* TextPad, though I opt for the open-source and FREE SciTE

Norton and Mcaffee both suck. I mean, they're both terrible, poorly written, resource-intensive programs. The best anti-virus software I've found is AVG Free Edition. Though, realistically, you only need AV software if you open email attachments and download stuff from websites that aren't obviously trustworthy.

For antispyware software, the only ones to use are Spybot and Ad-Aware. Again, you only really need those programs if you use Internet Explorer. Don't. Get Firefox instead.

What else is good and useful? VLC has been mentioned, it's the best media player. Some of these Powertoys are useful, especially TweakUI. For Instant messaging, Trillian is the best, though GAIM gets better all the time.

Other than that...games. I don't have any recommendations for those, you'll just have to find what you like. Have fun.

Google Desktop; Firefox and/or Opera; OpenOffice and/or AbiWord; and the requisite antispyware/antivirus apps, of course. Oh, and Google Desktop.
I also make heavy use of the following:

ClocX
Windows XP PowerToys (highly useful, especially TweakUI
Notify CD (bare-bones but elegant CD player)
ReadPlease (text-to-speech)
Foxit Reader (a much faster PDF reader than Adobe)
Trillian (multiple IM)
foobar2000 (audio player)

* Crimson Editor An amazingly powerful freeware text / script editor.

  * uTorrent Is there an open source Torrent Client in under 200k? Does it have RSS searching, bandwidth scheduling, automatic resume, and trackerless support? Yes? Oh, good then.

  * As -U- Type. Spell check anywhere. It's a great piece of software, if you can get over the fact that the author barely speaks any english.

  * 3 Plane Soft Screensavers. Ok, they're screensavers. And they're a rip off. But damn they're nice.

  * Trillian. 'nuff said.

  * The Bat! The second best mail client created, behind only KMail.

  * IZarc If there were need for zip clients anymore, this would be the one to have. Also handles about 50 other file standards, integrates really well with explorer, is small and efficient, and did I mention free? Best unzipper out there, including the pay options.

  * Folder Size Shows you how big your folders are. If explorer were made by Apple, it would do this by default.

  * True Crypt Data so secure even it doesn't know if there is more to be found in a file.

  * Thumbs Plus Arguably there are a lot of good applications in this space, and there are ones out there with better interfaces. But it is the only thumbnail application I've ever used that can handle upwards of 20,000 files in a single directory. If you take lots of pictures, this is the one.

  * DVD Decrypter Recently bought out by Macrovision to shut down it's decryptey goodness, DVD Decrypter is really a no-nonsense, no-fuss DVD ripper and burner. Want to rip a movie from a DVD so you can watch it later? One button. Want to rip it back to a DVD? Another button.

  * Microsoft Power Toys Nifty stuff from people who both hate and make the operating system.

And remember to use an antivirus, a firewall, and two anti-spyware suites. My personal favorites are AVG Antivirus, Kerio Personal Firewall, Spybot, and Ad Aware.

I am very sure Vista(tm) can be run under a Virtual Machine, just like XP or 98 (which runs smoothest in Virtual PC (vmware is another example). I am also very convinced os X can be running under such Virtual Machine. Everything is possible with emulation, only, you've got to pay a small price, a price of performance...

This emulator has to translate a lot of things like memory, cpu, disks, mouse, keyboard, com ports, network card, usb devices (plug 'n pray), printer and low system (bios) calls to the underlying OS which takes a lot of CPU power and memory usage.

If this would be still running that fast on that nice mactel; I do not know...

I am very sure a virtual machine will run os X on PC and Vista on the mactel platform; only the task to run it natively without emulating too much is a pain ful cruisade (sometimes)...

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Life is like a box of chocolates, You never know what you gonna get! right?

As there is a lot more to use of a human brain than currently used by the majorty; the cpu is also not used as it should be used and in most cases even overused; most stuff is programmed (very) bloated; like Windows itself, like Vista be very good in the beginning, slow (& more bloated) in the middle and bad in the end (ready to reinstall); unless you very carefully pick your applications and don't change too much than needed upgrades (like with linux: when it's running, keep it running!)

>>> ... When I started programming I had to be carefully get everything on a 360k floppy, program and data files together. If I wanted a OS I'd have to swap floppies or add a B: drive. The 720k floppy's where just coming out so I was saving for a 2x size floppy drive. The next upgrade was a 20mb drive ...

>>> ... The PC evolution has exploded in all kinds of directions; as well upwards in technology and prices as downwards in quality and programming; just like all consumer devices these times...

>>> ... I sincerely hope the same does not happen with the universal binaries and os X; I just started to work with it, after +15yrs of working with PC, grew up with OS2 v2+ and warp, DOS, GEM, cp/m, Windows v2+, Windows v3+ and trumpet netsock which was a emulator(?), ... I have finally found something which is not such a burden to maintain that hard and which just works: a Powerbook 15" with os X!

>>> With Windows I learned to not to go strange with your os;

- Get rid of Internet explorer *immediately*! get Firefox or any alternative before your pc crawls ...
- if you got a good graphics * editor or messenger(tm) client ; stay with it and don't install 20 others to "try";
- Get a good Virusscanner, a free one like AVG or payware like F-secure Antivirus.
- If you want to get a good program you got to look at the size too, a smaller footprint can mean a smaller utilisation of memory and system usage; for a virusscanner or anti spyware utility this can be very vital!
- I repaired lots of them pc's's and it's all because of these virus/spyware/strange-installed things!
- which comes to : be sure to know what you install, verify the source a/o file (bbs 2400 baud world was hard sometimes!)
- Get rid of Outlook and Messenger, go to Trillian or alike
- Do not open files

If only someone would code this idea.

Actually, it works worth several damns if the w*****s user is running Trillian Pro.

trillian
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

GAIM is an Open Source program, and therefore is completely free. Trillian has a free and Pro versions, but the free version is still quite capable.

Far and away the best IM client out on the market. No, its not open sores, but still, it's damn good.

http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/
http://www.trillian.cc/

Yes. Simple observation tells us that there is no way, with Trillian encryption, to verify the authenticity of the key to which you're encrypting.

If you just want to scramble your IMs to prevent a casual, I-wonder-what-big-plans- nzhavok-has-for-spring-break network sniffing attack, Trillian is fine. However, if you want to prevent your unethical business competitor from capturing your communications and finding out your trade secrets, you'd be insane to rely on Trillian encryption.

I suggest you do some basic reading on how PKI works. Google/Yahoo/MSN/etc. is your friend.

So, it is not inconceivable that they will attempt to become a universal IM client aggregator and replace the competitors clients if not their networks...

or you can get an awesome open-source program like miranda which supports ICQ, AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu, Tlen, Netsend and tons more... all in a ~3meg memory footprint.

Trillian is a similar program that works quite well.

I like it a lot because I've had IM since December 1996 and can't stand being locked down to one IM. Or, even worse, running 4+ different IM programs at once.

Most important for any service that Google provides that makes it out of beta is revenue generation. If it doesn't make money, there is no need to pour cash and brainpower in to develop it. So, how would Google make money? I see three posibilities. First would be to use the standard model of banner ads that infest the tops of AIM. Second would be to sell the product, like DeadAim http://www.jdennis.net/ or Trillian Pro http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/. Both of these solutions are not typical of Google products. The last option would be for contextual ads, like in GMail. This is an option that would be very server intensive (real time ad generation) and creepy, as Google would be reading all the messages that go in and out. So, in summation, instant messaging does not seem to be a market that appeals to the core of Google's buisness plan. Changes may arise, but all in all, this seems like a venture that Google would stay out of.

Trillian supports jabber... (of course, you have to install the plugin)...

Trillian http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

Trillian's junk doesn't get in your way. Skins make it look better.

Trillian's junk doesn't get in your way. Skins make it look better.

And licq and ickle and Trillian and...

I live in Canada so have never used AIM. I am, however, an avid user of Trillian and GAIM over ICQ and MSN. Now I'm not sure if it's just me, but offering tabbed chatting and logging features doesn't seem that impressive to me. Honestly, I wouldn't use a client that didn't log conversations and offer some type of window control.

I didn't RTFM, but I hope that those aren't the best features that Triton has to offer...

Trillian has informed me that Wikipedia has entires for all sorts of useful topics like "asshat" and "1337 h4X0rz"

For those of you who don't follow, the new version of Trillian offers realtime lookups of selected keywords. You can mouseover underlined words in chat windows and it will pop up with the Wikipedia definition.

Some info on it here.

I just recently discovered Wikipedia and think it is great! The way I found it was through Trillian. When I am in chat Trillian highlights words that have Wikipedia articles. Once I found it I immediately looked up my favorite subject, beer! Like you I found many mistakes. Of course I never completely believe anything I read even from so called experts. I still think it is a great site and project. As far as a teacher letting students use it as a source, I would allow it. There are almost as many errors in most text books.

Please god, help me forget about Trillian. Of course... remembering it keeps encouraging me to build my own (MSN is nearly done, then will be AIM).

Take a look at http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/forums/showthread.p hp?s=&threadid=53546&perpage=30 for an example of a bug that has existed for nearly 18 months and has never formally been acknowledged or resolved.

As much as I love Trillian and find it WELL worth the recent $25 upgrade, this slash thread is about FREE software. Trillian, as far as I know, isn't free (unless they have a trial version? I never saw one that I noticed.)

Otherwise I would suggest GetRight and Alcohol 120 (Although Alcohol 52 is doable)

Exact Audio Copy for cd grabbing
XnView for picture viewing
Subversion as code repository
Trillian 3 Basic as Instant Messenger
Media Player Classic, ffdshow, ZipGenius, and many others...

Look at their new options window. Now look at (or think of) Windows XP's new control panel.

Watch for MS's lawsuit defending their 'Pretty Control Panel' patent next week.

Agree 100%. When I loaded up 3.0 for the first time that was the first thing I set out to change!

Have you been noticing any connection problems w/MSN w/Trillian 3.0? Pecking through the support forums on Trillian's site, there appear to be others who have had problems connecting w/MSN, such as in this thread, or this one. I have a problem occassionally with some MSN contacts, where if I IM them, they do not see my messages, but if they initiate the conversation, everything works fine. There are a handful of folks where this behavior is fairly consistent.

Anywho, my fervent hope is that 3.0 fixes this problem. I tried out GAIM, but gave up on it because it couldn't do what I needed (see this post if you care to know why it didn't cut the mustard).

Agree 100%. When I loaded up 3.0 for the first time that was the first thing I set out to change!

Have you been noticing any connection problems w/MSN w/Trillian 3.0? Pecking through the support forums on Trillian's site, there appear to be others who have had problems connecting w/MSN, such as in this thread, or this one. I have a problem occassionally with some MSN contacts, where if I IM them, they do not see my messages, but if they initiate the conversation, everything works fine. There are a handful of folks where this behavior is fairly consistent.

Anywho, my fervent hope is that 3.0 fixes this problem. I tried out GAIM, but gave up on it because it couldn't do what I needed (see this post if you care to know why it didn't cut the mustard).

I don't speak any language outside of English, so I can't confirm this first-hand, but from the latest Trillian blog entry: "We've added Unicode support [to 3.0] to allow international text, and pulled that through the system."

Props to the folks at Trillian for their reference to myxomatosis

Never knew it was a bunny disease.
Radiohead rules.

This page seems to indicate that the new Trillian 3 will be able to do this.
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/sneakpreview/index. php?select=7
-- Josh

Shameless Plug:
Check out my plugin (for Trillian) 'Message Notifier' which allows your keyboard lights to flash when you receive a message. (Also can play music through the PC speaker, as well as priority music/sound based on user.) (Works best with PS/2 keyboards.)
http://www.geocities.com/joshprogramming/

Yes, in the upcoming version 3 (Pro only)

Or you could use Gaim instead of the official client and not get any ads. You'll also get support for Gaim's plugins, contact aliases, and tabbed IMs, but it doesn't support some of the AIM features like video and voice IM (they're working on it). Also, there are other unofficial clients including Miranda and Trillian. Or you could use an AIM hack like Middle Man (or one linked from their list of other AIM hacks) that remove the ads and add other features like logging.

ICQ was really big back in 1994, because well, it was free, AIM was still undocumented, and people were still learning about this thing called the Internet. These days, I recommend the free client for Trillian, which simultaneously supports AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, and Yahoo messaging. One application, keeps a running .txt history for every chat mode (my pet peeve is accidentally hitting escape in AIM and missing what was sent to me), you can Skin it, no advertisements loading in the corners... very nice.

Trillian

GAIM works better for linux based O/Ss. I like the Trillian interface better myself for my Windows boxes. Make sure you download the Tiny skin though, the default is huge.

As does Trillian, actually.

I use Trillian, so it doesn't matter to me what service they use. If google does an IM service, it won't take long to get a plugin to allow my client to talk to it.

http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/products/tech_specs .php

Quick google for old Trillian encryption exploit. I don't know how it's faring now:

http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/26690/2 6690.html

I still use it, as I put it in the 'better than nothing' column. I also have IMSecure on (56-bit DES, oh no!) but I'm a community of one.

- Rob Vega

Good thing programs like Trillian allow encryption of instant messages, largely defeating such a system (not only do the messages need to be scanned, but cracked and then scanned)