Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the keep-on-IMing-in-the-free-world dept.
sidesh0w writes "Today the folks from Gaim released an alpha version of their Instant Messenger client for Win32." Gaim is the only IM client I've ever used; I still don't like IM, but Gaim is one sweet program.
The tabbed conversation window should be enough incentive to wait for a stable release of this program on Windows. Other than that, trillian or AIM+ pretty much keep me happy.
Tabbed windows are godsend. I hate it when I have to have several windows open. It clutters the desktop and gets pretty annoying.
Well I just tried it and to say it's crash happy is an understatement. I use gaim in linux and it's great, but for windows I think I'll stick with trillian.
Everything is plugin...so nothing but AIM/ICQ out of the box.
I was dropped AT LEAST 5 TIMES in 5 minutes
No copy/paste in chat windows (CTRL=C brings up "Colors")
No right-clicks.
No SecureIM.
Can't click to follow links.
COMPLETELY NON-Intuitive interface
So I don't agree with the "no plugins" argument (just go and download the darn things), but the rest are serious problems.
However, it's alpha! Why treat an alpha release like the final product? So, another poster said:
I did make certain to be distinct in saying WinGAIM and not GAIM. I've not used GAIM and from what I've heard and read, it's kick-ass.
I know *for a fact* that the point in releasing their "alpha" 3 days after the Trillian release was to steal thunder. I also know that seanegan is a frequent guest in one of the Trillian channels, where he openly recruits people to try his software.
Since there is plenty of "Trillian-bashing" going on in Trillian forums, I figured I'd point out that if anyone thinks WinGAIM is a viable alternative, they'll be extremely disappointed.
And I know....it's alpha. But if you're gonna run with the big dogs, you've got to be able to piss in the tall grass.
So any Windows Trillian or AOL AIM users who have tried WinGAIM and have experiences to post?
Re:IM in companies: a bad idea
by
Trinition
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
If you want to send code snippets, or need to transfer information that is somewhat complicated, use e-mail
Didn't you just say you might not get an instant reply? So what if you need to show someone a code snippet but DO need an instant reply?
archive the message for later retrieval.
Don't know what IM client you used, but I use Trillian, and it does archive things for me.
If you want an instant reply, because you need to discuss something, USE THE PHONE. It is much faster than typing, no matter how fast you type
OK, I have a little exercise for you. Read the following out loud on th ephone, and imagine someone on th other end trying to transpose this back into text:
for(int index = 0; index < list.length; index ++) {
x &= ((Integer)list.get(index)) << index; }
Do you seriously think saying "curly-brace", "binary shift to the left", and "cast to Integer class" are easier to say than type/read?
And what of presence? Do you have some way of known if the person you immediately need is available on the other end? Suppose there were three people who could answer your question... you might have to call all three to determine that no one is available, or sometimes at least more than one if the first guy isn't available. With IM presence, you ca see that immediately befoerehand.
Especially in combination of a tool like VNC
So you want people to mix-and-mach tools to try and come close to something that a new paradigm, IM, does perfectly well? Why even use a phone when you could use a telegraph? Why use a computer when you could use an abacus and some paper?
Within weeks, the IT guys were chatting for hours per day with the girls in the office
And they never did this with the phone? Or send each other e-mails? IM just made it so convenient that they started doing something they had so little drive to do before IM lowered the hurdle? Or maybe they're sepdning less time sending frivilous e-mail and using a more efficient conversational medium, saving disk sapce on the corporate mail server and gaining productivity?
Now, for some business cases that DO work!
Tier-3 support in city A conversing with Tier-2 support in city B, cutting out long distance costs.
Tier-3 support being able to participate in multiple conversations with Tier-2 simulatenously.
Completely tele-commuting-based company keeping their phone lines free for important calls while cutting&pasting code snippets back and forth.
Development office in city A conversing with development office in city B to get information immediately to anser the customer's question on the phone without perceived iterruption.
I don't know why everyone thinks IM is so teenagers can ask each for age/sex/location checks. It is a communication tool, and a very fast, conversational convenient one at that. People can use any conversation medium for good or bad (i.e. e-mail is getting overwhelmed with spam!) Don't chuck out the whole medium just because you've found one malignant thing growing in it. Just use your own judgement, and rules in the case of the fomer poster who works at a company where teh employees have no ethical control over their use of their work time (and the big bosses don't have thecalls to fire them).
GAIM was nice to have around on Unix. Too bad the presence of a widely-available Win32 version will force AOL to block it once and for all, in order to maintain their legal position against opening their system up to Microsoft.
Re:Voice Over IP support
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Does anyone know if GAIM is going to support Voice Over IP? IMHO that's the killer app for any IM platform.
Mom? Is that you? I told you that Yahoo Instant Messenger client was a piece of junk. Don't blame me that the audio cuts out. Hell, it's not enough you people can type instant messages to each other, but now it has to double as a phone too? How about using an application that was designed from the ground up to do voice over IP instead of this voice chat shit hacked into an IM client?
Re:IM in companies: a bad idea
by
spacefrog
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I use IM constantly in a business environment and have found it to be a major productivity tool.
The fact that your tech guys were using it to get pootang is not a valid argument. That is an HR problem. They could have been spending hours a day e-mailing, phoning or screwing in the broom closet, too. That is like cutting off all internet access because some PHB wanker is surfing for porn.
I use it to communicate with the person who sits five feet across the room from me. It is much less interrupting than a voice conversation, it doesn't matter if he is on the phone, if I have my headphones on, or if I am working from home, or he is working from home, etc. It just works.
We use it to communicate with customers. Much faster turn-around than e-mail. MUCH easier than trying to get everyone on the phone. MUCH quicker than picking up the phone, dialing the number, figuring out their extension, and then getting voicemail.
Much of my communication involves URL's, GUID's, SQL statements, e-mail addresses, large numbers (surrogate database keys), etc. I could not imagine trying to read a GUID or an 80 character URL over the phone and actually getting it right.
You say use the phone? Ugh... Even with a headset, phones are just a pain in the butt. Almost all of my two-five minute phone calls have been replaced with 20-60 second IM sessions. That means I can get back to work and am more productive.
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The tabbed conversation window should be enough incentive to wait for a stable release of this program on Windows. Other than that, trillian or AIM+ pretty much keep me happy.
Tabbed windows are godsend. I hate it when I have to have several windows open. It clutters the desktop and gets pretty annoying.
Free Mac Mini
Quoting the original poster:
So I don't agree with the "no plugins" argument (just go and download the darn things), but the rest are serious problems.
However, it's alpha! Why treat an alpha release like the final product? So, another poster said:
So any Windows Trillian or AOL AIM users who have tried WinGAIM and have experiences to post?
If you want to send code snippets, or need to transfer information that is somewhat complicated, use e-mail
Didn't you just say you might not get an instant reply? So what if you need to show someone a code snippet but DO need an instant reply?
archive the message for later retrieval.
Don't know what IM client you used, but I use Trillian, and it does archive things for me.
If you want an instant reply, because you need to discuss something, USE THE PHONE. It is much faster than typing, no matter how fast you type
OK, I have a little exercise for you. Read the following out loud on th ephone, and imagine someone on th other end trying to transpose this back into text:
for(int index = 0; index < list.length; index ++) {
x &= ((Integer)list.get(index)) << index;
}
Do you seriously think saying "curly-brace", "binary shift to the left", and "cast to Integer class" are easier to say than type/read?
And what of presence? Do you have some way of known if the person you immediately need is available on the other end? Suppose there were three people who could answer your question... you might have to call all three to determine that no one is available, or sometimes at least more than one if the first guy isn't available. With IM presence, you ca see that immediately befoerehand.
Especially in combination of a tool like VNC
So you want people to mix-and-mach tools to try and come close to something that a new paradigm, IM, does perfectly well? Why even use a phone when you could use a telegraph? Why use a computer when you could use an abacus and some paper?
Within weeks, the IT guys were chatting for hours per day with the girls in the office
And they never did this with the phone? Or send each other e-mails? IM just made it so convenient that they started doing something they had so little drive to do before IM lowered the hurdle? Or maybe they're sepdning less time sending frivilous e-mail and using a more efficient conversational medium, saving disk sapce on the corporate mail server and gaining productivity?
Now, for some business cases that DO work!
I don't know why everyone thinks IM is so teenagers can ask each for age/sex/location checks. It is a communication tool, and a very fast, conversational convenient one at that. People can use any conversation medium for good or bad (i.e. e-mail is getting overwhelmed with spam!) Don't chuck out the whole medium just because you've found one malignant thing growing in it. Just use your own judgement, and rules in the case of the fomer poster who works at a company where teh employees have no ethical control over their use of their work time (and the big bosses don't have thecalls to fire them).
GAIM was nice to have around on Unix. Too bad the presence of a widely-available Win32 version will force AOL to block it once and for all, in order to maintain their legal position against opening their system up to Microsoft.
Does anyone know if GAIM is going to support Voice Over IP? IMHO that's the killer app for any IM platform.
Mom? Is that you? I told you that Yahoo Instant Messenger client was a piece of junk. Don't blame me that the audio cuts out. Hell, it's not enough you people can type instant messages to each other, but now it has to double as a phone too? How about using an application that was designed from the ground up to do voice over IP instead of this voice chat shit hacked into an IM client?
I use IM constantly in a business environment and have found it to be a major productivity tool.
The fact that your tech guys were using it to get pootang is not a valid argument. That is an HR problem. They could have been spending hours a day e-mailing, phoning or screwing in the broom closet, too. That is like cutting off all internet access because some PHB wanker is surfing for porn.
I use it to communicate with the person who sits five feet across the room from me. It is much less interrupting than a voice conversation, it doesn't matter if he is on the phone, if I have my headphones on, or if I am working from home, or he is working from home, etc. It just works.
We use it to communicate with customers. Much faster turn-around than e-mail. MUCH easier than trying to get everyone on the phone. MUCH quicker than picking up the phone, dialing the number, figuring out their extension, and then getting voicemail.
Much of my communication involves URL's, GUID's, SQL statements, e-mail addresses, large numbers (surrogate database keys), etc. I could not imagine trying to read a GUID or an 80 character URL over the phone and actually getting it right.
You say use the phone? Ugh... Even with a headset, phones are just a pain in the butt. Almost all of my two-five minute phone calls have been replaced with 20-60 second IM sessions. That means I can get back to work and am more productive.