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Next iChat version to include Jabber support

SeaFox writes "A couple of stories about new features in the next version of Mac OS X have revealed that the new iChat 3.0 will include support for Jabber. With businesses able to host their own messaging servers behind the firewall and use it with Apple's included IM client, will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?"

328 comments

  1. What we really need by Kokuyo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is one IM client supporting all widely used standards while NOT taking 5 minutes to start up like my ICQ :). I'd be willing to pay money for such a thing.

    Is there an IM client that supports ICQ functions like server hosted friends lists? Preferrably one that is available under linux and windows.

    1. Re:What we really need by leonmergen · · Score: 5, Informative
      --
      - Leon Mergen
      http://www.solatis.com
    2. Re:What we really need by quigonn · · Score: 5, Informative

      gaim does what you want:
      - it's cross-plattform (Windows, OSX, Linux)
      - it supports server hosted friends list
      - it starts up quickly
      - it supports a lot of different protocols
      - it's free as in speech

      I, for one, run ICQ, Jabber and MSN with gaim, and had no problems with it so far.

      --
      A monkey is doing the real work for me.
    3. Re:What we really need by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

      I know I should be very embarrassed now :).

      I read the word so often and never took the time to look into it. Thanks! :)

    4. Re:What we really need by sigaar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      With a jabber client you don't really need an IM that supports multiple protocols, because that can be done on the jabber server via transports.

      In other words, you connect to the jabber server, and the server hooks you up to your msn, icq, yahoo, ect. accounts. You can configure your transports with a client like PSI http://psi.affinix.com

      If you don't want to do it that way, gaim http://gaim.sourceforge.net can connect to a host of protocols. Mine starts and connects to six different accounts in about 4 seconds (P-III, slow disc). It supports IRC too...

      In KDE you have kopete as well, that does the same thing.

      --
      sigaar
    5. Re:What we really need by geordie_loz · · Score: 0

      the important thing is the adoption of Jabber. We (FLOSS peeps) want nice open protocols that don't change every five minutes and require a new (updated) client.

      The problem is that you need people to have Jabber accounts, this iChat stuff could mean a better up-take. I use gaim because I need to chat to MSN peeps, and convincing others to use a better (open) protocol is hard because all their friends use it.

      What would be really cool would be a multi-protocol client which allowed a Jabber user to be seen in MSN, and to communicate inter-protocol.

      Roll on when people use the best product rather than the default installed one... Until then, we'll have to be happy with some of the default stuff supporting decent standards.

    6. Re:What we really need by HateBreeder · · Score: 1

      For windows there's Miranda. It supports all major protocols, including Jabber, MSN, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo! and others. Miranda is designed to be resource efficient and easy to use. It uses very little memory and requires no installation. It loads up in just a few seconds on my pc.

      --
      Sigs are for the weak.
    7. Re:What we really need by Mister+Blonde · · Score: 1

      Yeah but there is no working support for video right now..
      Even gaim-vv still doesn't work well.

    8. Re:What we really need by dasmegabyte · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use iChat on my mac, because I like the integration with Address Book. Trillian is good -- support for AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, IRC, MSN and when you add a contact from any of these, it adds it to the server list. Uses its own collapsable groups, so you can mix contacts from different messaging systems/IRC. The only problem with it is that it's heavily skinnable, so the interface is balls slow.

      ATTN ALL UTILITY SOFTWARE AUTHORS: Microsoft/Apple/X.org is much, much better than you are at writing fast, responsive GUI hooks. Don't reinvent the wheel just so some clown can make his AIM client look like those screens in Star Trek. Use the default windowing API and be done with it, skinning is chicken legs.

      Still worth a couple bucks though, if only for the fact that I can dock it to the side of the screen, put an extra teeny tiny skin on it (still rather have a standard window with an 8 pt font) and then show/hide it with a keyboard command. Really helps increase the screen real estate for my IDE (you can NEVER have enough real estate for an IDE, man, not even with that ridiculous new Apple monitor).

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
    9. Re:What we really need by jokell82 · · Score: 1

      gaim does what you want:
      - it's cross-plattform (Windows, OSX, Linux)


      I would love to know where you got your OS X copy of gaim. I was under the impression that no one was going to port it as so many clients on OS X (Adium, Fire, and Proteus) already use libgaim.

      --
      I dunno who it is
      but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
    10. Re:What we really need by hpavc · · Score: 1

      its not clear that the ichat client will support registration of transports

      --
      members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
    11. Re:What we really need by AndyElf · · Score: 4, Informative

      While GAIM might have a very good coverage, as far as IM networks are concerned, I can't say that I enjoy running it in the situations when I have to -- e.g. when I am on my BSD box.

      When it comes to MacOS X, there are several worthy contenders: Fire, Adium to name a few. All of them are Cocoa apps and you do not need to run X11 to use them.

      --

      --AP
    12. Re:What we really need by sigaar · · Score: 1

      Granted, I don't know that either. What I do know is if you have your transports defined, you can pretty much use any jabber client, even if they don't support setup of transports. Your transported contacts will still show.

      --
      sigaar
    13. Re:What we really need by geoffspear · · Score: 1

      Adium integrates with the Address Book too, and supports all of the major services via libgaim.

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    14. Re:What we really need by nuggetman · · Score: 1

      It can be compiled from source w/ some work
      Fink makes it easier because it tracks down dependencies for you

      --
      ...and that's all there is to it.
    15. Re:What we really need by hpavc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If Apple doesnt want to support this they can easily not do this.

      I personally would like apple not to allow transports at this stage. This would give Jabber the injection in need for further development.

      Given that the jabber 2.0 author is out of the picture until further notice and may not come back and v1.4.3 is lacking for many people (though an awesome product). Perhaps apple can pickup the check for a developer or two and bring jabber2.0 into production.

      Transports are politically charged will come quickly if the server side stuff is more robust.

      The two JEP's for avatars are also been declined. I wonder what iChat3 uses. I cannot wait.

      --
      members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
    16. Re:What we really need by sigaar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "If Apple doesnt want to support this they can easily not do this."

      On the server side, yes. On the client side, no. The client doesn't know the difference. If iChat supports jabber, and you connect to a jabber server hosted on a linux box somewher, for example, that does support the transports, your transported contacts will still show, as jabber contacts.

      I do agree with your sentiment about OSX server not supporting transports. Besides the political issues, it's a potential problem as far as reputation goes. MSN and Yahoo especially change their protocols from time to time to lock out third party software.

      It takes only 15 minutes or so before the transport devs have figured out the changes and updated the transports, but that plust the time it takes sysadmins to install the updated transports, will reflect negatively on Apple. The market will see that as unreliable.

      --
      sigaar
    17. Re:What we really need by Durandal64 · · Score: 1

      You can compile Gaim to run under the X11 environment.

    18. Re:What we really need by fernique · · Score: 1

      Gaim-like programs such as Miranda are overloaded with features, buggy and eat more memory than a standalone Jabber-client, i.e. tkabber.

      --
      igor
    19. Re:What we really need by jokell82 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. There is no OS X build but you can install a whole bunch of stuff and run it under X11. To me that is not sufficient.

      Luckily Adium kicks enough ass that I don't have to worry about it.

      --
      I dunno who it is
      but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
    20. Re:What we really need by j-pimp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While GAIM might have a very good coverage, as far as IM networks are concerned, I can't say that I enjoy running it in the situations when I have to -- e.g. when I am on my BSD box.

      Ok and why don't yopu like gaim? Do you not like X? I agree adium kicks its ass on OS X but its great on BSD, Linux and Windows. If your complaint is that X sucks than your issues with BSD and Linux is the whole desktop sucks.

      --
      --- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
    21. Re:What we really need by cymen · · Score: 1

      I use GAIM but there are two big annoyances with it on Windows:

      1) It insists on displaying your friends list on startup when you just want it to go to the system tray and leave you alone.
      2) The away message always pops up a message on your desktop. WTF is up with that? I don't need to know I'm away. Tell someone else...

      Hopefully I just missed some configuration options.

    22. Re:What we really need by ratlater · · Score: 1

      It's actually not that hard with Darwin Ports. It does all the work, and Apple's new X11 server is very slick. Gaim feels just like a native app and it's very fast.

      I'd love to use Adium, but it doesn't support group chat yet. It will in the next release .70 though, so I'll likely dump Gaim at that point.

      -matt

      --
      http://thewonderllama.com
    23. Re:What we really need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Adium=GAIM

      if you read the adium page you would know this.
      Thats how Adium supports everything GAIM does and more

    24. Re:What we really need by smcavoy · · Score: 1

      I've been using proteus for many months now, and even paid for it.
      I've found its integration with os x to be excellent.
      www.proteusx.com

    25. Re:What we really need by the_truk_stop · · Score: 1
      one IM client supporting all widely used standards
      If by "standards" you mean trash like AIM, ICQ, MSN, or (ugh) Yahoo, don't be confused. Just because they're widely used doesn't make them standards. They're undocumented protocols.
    26. Re:What we really need by jokell82 · · Score: 1

      I'd love to use Adium, but it doesn't support group chat yet. It will in the next release .70 though, so I'll likely dump Gaim at that point.

      So you can use Gaim but not SVN? ;o) The latest source works great for me, and the new buddy list is awesome. I couldn't imagine going back to .63 anymore.

      --
      I dunno who it is
      but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
    27. Re:What we really need by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      While IChat is not under windows, any jabber client is able to talk to anything because jabber does all that for you.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    28. Re:What we really need by Squareball · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the complaint is that on OS X you have to use X11 to use GAIM. X11 on OS X isn't that great and takes a long time to load up and is very sluggish.

    29. Re:What we really need by madsenj37 · · Score: 1

      I use Fire. I do not like iChat yet. It grows on me, but it hasn't won me over yet, maybe in 10.4. From their website: "Fire is a free Instant Messaging Client for Mac OS X which supports all of the most popular Instant Messaging services in one easy-to-use application: AIM, ICQ, irc, Jabber, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger."

      --
      Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
    30. Re:What we really need by Ma�djeurtam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Since Adium (can't speak for Fire & Proteus) is nothing but a nicely done GAIM port, for me it IS GAIM on OS X.

      What would be interesting, now, would be to get Adium ported to Linux (and, why not, Windows), using Qt, for instance.

      GAIM has a real problem of being ugly, has usuability issues, and lacks the general polish you get with Adium. The Kopete project looks interesting, but it's not there yet : missing buddy icons and file transfers in everything but MSN Messenger - and even there, it has issues with NATs and can't display a MSN picture full size (yes, real people want that).

      Has anyone experience in porting Cocoa (Obj-C) apps to Qt?

      --
      Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
    31. Re:What we really need by Sulka · · Score: 1

      A bunch of other readers said multi-platform multi-protocol solutions exist which is fine and dandy but when you actually start to use any of those clients, problems arise. The clients don't support platform-specific feature or UI requirements (especially visible to OS X users), don't support protocol specific features and are mostly buggy and butt-ugly as compared to single-protocol alternatives.

      When the multi-multi clients get the UI simplicity, features and looks of iChat, I'll switch.

      --
      "Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
    32. Re:What we really need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Their gui still has a long way to go

      Several of the entries in the tool menu are incomplete subsets of a similar entry in the edit account menu.

      If you don't RTFM you will never discover that it is possible to create a metacontact.

      It would be nice to be able to have a tabbed window that allowed me to edit all the different details of a single buddy.

    33. Re:What we really need by firedeveloper · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hey, come over to the dark side

      Fire http://fire.sf.net/ has supported Group chat (on AIM and Yahoo) for YEARS and now supports it on MSN and Jabber as well.

      Also, when I finish the AV work I am doing, it will support Video for iChat/AIM/Yahoo. But that will take a bit more time... I am only about 600 hours into the AV project so far...

      I need a less time consuming-hobby...

    34. Re:What we really need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      gaim does what you want:
      - it's cross-plattform (Windows, OSX, Linux)


      To Mac users, "runs under X11" doesn't count as "cross-platform" any more than "runs under Wine" counts as "cross-platform" to Linux users.

    35. Re:What we really need by imemyself · · Score: 1

      Trillian is pretty good. It's payware(well there's a Lite version but its a complete POS), not open source, and only available for Windows(it works reasonably well in wine though). It supports AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo by default. It also supports plugins, one of which is for Jabber. There are also plugins to check your email, to read RSS, and to check stocks(as well as many others). It's also skinnable.
      http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

      --
      Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
    36. Re:What we really need by AndyElf · · Score: 1

      AS rightly pointed out in another reply, we're talking OSX here (remember, it's iChat that is the subject of the story). Hence Cocoa apps have preference.

      --

      --AP
    37. Re:What we really need by AndyElf · · Score: 1

      Honestly did not know it. That then explains the assine view on encryption which pretty much the same as in GAIM land...

      --

      --AP
    38. Re:What we really need by AndyElf · · Score: 1
      I know of things being done the other way around -- check out Psi.

      I would not think that Coca -> Qt port would be that easy, considering that Objective C (Cocoa) is *not* C++ (Qt), nor is it a straight-through conversion of one into another.

      It would have been nice had GNUStep been more on par with Cocoa for GUI apps -- then one could recompile Adium or Fire on any Linux or BSD (or anything else that GNUStep would run on).

      --

      --AP
    39. Re:What we really need by rpk · · Score: 1

      Trillian isn't perfect but it does the job well. Also, they've got a free Jabber plug-in.

    40. Re:What we really need by jrockway · · Score: 1

      Not on my machine. What are you using, a 68040!? :)

      --
      My other car is first.
  2. Old news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Quite some old news.

    This was very well covered in the first documentation released on MacOS X Server 10.4...

    1. Re:Old news... by whfsdude · · Score: 1

      Yes Apple did say that the server would have jabber support so windows and linux users could connect. Apple never announced that ichat would have jabber support. Will Apple use their video and audio on jabber? What will this mean for the jabber community. There are no good Mac OS X jabber clients so this a really good thing for Mac users. :-)

    2. Re:Old news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Quite some old news

      Too bad you posted AC. Otherwise we could check with you on each story to see if you've already heard about it.

    3. Re:Old news... by brass1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually they did. Apple, howerver, choose to be subtle about it. Here. And I quote:

      iChat Server. Host your own private and secure inside-the-firewall iChat server that uses your own namespace and works with both Tiger's iChat AV and popular Jabber clients available on Windows, Linux and PDAs.
      and:
      Your Very Own iChat and Blog Servers
      You can now host your own iChat server. Instant Messaging serves as a vital means of communication for organizations of all sizes, so it's useful to deploy and run your own private and secure IM server. Based on the open source Jabber project, the new iChat server in Tiger Server lets your company protect its internal communications by defining its own namespace, and use SSL/TLS encryption to ensure privacy. The iChat server works with both the iChat client in Mac OS X Tiger and popular open source clients available for Windows, Linux and even PDAs.


      This isn't a secret, and you don't have to be an "Apple Insider" to know about it, you just have to (carefully) read the language on their own website.

    4. Re:Old news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This isn't a secret, and you don't have to be an "Apple Insider" to know about it, you just have to (carefully) read the language on their own website.

      So that pretty much rules out everybody on slashdot.

  3. Sheesh, is Jabba getting Slashdot headlines now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Tell Jabba I'll have his money soon. And I shoot first, no CmdrTaco.

    -- Han

  4. Makes sense... by rgraham · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seeing has how the next version of Server is going to have a built-in Jabber/iChat/XMPP server (scroll down to the "Your Very Own iChat and Blog Servers" section).

  5. Are you kidding me ? by groberts65 · · Score: 0, Troll
    will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

    Only as much as anything on Mac has a share on any market. What's Apple's market share of the desktop now ? Other than digital music, have they made more than a ripple in a pond ?

    1. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Yes, we all know Apple has no power to do anything, let's say push something like Firewire to become standard. _rolls eyes_

    2. Re:Are you kidding me ? by groberts65 · · Score: 1

      .. and let me add that Jabber is, like most (not all) things OSS, nothing but a watered down, slowly progressing, copy of a commercial service. I use AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Jabber (all via Trillian) and Jabber is by far the most featureless of the three. Where's video or audio IM, buddy icons, etc. ? I've tried some of the Jabber client (e.g. GAIM) and they are awful compared to Trillian or even AIM or Yahoo's native clients in terms of both ease of use and functionality.

    3. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are we ignoring digital music, apart from the fact that it completely undermines your argument?

    4. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Peter+Lemonjello · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Apple has created may ripples...3.5 in discs, the mouse, on board ethernet, plug and play, video editing, etc. You know the routine. Apple could very easily survive and thrive with its current market share and still have a huge impact on the industry. Just like Mercedes and BMW, market share really doesn't mean a whole lot as to the viability of a company. PS. Did you run your Windoze adware/spyware/virus programs today?

      --
      -- I fart in your general direction.
    5. Re:Are you kidding me ? by mitchell_pgh · · Score: 3, Informative

      While Apple and the Mac desktop account for a rather small percentage of desktop users, I firmly believe that Apple has a way of promoting technologies LONG before they become popular. They went all USB years ahead of many of the other manufacturers (in fact, some are still catching up).

      Apple has a way of moving technologies from the geek realm to the "average joe" realm in a very short period of time. I would also suggest that you applaud Apple for using yet another standard vs. creating their own in house brand or simply succumbing to the power of Redmond.

    6. Re:Are you kidding me ? by ratsnapple+tea · · Score: 5, Informative

      USB? IEEE 1394? 802.11? Touchpads on laptops? Quiet computing?

    7. Re:Are you kidding me ? by anothy · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Other than digital music, have they made more than a ripple in a pond ?
      yes.

      significance to or impact on the market is not directly related to market share. apple has had a significantly disproportionate impact on the industry relative to its market share because, unlike most PC hardware or software companies, they represent consistent innovation. their hardware drives other companies to keep up (talking total system design here, not CPUs, although that might still be true). look at the push for adoption of firewire and USB. or the slow decline of the floppy. or A/V IM.

      apple applied the same history of innovation they've had in the computer world to digital music - innovation wasn't new to them. the reason they've been so much more successful there than in the computer market (using the limited definition of success == market share) is because there was a dramatically smaller installed base; the innovation was more apparent, and the cost to conversion wasn't really an issue, as it is when trying to convince someone to switch from an existing product/service.

      now compare this with the situation with IM. i used to work a lot with high school and jr. high kids in the states, and nearly all of them have AIM (not just IM - AIM). it's a crucial social tool, and the fact that all the AIM stuff is interoperable is critical for them. apple's not going to have any more success in this market (using the same limited definition of success) than they have in the computer market, unless they can work out a cross-connecting deal with AOL (which isn't out of the question; note that the @mac.com addresses are the only reserved domain handed out in the AIM address space). but in business... that's a whole other story. we use AIM at work pretty heavily, especially between our US and GB offices. but when i mention this to friends and colleagues in other companies, it's nearly unheard of. many companies have explicit restrictions against using it... and often for exactly the reasons that a in-house server would resolve.

      i'm not making any predictions for what impact this will have, but do keep in mind that 1) impact != market share, 2) the world != teenagers, 3) network effects are more powerful than the effect of an isolated change, and 4) just because something doesn't solve a problem you have doesn't mean it doesn't solve a problem somebody else (like businesses) has.
      --

      i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
    8. Re:Are you kidding me ? by finkployd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Apple use has been skyrocketing in higher education. It used to be that when I went to conferences 90% of the laptops were IBM or Dell running windows. Lately it as been a little more than 50% Powerbooks and iBooks, and the remaining computers are split between Linux and Windows.

      Walking around on campus you see a LOT more apple laptops than you used to. The recent public awareness of how grossly insecure Windows is has helped that a lot since I know a quite a few people who went to Apple to escape the monthly system rebuild that was required when they got infected with spyware, viruses, or Trojans. While Windows certainly CAN be secure it is much easier for a non computer geek to keep an OS X box secure. I would say that Apple is poised to possibly invade the corporate world from the ground up as more graduates have expertise in OS X.

      This is just my observations though, no marketing data to back that up.

      Finkployd

    9. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "Apple has created may ripples...snip...Just like Mercedes and BMW"

      Agreed. They all provide the privilage of over paying for something. But then again you just don't get that same status with a VW or Honda, just the knowledge that you saved a boat load of money.

      P.S reply: didn't need to, my Linux machine and BSD server are well protected, but thanks for asking.

    10. Re:Are you kidding me ? by finkployd · · Score: 1

      Jabber is a protocol, you are complaining about clients that use that protocol.

      How do you feel about iChat? Jabber with an iChat front end should certainly be an improvement over what you have experienced.

      And try a more recent version of Gaim if you haven't lately, it has improved in terms of functionality quite a bit.

    11. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Uncertain+Bohr · · Score: 1

      No, just a ripple... but a very nice one to ride on... :-)

    12. Re:Are you kidding me ? by kundor · · Score: 1
      Why would you want video or audio in an im client?

      Programs should do one thing and do it well. There are MUCH better video and audio conferencing solutions available in OSS than could ever be built into an IM client.

    13. Re:Are you kidding me ? by JayTeeUK · · Score: 1
      .. and let me add that Jabber is, like most (not all) things OSS, nothing but a ... copy of a commercial service.
      While I'm sure it borrows ideas from commercial services, I'd hesitate to call it a copy. It's built from the ground up, based on open standards and both clients and servers are available in both open- and closed-source variants.
      Where's video or audio IM
      You mean like this? Currently making its way into a client near you.
      buddy icons
      By which I assume you mean avatars. Much discussion and experimentation has gone into how best to implement user avatars and I feel confident that the standard will be agreed upon soon. Not that it's exactly a "must-have" feature.
      I've tried some of the Jabber client (e.g. GAIM) and they are awful ... in terms of both ease of use and functionality.
      I agree, GAIM is awful. Try Exodus, or better yet Psi. They're much better. There's also Pandion, but that's Windows-only and is based on Internet Explorer, which was more than enough to put me off.
      --
      James Tait, Programmer and Free Software Advocate
      JID: jayteeuk@wyrddreams.org
    14. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 1

      You have obviously never used ichat.

      --
      Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
    15. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Peter+Lemonjello · · Score: 1

      Overpaying? The eMacs here at school only cost $650...17", 256meg, etc, etc. I could have had an eMachine for about $100 less? That's not overpaying, that's smart. PS I'm glad you are running Linux and BSD servers...thanks for helping curb the spread of MS!

      --
      -- I fart in your general direction.
    16. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow... nice troll

    17. Re:Are you kidding me ? by bahamat · · Score: 4, Interesting
      will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

      Only as much as anything on Mac has a share on any market. What's Apple's market share of the desktop now ? Other than digital music, have they made more than a ripple in a pond ?


      Yea, like that USB thing, Firewire, ditching the floppy, colorful computers, photo management software, digital music players, WiFi, bluetooth, video editing, dvd burning. Apple made the first jump on all of those and look where it got them! Nothing! Ha! Nobody will ever try to follow Apple's lead! Bunch of losers!
    18. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 1

      The cluelessness is strong in this one. Take a look at what Jabber really is and then come back and tell me it's nothing but a copy of the other instant messenger systems.

    19. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Alrescha · · Score: 1

      "Touchpads on laptops?"

      Don't for an instant think that everyone considers touchpads a good thing. I'd own multiple Powerbooks if they licensed IBM's Trackpoint technology. As it is, I own no Powerbooks and seven Thinkpads (eight, if you count the tablet, but that doesn't have a trackpad *or* a Trackpoint).

      A.
      (who hates touchpads with a passion that cannot be described in mere words)

      --
      ...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
    20. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      iChat already works with AIM, if I remember correctly it has since version 1.

      From the apple website"[iChat] supports videoconferencing with the new AOL Instant Messenger 5.5 for Windows, giving you immediate access to the millions of people in both the Mac and PC communities."

    21. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Kehvarl · · Score: 1

      "Touchpads on laptops"
      That pretty much says it all right there. I prefer trackpoint style pointing devices on my portables, as I find them to be more accurate, much faster to navigate the screen with, and less likely to get bumped while I'm typing and suddenly move my cursor up 12 lines.
      Which is not to say trackpoint is perfect, but it's imeasurably better than a touchpad, and the only other stationary pointing device which I might replace it with is a good trackball.

    22. Re:Are you kidding me ? by ratlater · · Score: 1

      It's just crazy how different people are. I hate the trackpoint things and adore trackpads on laptops. Well not all trackpads, the one on a Dell I had a few years ago was horrible beyond words. All of the Apple trackpads I've used were silky smooth and perfect for laptop mousing.

      To each their own though.

      -matt

      --
      http://thewonderllama.com
    23. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Paulrothrock · · Score: 1

      IIRC, Apple also introduced the palmrests into the Powerbook line, making it the first laptop with a mouse, and the first with the standard "laptop" form factor.

      --
      I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
    24. Re:Are you kidding me ? by moitz · · Score: 1
      I use AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Jabber (all via Trillian) and Jabber is by far the most featureless of the three. Where's video or audio IM, buddy icons, etc. ?

      I think you mean "where's the bloat?" I use Jabber simply for the handy-dandy feature of offline messaging. I don't know if Yahoo! can do this, but last I checked (about 35 seconds ago), AOL and MSN can't. As far as GAIM being hard to use...it seems to be to be simple double-click, type, press enter. Not too much different than Trillian (which I've also used). Logging is much better too...I can search logs in GAIM instead of having to grep text files.

      -moitz-

      --
      Screw 'em...who cares what anyone thinks.
    25. Re:Are you kidding me ? by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      First of all, you no longer "over pay" when you buy a Mac: my 12" iBook was cheaper than a comparable (i.e. not 10lb) PC laptop.

      Second, Hondas are overpriced! You can get the same quality, features, and performace from Hyundai much cheaper (e.g. 104hp Accent loaded: $13k; 108hp Civic loaded: $15k)

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    26. Re:Are you kidding me ? by anothy · · Score: 1

      that's correct, it does and has. i'm not sure i see your point.

      --

      i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
    27. Re:Are you kidding me ? by gobbo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "...that USB thing, Firewire, ditching the floppy, colorful computers, photo management software, digital music players, WiFi, bluetooth, video editing, dvd burning..."

      Hey, whippersnapper, you forgot something... or you're just too young to remember what a huge jolt true cheap WYSIWYG publishing was. THAT was apple's killer app... took MS years... no, decades to catch up on that one.

    28. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Buy...a...mouse!

      Are you telling me you only bought IBM as a platform because of a mousing issue? What about OS, TCO, specs?

    29. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I prefer trackpoint style pointing devices on my portables, as I find them to be more accurate, much faster to navigate the screen with,

      Me, too, until the calibration starts trying to out-think you and the pointer drifts, or the trackpoint wears out, or falls off. (They come with a spare, typically.) Trackpads are far more durable.

      Hypothesis: Macs tend to have a longer service life than PCs. Maybe it's worth it to have a trackpoint on PCs, since you're planning to replace it relatively soon, anyway, but on Macs you need something that works well for several years. (Or maybe it's *because* they last longer that they're in service longer.)


      and less likely to get bumped while I'm typing and suddenly move my cursor up 12 lines.

      Unless you're using some weird system I've never heard of, to move where you're typing, you'd need to bump the mouse *button*, which has nothing to do with whether there's a trackpad or trackpoint.

      If you're using a normal hand position, I can't imagine accidentally bumping either one. If anything, I'm more likely to bump a pointing device that's right in the middle of the keyboard. (If you're using a one-handed keyboard layout -- insert joke here -- it's right between your fingers.)
    30. Re:Are you kidding me ? by unclethursday · · Score: 1
      I agree. The video conferencing abilities of iChat AV are the best I have seen in an IM client. Very little lag with video and sound, great picture quality (and going to be better with Tiger), and decent sound quality.

      Now, if only I knew more people with iChat AV. My problems with video conferencing come from AIM users on Windows, and normally because of firewall/router NAT issues.

    31. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Kehvarl · · Score: 1

      Unless you're using some weird system I've never heard of, to move where you're typing, you'd need to bump the mouse *button*, which has nothing to do with whether there's a trackpad or trackpoint.

      actually, this somehw happens to me frequently when I'm using a machine with a touchpad. and given the fact that tapping a touchpad can act like clicking the mouse, it's far more annoying than accidently bumping the trackpoint device.

      Hypothesis: Macs tend to have a longer service life than PCs. Maybe it's worth it to have a trackpoint on PCs, since you're planning to replace it relatively soon, anyway, but on Macs you need something that works well for several years. (Or maybe it's *because* they last longer that they're in service longer.)

      Of my two Toshiba laptops, the old one (which I used for 5 years and replaced only very recently) had a trackpoint style pointer which never gave me any problems except for an acceptably short interval of random drifting which occured very infrequently. The new one has a touchpad which is constantly driving me nuts even afteralmost 2 months of practice to gain proficiency with the pointing device.

      other than a 5 year run with my trackpoint laptop, I don't have any good information on durability, but I would like to note that only my ancient serial-interface trackball has lasted longer than it as a functional pointing device (going on 8 years now and it's just starting to develop problems.)

    32. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      actually, this somehw happens to me frequently when I'm using a machine with a touchpad. and given the fact that tapping a touchpad can act like clicking the mouse, it's far more annoying than accidently bumping the trackpoint device.

      Oh, sure, if you turn on the "randomly click the button when I touch the touchpad" option.

      Any interface can be made bad if you try hard enough. I could make my webpage use lime green text on a brown background, but that doesn't mean that HTML is inherently bad. :-)

      Of my two Toshiba laptops...

      I've had bad drifting problems on every trackpoint I've ever used (2 IBMs, 2 HPs, and 2 Toshibas), even when brand new. I've never had any problems with any trackpad I've used (3 Apples).

      At best, this indicates to me that IBM, HP, and Toshiba have some reliability issues with trackpoints.

      And it may very well be that Toshiba simply did a lousy job with the trackpad. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, considering how bad some of their designs have been.

    33. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you want video or audio in an im client?

      It seemed a better place to put it than my word processor?

    34. Re:Are you kidding me ? by Kehvarl · · Score: 1

      Oh, sure, if you turn on the "randomly click the button when I touch the touchpad" option.

      Every touchpad-equiped machine I've ever used with the exception of one new HP notebook, had this option enabled by default and would randomly re-enable it if you tried to turn it off.

      However, perhaps the Apple implementation of the touchpad is far superior to the other ones, which I've tried.

    35. Re:Are you kidding me ? by cortana · · Score: 1

      It's off by default on Apple laptops.

      The person who thought of this option should be shot, and there is a special place in hell set aside for any marketing moron or PHB who decrees that it be enabled by default for all a company's laptops.

  6. Argh... by d3m057h3n35 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Second day in a row I've seen effect/affect misused in a summary. I didn't even read the summary or the article. My eyes zoomed right to the offending gramatical error, and I began contemplating suicide for being such an annally-retentive, grammatically-obsessed freak. Ah well.

    1. Re:Argh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, it's not like it's an obscure point of grammar or anything: it's an ENTIRELY WRONG word! Likewise, it's in an article summary, not a comment.

      But on the lighter side, at least it's still correct. It currently says that this move will bring Jabber's market share into existence, which sounds like typical semi-accurate journalistic hyperbole. :)

    2. Re:Argh... by incog8723 · · Score: 1

      Second day in a row I've seen effect/affect misused in a summary. I didn't even read the summary or the article. My eyes zoomed right to the offending gramatical error, and I began contemplating suicide for being such an annally-retentive, grammatically-obsessed freak. Ah well.

      What a hypocrite you are. One space after periods. "My eyes zoomed right", misspelled anal-retentive.

      Good day butt-pirate.

    3. Re:Argh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For fixed-width fonts, one space is correct. Two spaces is dead wrong.

    4. Re:Argh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      err, doesn't html disregard extraneous spaces anyway? Or do you actually see the six spaces between every word in this post.

      This whole thread is moot.

  7. This is good news by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because the jabber specs ( and clients ) still need quite a bit more work. While we have a spec for file transfer through a nat'd environment, I have yet to play with a client that can do it effectively and seemlessly. Namely, because the protocol itself could use a little work.

    For example, instead of having some random, and unknown, jabber file proxy to enter in, why can't the server offer hints? Someone sets up a jabber server, they are likely to understand how to setup the file proxy needed for it, so have that in the config file as a hint of which proxy to use.

    Don't get me wrong, I love jabber, it's just not ready for "prime time", as it were. Although it's more than adequate for local lans where you dont want chat data going out over the internet.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    1. Re:This is good news by agby · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For example, instead of having some random, and unknown, jabber file proxy to enter in, why can't the server offer hints? Someone sets up a jabber server, they are likely to understand how to setup the file proxy needed for it, so have that in the config file as a hint of which proxy to use.



      What I suspect Apple will do is leverage the Rendezvous technology to provide a local list of iChat servers that you can join. Makes sense to have one server or instance per department, probably with OpenDirectory based ACL's. Server location could be centralised with a tracker, or just on an ad-hoc basis, with rendezvous. Hell, the OpenDirectory server could even maintain the list of local iChat servers.

    2. Re:This is good news by hey · · Score: 1

      I agree that clients don't do Jabber file transfer nicely but I disagree on what you said about the standard. Its fine. Look at JEP-0095: Stream Initiation. Here, the entities negotiate the best way to transfer a file. If they are on the same LAN... then just open up a port and listen like ftp. As a last resort do in in-band.

    3. Re:This is good news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes, but the server knows they are on the same LAN, because it is set up by a system administrator. Roaming users have no clue, and shouldn't. Their clients have no way of knowing either, without some sort of hint from somewhere.

    4. Re:This is good news by hey · · Score: 1

      Its all transparent to users.
      I am not sure exactly how it works maybe it
      tries the direct method and if that fails it
      tried another way AND remembers for next time.
      Feel free the read the spec.

    5. Re:This is good news by imroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, hopefully Apple will help bring some polish and increased credibility to the Jabber world. I'd also like to see them working with the existing Jabber community to build future applications/protocols on top of Jabber. Jabber at its heart is just an XML messaging system. So get some creative minds together and we will see some really interesting new applications of the Jabber framework.

      Personally, I like the idea of using Jabber for communicating with and between software agents. People have already made things like email notifiers, but you could take it beyond IM-like functionality. Imagine having temperature sensors around your sever room (or house, or outside) and a Jabber client/agent that regularly sends out temperature readings to it's "friends". You then have some applet on your desktop that is also a Jabber client/agent. It takes these readings and displays them in a little window (or docklet, etc). It would all be very simple for both agents/clients. One sends out formatted data to subscribed "friends" (there's already an IRC-like group-chat schema in Jabber), and the other displays it. Most of the coordination would be in the server(s). And if the Jabber server is visible from the public internet, then you could be anywhere in the world monitoring the temperatures of your server room (or house). This is what Jabber offers.

    6. Re:This is good news by Persnickity · · Score: 1

      Actually, that is likely a client issue, not a protocol issue. Jabber allows for a Discovery packet to be sent to the server to find out things just like this. When the proxy component is connected to the server, then the server will tell the Client about it, and the Client can then discover that it is a proxy and automatically add it into the list. No manually entry required. Or at lease shouldn't be required.

      --
      - Persnickity
  8. ah yes well by Ravagin · · Score: 3, Informative
    will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

    more importantly, will it a ffect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

    --

    Karma: T-rexcellent.

    1. Re:ah yes well by dema · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh wow that's so important thanks for pointing it out! I had NO idea what was meant by that sentence until I read your comment. Hah, effect, those silly editors! Man, you are a life saver, I missed the WHOLE point of the submission until you pointed that out. And it's SO great you got modded up so I wouldn't miss your post!

    2. Re:ah yes well by TonyZahn · · Score: 1

      will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

      more importantly, will it affect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?


      No, I think the original poster was speculating that this may bring about Jabber's dominance in the IM market (by efecting its overall share...)

      --
      - sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
    3. Re:ah yes well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      more importantly, what will the effect be on Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

    4. Re:ah yes well by 7-Vodka · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This could be the most common error online.
      Come on people get it right. EFFECT is a NOUN.

      --

      Liberty.

    5. Re:ah yes well by ceeam · · Score: 4, Funny

      Apple: spell different.

    6. Re:ah yes well by iso · · Score: 1, Informative

      Well effect can also be a transitive verb (1 : to cause to come into being, 2 a : to bring about often by surmounting obstacles), but the rule to remember is if you're using "effect" as a verb, you're probably wrong.

    7. Re:ah yes well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      different, d-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-t, different

      Thank you,
      Apple

    8. Re:ah yes well by revscat · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      It's English. If you're going to write in it, at least do it well. Of course you knew what he said. Y0|_| c4|\| understand crap like 1337 sp33|<, too, but one is of considerably higher quality than the other. Don't lower your standards out of laziness or any other reason.

      Not an attack. But I believe that if you take the time to make sure you are using the language correctly, it indicates that you are more careful in your other thoughts, and are probably (although certainly not definitely) a smarter person.

    9. Re:ah yes well by dema · · Score: 1

      Believe me, I agree with you 100%. But keep in mind this is Slashdot, and every person here seems hell bent on correct the editors. No, they don't do a great job all the time, but do people really have to criticize every time they f something up? An editor isn't ever going to read a comment like that and feel the need to better his/her editing of these blurbs. It just gets old seeing those comments all the time.

    10. Re:ah yes well by ViolentGreen · · Score: 1

      But I believe that if you take the time to make sure you are using the language correctly, it indicates that you are more careful in your other thoughts, and are probably (although certainly not definitely) a smarter person.

      I wouldn't go that far. I do believe that it raises your credibility. I tend not to take posts seriously that have blatent gramatical errors and intentional mispellings (such as windoze and the like.)

      --
      Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
    11. Re:ah yes well by Drakonian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Offtopic? Seriously people. An on topic reply to an off topic post is not off topic. And besides, iso is right.

      --
      Random is the New Order.
    12. Re:ah yes well by lavar78 · · Score: 1
      I wouldn't go that far. I do believe that it raises your credibility. I tend not to take posts seriously that have blatent gramatical errors and intentional mispellings (such as windoze and the like.)
      LOL! That's hilarious. For anyone who didn't get it, "blatent," "gramatical," and "mispellings" are all intentional misspellings.
      --
      "Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
    13. Re:ah yes well by Kehvarl · · Score: 1

      effect: to bring about
      affect: To have an influence on or effect a change in

      no, I think effect works best for going from effectively 0% market share to some number coming closer to 100%

    14. Re:ah yes well by Durandal64 · · Score: 1

      Don't you mean "spell differently"? ;)

    15. Re:ah yes well by steve_bryan · · Score: 1

      Did you misspell both "blatant" and "misspellings" on purpose? One might think that with all this computing power at our disposal we would have spell checkers that would be more effective. Handling the distinction between "affect" and "effect" would be harder but not allowing nonexistent spellings should be trivial.

    16. Re:ah yes well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No no no. You don't "effect" a market share. You effect an increase in a market share. You affect the share itself.

      It's best to only use effect as a verb in the phrase "effect a change", and just use it as a noun otherwise.

    17. Re:ah yes well by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      "Effect" is a verb too; it just doesn't mean the same thing as "affect." "To effect" means "to make or bring about." So if the original poster was talking about "making or bringing about" Jabber market share, then he was actually correct.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    18. Re:ah yes well by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 1

      In this case, the usage was wrong but arguable. To effect is to create or to make happen.

      Given the size of Jabber's market share, effecting it is almost as valid as affecting it.

    19. Re:ah yes well by Finuvir · · Score: 1

      It's a play on Apple's adverising slogan, "Think Different". That should have been "Think Differently" of course. I guess they sacrificed grammar for flow. "Think Different" reads--and looks, when it's in print ads--better than the correct version, unless you're like me and the mistake just yells at you until you go away.

      --
      Why is anything anything?
  9. Re:Affect, not effect by Kiryat+Malachi · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Effect and affect can both be used as verbs.

    --

    ---
    Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
    (I read with sigs off.)
  10. Mind you... by zaren · · Score: 1, Insightful

    those "couple of stories" both come from a rumor site. Grain of salt, and all that... of course, if those stories suddenly go away after a Cupertino landshark sees them, they might be a bit more believable.

    --
    Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
  11. Jabber server as well by daveschroeder · · Score: 4, Informative
    Mac OS X Server 10.4 (Tiger Server) will also include an iChat/Jabber server.

    For those unaware, iChat has always used the Jabber protocols for its local (Rendezvous-initiated) messaging. This just dusts off and reveals full-fledged support for Jabber.

    Why Jabber? Because Jabber is a completely open IM standard. The IETF has accepted the core Jabber protocols and has standardized them as XMPP, an open IM protocol.

    1. Re:Jabber server as well by mitchell_pgh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is another example of Apple using open standards to leverage their platform, and for that, one must applaud their efforts. Apple looks more like a friend of Linux and the Open Source community more and more as time goes on. Ways Apple Supports Open Standards: iCal (open file format), Safari (built on Open Source code), iTunes (uses open standards MP3 and AAC*), OS X (foundation is open), iChat (jabber support)... * - OK, not 100%, but better then others.

    2. Re:Jabber server as well by Durandal64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Apple is a good example of how businesses can maintain a proprietary business model, make money and still use open source software while not violating the spirit of open source. They integrate open source into their products and give their changes back to the community, and they make money from those products. So everyone ends up happy. It's worked out really well for them so far.

    3. Re:Jabber server as well by Sunnan · · Score: 1, Interesting
      This is another example of Apple using open standards to leverage their platform, and for that, one must applaud their efforts.

      We must applaud that Apple is using open standards for their own good? What's in it for us?
      Apple looks more like a friend of Linux and the Open Source community more and more as time goes on.

      More like the other way around - their contributions (while very welcome) are few and far between.
      iCal (open file format)

      But not open itself.
      Safari (built on Open Source code)

      But itself totally proprietary, except for WebCore, which is currently primarily usable for cocoa (e.g. proprietary) developers.

      iTunes protocol and code is proprietary. OS X uses and relies on proprietary drivers (Broadcom, are you listening?). iChat primarily uses AIM instead of Jabber.
    4. Re:Jabber server as well by Seanasy · · Score: 3, Informative
      We must applaud that Apple is using open standards for their own good? What's in it for us?

      Interopability. Future-proofing. Apple's contributions to the standard. Are you saying companies shouldn't be applauded for using standards? I'll applaud every time a company chooses an open standard over a proprietary model.

      More like the other way around - their contributions (while very welcome) are few and far between.

      As far as I can tell, they've given back every time they've taken. That's more than I can say for myself.

      iCal (open file format)
      But not open itself.
      Safari (built on Open Source code)
      But itself totally proprietary, except for WebCore, which is currently primarily usable for cocoa (e.g. proprietary) developers.

      So the apps are closed? OK, they're not totally 'Free.' Granted. But the ical format is open. You can write a better iCal and not have to do a damn thing to get the data in. Webcore can be used by open-source developers as well as proprietary developers. It's based on khtml (from KDE). They've given back. WebCore is Open (LGPL).

      iTunes protocol and code is proprietary.

      iTunes protocol? Do you mean DAAP? Yes the app is closed but the tools are there to re-implement as you see fit. Even the iTunes Library is accessible as XML.

      OS X uses and relies on proprietary drivers (Broadcom, are you listening?).

      So go ahead write your own drivers.

      iChat primarily uses AIM instead of Jabber.

      Did you miss what this post was about?

  12. jabber by minus_273 · · Score: 5, Informative

    i chat already uses jabber in the local im feature using rendezevous (sp?). that also removes the need for a central server since it uses rendezevous for discovery of other hosts.

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
  13. Re:Affect, not effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yes, but affect and effect have no senses in common.

    As a verb affect is most commonly used in the sense of "to influence" (how smoking affects health). Effect means "to bring about or execute": layoffs designed to effect savings. Thus the sentence These measures may affect savings could imply that the measures may reduce savings that have already been realized, whereas These measures may effect savings implies that the measures will cause new savings to come about.

    Completely different meanings. The question "... will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?" makes no sense.

  14. Server? by Allen+Zadr · · Score: 1
    Server? Isn't this story about desktop?

    Either way - I hadn't heard it, and I think it's pretty cool.

    --
    Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
    1. Re:Server? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but the server announcement said that it included a Jabber server for iChat. Read between the lines.

  15. Yet another reason I love Apple... by keiferb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Jabber's slowly been infiltrating the office, and has proven itself to be really handy. It's nice to be able to keep your IM server on the friendly side of your firewall. iChat/OS X Server publicly and proudly supporting Jabber is a great step forward!

  16. Re:Affect, not effect by poptones · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Except one is more affective than the other...

  17. The question would be... by adzoox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The question answered would be has iChat had any noticeable effect by AOL on AOL Instant Messenger membership.

    I would say it might have an effect on Jabber. Eventhough Apple has a small marketshare, it has a higher percent of that marketshare that are online.

    --
    Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
    1. Re:The question would be... by mh101 · · Score: 1

      Probably a bit, that's for sure... For example, shortly after I got my Mac, my friend got an internet connection at his house. We wanted to be able to chat with each other, and since iChat supports AIM I suggested he install AIM on his PC.

      Otherwise we most likely would have gone with something else other than AIM.

      --
      Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
  18. Re:Affect, not effect by LikelyStory · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Yes, they can both be used as verbs. But not to mean the same thing. To effect something is to bring it about, or make it happen; to affect something, is to influence it somehow. They're both nouns too....

  19. But.... Mac to PC? by leeet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is there a way to do videoconference (or just audio conference) between a Mac and a PC? I haven't found a way yet....

    --
    -- Leeeter than leet
    1. Re:But.... Mac to PC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple running panther with iChat and an iSight or other webcam to a PC running XP with newest version of AIM and some webcam. This works, my Dad can handle the PC side of it, though it's not as nice as apple to apple and my now parents want an iBook to better see their grandson overseas.

    2. Re:But.... Mac to PC? by rthille · · Score: 1

      Skype. They now have an OSX client
      www.skype.com

      --
      Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
  20. This was annouced at WWDC 2004... by Xenex · · Score: 5, Informative
    And is mentioned on the Mac OS X Server 10.4 Tiger Preview page:
    New Services

    iChat Server. Host your own private and secure inside-the-firewall iChat server that uses your own namespace and works with both Tiger's iChat AV and popular Jabber clients available on Windows, Linux and PDAs.

    Additionally:
    Your Very Own iChat and Blog Servers

    You can now host your own iChat server. Instant Messaging serves as a vital means of communication for organizations of all sizes, so it's useful to deploy and run your own private and secure IM server. Based on the open source Jabber project, the new iChat server in Tiger Server lets your company protect its internal communications by defining its own namespace, and use SSL/TLS encryption to ensure privacy. The iChat server works with both the iChat client in Mac OS X Tiger and popular open source clients available for Windows, Linux and even PDAs.

    So, yes, we've known since WWDC that iChat will be able to speak to standard Jabber servers, mostly because Apple will be shipping a Jabber server with Tiger Server.

    There's a lot of cool stuff in Tiger Server, and that page is with checking out.
    1. Re:This was annouced at WWDC 2004... by jerky42 · · Score: 1

      This is all very well, but will AOL let the server connect to AIM/ICQ? Microsoft to MSN? Yahoo to YM?

      AFAIK, once Jabber transports being to show a little traffic, AOL boots them off, and won't allow them to connect, making these things useless, unless everyone switches to Jabber or a Jabber enabled client.

      --
      The strong do what they can, while the weak suffer what they must.
    2. Re:This was annouced at WWDC 2004... by System.out.println() · · Score: 1

      Technically, they didn't specifically announce iChat client's ability to use Jabber. It was a natural assumption, true, but it was always possible there would be caveats (only able to connect to Tiger Server's breed of Jabber? and such). It's just more official now.

      Oh, and screenshots! :P

  21. Connectivity to other IM services, too by daveschroeder · · Score: 4, Informative
    I forgot one of the neat things about the Jabber server:

    While an open IM application can be useful in a defined group or organization for messaging, obviously, a standalone IM application is of limited utility on its own if you're already communicating with people on other IM networks.

    This is why Jabber supports "transports", server components that allow seamless connectivity with AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, SMS services, and even IRC..

    1. Re:Connectivity to other IM services, too by Kethinov · · Score: 1

      I think this is the most important part about all this. Since iChat is getting Jabber support, that means iChat is getting ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo support as well. Who needs Fire/Adium/Proteus anymore with a Jabbery iChat?

      --
      You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
  22. Video/audio chat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will this include support for video and audio chat?

    1. Re:Video/audio chat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably not, as there's no Jabber Enhancement Proposal for it.

      I wouldn't doubt video/audio chat in the near future though.

  23. Re:Affect, not effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Usage Note: Affect and effect have no senses in common. As a verb affect is most commonly used in the sense of "to influence" (how smoking affects health). Effect means "to bring about or execute": layoffs designed to effect savings. Thus the sentence These measures may affect savings could imply that the measures may reduce savings that have already been realized, whereas These measures may effect savings implies that the measures will cause new savings to come about. From http://www.dictionary.com/

  24. Yes. by Xenex · · Score: 4, Informative

    iChat AV 2.1 can videoconference with AOL Instant Messenger 5.5.

    1. Re:Yes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AIM to iChat doesn't always work so well. The only way I have been able to video conference with a friend was for them to initiate the session in AIM. Everytime I tried it in iChat, it never worked. Ever. We checked our ports, scoured the net for any clues. The problem does not seem to be ours.

    2. Re:Yes. by Xyde · · Score: 1

      Yahoo messenger is also cross-platform.

  25. GPG support by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Please, please, please include GPG support (a la gabber), Apple. Business have been wanting secure instant messaging for a long time -- I'd like it too.

    1. Re:GPG support by Alan+Hicks · · Score: 1

      GPG support would indeed be nice, but it looks like they're going to be using SSL, so it's six of one and half a dozen of the other.

      Personally, I love iChat, but it does a few things I find very annoying.
      1) There's no ability to log to an open format. No txt, html, or rtf support. iChat logs to a format you can only open with iChat. This is a PITA.
      2) Poorly chosen naming convention. One thing I like about gaim is it's logging. Logs are stored in folders based on the name of the person you are talking to for two person conversations. For full chats, logs are stored via the chatroom name. iChat logs them all as "Chatting with So And So $TIME". In the case of chatrooms, it logs them based on one of the participates names. This makes it very difficult to search back for that chat a few of my friends had several months ago because I don't remember the exact date and time, and have to grep through the binaries to try to locate it.

      If Apple fixed just the second of these two my problems with iChat would be greatly lessened. Solve both and I will worship at the altar of iChat.

      --
      Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
    2. Re:GPG support by bgarland · · Score: 2, Informative
    3. Re:GPG support by Alan+Hicks · · Score: 1

      Thank you. logorrhea helps solve the whole index and searching thing as far by individual name, but that doesn't solve my main most problem of grouping chatrooms seperately.

      --
      Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
    4. Re:GPG support by OmniVector · · Score: 1

      try out logorrhea sometime. it can seach ichat logs. btw ichat logs are to my knowledge just serialized nsobjects. it isn't hard to reverse engineer.

      --
      - tristan
    5. Re:GPG support by Jord · · Score: 1

      Spotlight should solve both of these problems for you because you won't care what the filename is. Just search on the text you are looking for.

  26. Well... by Xenex · · Score: 2, Informative
    From the Mac OS X Server 10.4 Tiger preview page
    Based on the open source Jabber project, the new iChat server in Tiger Server lets your company protect its internal communications by defining its own namespace, and use SSL/TLS encryption to ensure privacy.
    So, you're going to get secure messaging, but it's not going to be GPG.
    1. Re:Well... by Eythian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not quite the same thing. Many (most?) Jabber clients already support SSL connections, but having GPG on top of that provides a different level of protection.

      SSL gives you client-server privacy, but the owner of the server can still see what is going on, and if the other party isn't using SSL then the messages will be going to them over plain text anyway. However, with GPG, then you have security between clients. The server owner can't read your messages.

      So SSL is good, but only half way there, adding GPG support is necessary for more complete privacy.

    2. Re:Well... by pavon · · Score: 1

      But doesn't Jabber allow P2P connections where you have an SSL connection directly between you and the person you are chatting with?

    3. Re:Well... by r5t8i6y3 · · Score: 1

      here's some secure end-to-end SSL encryption for jabber/gaim:

      http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/
      http:// sourceforge.net/projects/gaim-encryption/

    4. Re:Well... by TVC15 · · Score: 1

      GPG support would still be nice to allow for digital signatures. not just encryption of transmissions. at least allow for a plugin.

    5. Re:Well... by infinii · · Score: 1

      Where I come from, most organizations *want* to log these conversations for security and ethics reasons. Giving the user complete privacy with GPG would not be in the organization's best interest.

    6. Re:Well... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

      Where I come from, most organizations *want* to log these conversations for security and ethics reasons.

      "Ethics" reasons? Most large companies want to keep *zero* records so nothing they have can be supeonaed to get them in trouble.

      More to the point, it's fine if they want to have a "no GPG" policy. That's perfectly reasonable. They can simply disallow GPG usage (actually, if they're doing this, they're probably using an IMing system that is more conducive to logging).

      On the other hand, it's perfectly reasonable for me to want to say "I want to send this message, and I don't want *anyone* other than the end recipient reading it." GPG provides for such a guarantee. If I enable GPG, nobody but the intended recipient can read my message, and *if* the organization allows it, the receipient will get my message.

    7. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those are the same projects.

    8. Re:Well... by Eythian · · Score: 1
      But doesn't Jabber allow P2P connections where you have an SSL connection directly between you and the person you are chatting with?

      No, Jabber only does P2P for things outside the normal protocol, such as filetransfers. All messages go through a server. This is for another variation of security: you're not exposing your IP address to the other person, unlike with ICQ.

    9. Re:Well... by Eythian · · Score: 1

      It's kinda SSL like. More like SSH, with the key exchanging and so on. Personally, I prefer the GPG method as I use GPG keys for other things (like email) and so I already have web-of-trust verification in place for people that I use them with. GPG is also somewhat standard within the Jabber protocol (I don't know that it's a proper standard, but two major clients I know of (Psi and Gabber) use it, others likely do too)

  27. Business users? by talieos · · Score: 1, Funny
    With businesses able to host their own messaging servers behind the firewall and use it with Apple's included IM client, will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

    Oh, definitely! In those businesses who are 100% Apple! Like Pixar, and, uh, Apple... :(

    1. Re:Business users? by remahl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1. Pixar isn't all Apple. 2. Jabber is an _open_protocol_, with many clients available for many different OSes.

    2. Re:Business users? by cei · · Score: 1

      Oh, and little things like just about any advertising, graphic design, web development, or music production - based companies? Basically any company that banks on creativity.

      --
      This sig intentionally left justified.
    3. Re:Business users? by 2starr · · Score: 1

      I think you missed the whole point of why this Jabber announcement is a Good Thing. Jabber is open and there are implementations of pretty much everything. We have a server at work that has clients running on Linux, Windows and Mac. To have a major OS support open standards is good for everyone... not just Mac users.

      --

      "Let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average." - A. W. Tozer

    4. Re:Business users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a windows box therefore I am a business man. I am very serious about business. I buy and I sell and I install windows patches. One day I will have a three martini lunch and a secretary and a power tie. I am business man and I am serious about business. One day I will even make money and then I will update to the latest version of windows. I would tell you more but I must complete a very important business memo.

    5. Re:Business users? by unclethursday · · Score: 1
      Don't forget major publishing houses and graphic design/advertising agencies are also all Mac or very highly Mac oriented.

      I kow White Wolf Publishing is an all Mac house, as are many larger and smaller publishers.

  28. mmm, Open goodness by gobbo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple continues to incorporate open software and strike that fine balance between the usefully proprietary (hardware, GUI) and interoperable standards. The MS dweebs that run the IT where I work keep frowning and scratching their heads when I explain that this or that new Apple implementations of free (beer/speech) software (zeroconf, LDAP, Apache, SSH, etc.) makes their lives easier and more secure. This just helps my arguments.

    Nice thing about Jabber is that it's decentralized and has so much room to be elaborated into some nifty applications that go way beyond text messaging. I was annoyed at Apple for nailing iChat so firmly to AIM, and now it looks like they're fulfilling some of the promise behind having a default chat client that isn't tied to an Apple network.

  29. Jabber market share by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This will certainly help with Jabber's market share and installed base.

    What I'd like to see, though, is a Google branded instant messenger service -- based on Jabber. This would really kick IM up to the next level, and maybe even pressure the other big three to make their systems interoperable, like Internet technologies are supposed to be.

    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    1. Re:Jabber market share by man_ls · · Score: 1

      I believe their services should be *more* open than they are, but *not* interoperable.

      Why should people running Microsoft's service have some right to connect to a service owned by another company?

      There's no reason except that tech people are a bunch of hippies.

      I *do* believe people should be free to use other client software...and with the right client software, you'll have the illusion of transparency. Trillian gives the illusion of transparency through the ability to connect to multiple services at once. Thus, the user gets the illusion of it working the way they probably don't really even care about, and the content providers are permitted to keep their exclusivity.

    2. Re:Jabber market share by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should people running Microsoft's service have some right to connect to a service owned by another company?

      Compares with:

      Why should people using AT&T's service have some right to connect to a service owned by another company?

      Which is more nonsensical?

    3. Re:Jabber market share by MrHops · · Score: 1

      And you could call it Goober! (oh wait, you might have some trademark issues. Lotta goobers out there.)

  30. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  31. Re:Affect, not effect by Kiryat+Malachi · · Score: 2, Funny

    I didn't say the poster used it correctly, since they didn't.

    However, his simplistic view of "one is a noun, the other a verb" effects no useful change in people's English understanding, as it prevents them from understanding the way an effective use of the verb "to effect" can affect an English sentence.

    You dig?

    --

    ---
    Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
    (I read with sigs off.)
  32. Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurable. by DrHogie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've spent the last 3 days at my office attempting to install a Jabber server for internal use. What I want to do is very simple: I merely want to setup IM clients for 20-30 employees, and have their buddy lists controlled by the server itself, so when a new employee is added, all 20-30 existing employees don't have to add them.

    Sounds easy right? Obviously you've never used Jabber!

    The obvious place for support would appear to be http://jabber.org. But there's no support on that site. Well, maybe jabber.com! Nope, that's a corporate commercial Jabber site. Hmmm, maybe jabberstudio.org! After all, that's where the server software is hosted! Nope, not there either. They have a mailing list where 4-6 different people have asked for help on the same problem . . . and in true Open Source fashion, no one helped them, other than to say, "Well, I've setup a nifty Perl hack to fix that problem . . you just need these 4 libraries and then write your own XML commands.".

    Hopefully Apple will put their spit and polish on it and make it usable. In it's current state, Jabber's a pain in the ass to try and configure with absolutely zero documentation to help.

    --
    --DrH, the Sandwich with the Ph.D.
  33. Except that... by Xenex · · Score: 4, Informative
    1. Re:Except that... by zaren · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Based on the open source Jabber project, the new iChat server in Tiger Server... -- Apple's Tiger preview page

      Ouch. I stand corrected.

      But my point about rumor sites is still valid, you know. :)

      --
      Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
  34. MSN by Neward+Rylet · · Score: 0

    Hopefully. At my work we all use MSN.

    1. Re:MSN by hey · · Score: 1

      I hope you and your colleagues don't mind having their conversations logged in Redmond! You aren't discussion anything that might remotely compete with Microsoft some day. ie any software, hardware (eg keyboard, mouse) or media product or service (eg Expedia). ie any business.

  35. There's something bad about letting this happen... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since iChat is a good IM client and will be installed on every Mac with tiger, this has basically stopped developers from making other clients on the Mac. I was skipping between Nitro and Adium X before I found Psi (which is good, but very ugly and un-mac like).

    I fear that aside from initial Jabber support, Apple just won't bother updating their client to fix issues or add more features (Like file transfer, Jabber vcards, buddy icons, etc.) and I'll be forced to buy a $130 OS just to upgrade my IM client.

    But we'll see.

  36. Planned for some time? by Swedentom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I noticed, a while ago, that the iChat Agent (2.x) executable contains the string 'Jabbler' on a few places, so maybe this has been planned for some time?

    Nonetheless, this sounds great, and is probably going to give Jabber a significant usage boost. It's sure nice to see Apple support more open technologies.

    --
    Sig Nature
    1. Re:Planned for some time? by Gogo+Dodo · · Score: 1

      The Rendevouz (OpenTalk) iChat was based on the Jabber protocol which is probably why you saw the 'Jabber' string.

  37. For just audio... by Xenex · · Score: 1, Redundant

    You could also use Skype, which now has a Mac OS X client.

  38. Probably not by AbbyNormal · · Score: 1

    It probably will not until all the major players allow for their clients to talk to other providers.
    Average computer user's will still use whatever client is installed on their desktop (AOL/MSN).

    --
    Sig it.
  39. Helix by Albanach · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone know what the current state of play is with the Real / Helix funded extensions to Jabber that were supposed to be bringing voice / video to our favourite Instant messanger. I thought it was supposed to be released by now?

    1. Re:Helix by infiniti99 · · Score: 2, Informative

      This is a joint effort with Psi, and has a projected release for September (this month).

      The actual protocol specifications are ready, and available on the Delta project page, as jep-rtsp and jep-media. I have not yet submitted them to the JSF to be accepted as formal JEPs, as I already have some other protocol specs in their queue that I want to resolve first (particularly a patch to JEP-0065 to incorporate UDP support).

      On the software side of things, we'll likely be late. This is somewhat related to a misunderstanding regarding the Helix SDK's capability. While the toolkit is quite mature for most purposes, it has never been used in a peer-to-peer fashion, where content is served from an end-user desktop application. This will be a first, but is taking us a little longer to deal with. It might be October before we have a beta.

  40. Mac + Business = share? by ziegast · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With businesses able to host their own messaging servers behind the firewall and use it with Apple's included IM client, will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

    You assume that ther are enough "mac" computers in business to affect market share? Some companies are hip enough to use Macs in business. Many many many are not.

    If MozillaFireFoxBird had built-in support for Jabber instead of having to download a special client, Jabber might find its way into more homes and businesses. Like the US economy, Mozilla is starting to gain some traction.

    1. Re:Mac + Business = share? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Put it in Firefox? Done.

      But another question, why not Thunderbird? A jabber message of type 'message' looks like a regular email, accept you have the bonus of presence. Maybe hit a button, and you can open up a message window of type 'chat'.

      This would be a great idea, and I'm certain that it would be used more then say, usenet support in thunderbird.

    2. Re:Mac + Business = share? by dasmegabyte · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, it's been historically proven that the adoption of a format or technology by Apple is the first step to towards its success. I won't list them, because you know them, but they're numerous. It doesn't matter that Apple only has X% of the market (where X= a single digit number between 3 and 7 that changes depending how much the speaker hates Apple) -- the fact that they say "This format is pretty cool" gets PC and Linux authors who are fans of Apple to take another look at it, in an attempt to mooch off of Apple's trend radar.

      FireFox has yet to prove itself in this respect. Give it another year or two (and let's see how it faces pressure from the next MS browser).

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
  41. Re:Sex with a mare? by agentforsythe · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I just switched my comment threshold to -1... didn't realise there were such morons on here until now.

  42. Intresting.. by mrdavidk · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Slightly off-topic. When browsing the apple's tiger preview section and checking out it's features I clicked on Safari RSS and guess what? http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/safari.html First person to to guess right gets...ahh...hmmm..a cookie?

    1. Re:Intresting.. by mrdavidk · · Score: 1

      Times up. Don't recall reading anything like this on slashdot but look at the picture of Safari that loads up on the link I gave... feed://slashdot.org/index.rss :)

    2. Re:Intresting.. by Calgary · · Score: 1

      Somebody at Apple is a Slashdot and Firefly fan!

  43. Re:Your not alone by wedding · · Score: 0

    If not, he's going to a special level of hell. Your- Possesive You're- Contraction, You Are. Get it right, damnit!

  44. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dear Dr. Hogie,

    Thank you for your complaints about Jabber. Please read the file WARRANTY. Jabber comes with no warranty, express or implied. As such, it is your responsibility to use it in an appropriate fashion.

    For more details, please RTFM, STFU, and STFW.

    Sincerely,
    The Open Source Community

  45. yah but whatabout Mac 10.2 users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    iChat 3.0 and Safari 2.0 are nice, but will it be supported in 10.2 and older OSes? Does this mean I have to buy a new OS and possibly a new hardware to run these apps? If so, OSS seems to be a better solution than going with Apple software.

    1. Re:yah but whatabout Mac 10.2 users by WiseWeasel · · Score: 1

      So quit yer bitchin and either upgrade to 10.4.x when this comes out, or get one of any number of free Jabber clients out there that work just fine on 10.2. That's the beauty of open standards...

      --
      "I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
  46. No Effect by shking · · Score: 4, Informative
    "...will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?"

    Since Jabber already has market share, this move by Apple will not Effect (verb: to create) a share for Jabber. However, including Jabber in iChat may Affect (verb: to influence) the market that already exists.

    OTOH - The Effect (noun: influence) of the ignorant substitution of inappropriate words Affects (verb: to influence) your ability to write clearly. Learn to the difference between english vowels, or you'll be condemned to confuse a cat with a cot (or Al with an eel)

    --
    -- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
    1. Re:No Effect by Didian · · Score: 1
      "...will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?"

      Since Jabber already has market share, this move by Apple will not Effect (verb: to create) a share for Jabber. However, including Jabber in iChat may Affect (verb: to influence) the market that already exists.

      OTOH - The Effect (noun: influence) of the ignorant substitution of inappropriate words Affects (verb: to influence) your ability to write clearly. Learn to the difference between english vowels, or you'll be condemned to confuse a cat with a cot (or Al with an eel)

      OTOH giving a mnemonic to remember which is always the verb is more helpful. [You only get one "A", so it's an effect rather than an affect.]
      --
      "You despise me, don't you?"
      "If I gave you any thought, I probably would."
    2. Re:No Effect by Finuvir · · Score: 1

      "Affect" is also a noun. It's much rarer than the other three ("effect" [noun], "effect" [verb], and "affect" [verb]). If you're using that word you almost certainly know the distinction well enough not to have to think about it. It's a useful one to know if people start to tell you that "affect" isn't a noun.

      --
      Why is anything anything?
  47. I second that motion by codepunk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not to mention that most of the client software is
    too nasty to use in a work situation. For work we don't need kitchen sink software just simple messaging. The whole jabber protocol is cool but if tools for managing it in a sane way do not exist it just becomes a nightmare.

    --


    Got Code?
    1. Re:I second that motion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the Mac, iChat will hopefully take this role. On Windows, there's Pandion and on Linux there's Gossip.

      The server, well, depends on what server you're using. In my experience, Jabberd 1.4 wasn't that bad, but the config file was a pain in the ass. (Debian decided to ship it broken and only allow SSL connections, per their security model. It took me a lot of hassle to figure this out.)

  48. Jabber's strengths by base_chakra · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I use AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Jabber (all via Trillian) and Jabber is by far the most featureless of the three. Where's video or audio IM, buddy icons, etc. ?

    What's being touted here is that Jabber can function as groupware for intranet messaging, and that it is a viable option for IM in the enterprise. But even for Internet messaging, it has a very attractive feature: encryption.

    Trillian Pro offers 128-bit Blowfish encryption for ICQ, but that requires both parties to use Trillian Pro (a non-free Windows client).

    On the other hand, Jabber is more readily extensible, and already offers both SSL and the somewhat SSH-like JEP-0116 encryption scheme.

    I know some international business people that have already adopted Jabber for its privacy features. Jabber may never take hold among teens and "tweens", but it has a chance among other groups, such as Internet professionals who (believe it or not) conduct business via instant messaging.

    1. Re:Jabber's strengths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      eh no. the free trillian client allows 128 bit encryption over AIM and ICQ.

  49. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm guessing that you were that guy on jdev@conference.jabber.org asking how to have users automatically added?

    Well, sorry, I should have told you then, but most of the client and server developers come on between 2-6 EST (this isn't a hard fact, it just comes by noticing). You could probably ask your question then. If your server dosn't have this, just put in a feature request.

    Hope this helps.

    (Hope I didn't double post. I got an "invalid form key" error last time.)

  50. Hell no! by Pseud0 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

    Will a teenager farting in Niger cause a tornado in Japan? Will my slingshot penetrate 4 inch armor? Will a few percent of the users of a few percent computer marketshare cause an overall significant effect? You all know the answer.

    --

    /John Sjolander, project manager Contribio
    1. Re:Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hehe... you said fart... hehe...

  51. Gmail & mac by grusapa · · Score: 0

    why cant we have gmail and mac and Jabber VS. ms and msn? gmail dont have a chat program and mac need now.. and well i well have gmail, not msn and hotmail.

    1. Re:Gmail & mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how about u get hotmail and d/l msn messenger???

  52. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Have you tried http://www.jabberdoc.org/?

  53. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 1



    Perhaps you meant to say, "configure" rather than "installation"?

    and in true Open Source fashion, no one helped them, other than to say, "Well, I've setup a nifty Perl hack to fix that problem . . you just need these 4 libraries and then write your own XML commands.".

    So you're saying they've already done your job and fixed it? So whats the problem? Having trouble installing perl? Not intending to troll, but it seems like your support was exceptionally good...

  54. whoops! by sammy+baby · · Score: 1

    Okay, it's a minor snark: it should be "affect," not "effect," in the story writeup.

    Minor niggle. Keep up the otherwise good work.

  55. nice clients by hey · · Score: 2, Informative

    For Windows Miranda is nice. On Linux I use GAIM -- it works well and is easy to use.

  56. Re:There's something bad about letting this happen by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
    Since iChat is a good IM client and will be installed on every Mac with tiger, this has basically stopped developers from making other clients on the Mac.

    I know what you're saying, but there's plenty of room for an all-in-one client.

  57. Re:Sheesh, is Jabba getting Slashdot headlines now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who is more lame, the Anonymous Coward or the lamer replying to it?

    Definitely the AC making the extremely weak Star Wars pun.

  58. It's Kerberized by alexhmit01 · · Score: 1

    Apple has created a Kerberized Jabber Client/Server... The Linux/Windows clients will quickly add support because they can and its cool... They are having a secure IM environment, which is very cool

    1. Re:It's Kerberized by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

      I admit that it depends how it is being implemented, but Kerberos is generally used to solve a different set of problems from GPG.

      It's probably just the framework to authenticate to the server. It's not as good as GPG end-to-end encryption and authentication.

    2. Re:It's Kerberized by alexhmit01 · · Score: 1

      There are ways to do SSL over Kerberos (i.e. using Kerberos to verify the entities and setup the SSL connection)... GPG give syou end-to-end encryption, but authentication is only as good as your way of getting people's public key.

      Jabber DOES SSL, Apple's Jabber is Kerberized... I'm going to do some guessing...

      BTW: GPG client->client does prevent the server from getting the message, which solves that problem. However, we both need to talk to a server to find each other, and a way to authenticate ourselves to that server...

      And Kerberos is a great way to do that...

      Enthusiasts want to push the processing and structure to their home machines for ultimate control. Those of us making business decisions want EVERYTHING on the servers that we keep an eye on, not the end user machines that we try to lock down and get complains and have to unlock them.

      Alex

    3. Re:It's Kerberized by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

      GPG give syou end-to-end encryption, but authentication is only as good as your way of getting people's public key.

      Use keyservers, and have each client advertise the key its using.

      Worst case, even if the end user is doing no trust management whatsoever, end-to-end encryption is provided -- roughly the same as SSL (well, SSL without server/client cert pairs) but for the entire route. If the end user *does* choose to trust specific people, they gain full authentication and encryption end-to-end. A server compromise will not compromise their data, man-in-the-middle is not possible (and given that I've never installed any certs on any SSL-using jabber clients, it's a good bet that these are still open to man-in-the-middle attacks).

      I'm not saying that Kerberos is bad. I'm saying that it doesn't solve a portion of the security problem that GPG *can* solve.

      GPG can be just as transparent as Kerberos -- but the point is that it can also, in the hands of expert users (or users with a configured client or with an easy-to-use client), allow end-to-end secured connection instead of just client-server secured connections.

  59. effect? by Xetrov · · Score: 1

    will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

    Dunno... Might affect it though.

  60. Jabber and ISPs by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 1

    At the moment we can't be certain what impact on Jabber's market share this will have. Hopefully help increase it and get people talking about it. If you have a friend who does not have a Jabber server then they can still use the central jabber.org server.

    If Apple's move has any impact, I wonder how long it would be before ISPs start providing Jabber servers.

    The only thing I have to wonder is if the jabber account being the same address as your e-mail address would increase e-mail spam?

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  61. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by GeorgeH · · Score: 1

    Mac OS X 10.4 Server will include a Jabber server with what I assume will be a usable configuration tool. And those Xserves are, as Borat would say, niiiiice.

    --
    Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
  62. If you're really geeky... by numbski · · Score: 4, Informative

    CenterICQ

    - Cross Platform
    - It supports server hosted friends list
    - Starts up quickly
    - Supports AIM, MSN, ICQ, YIM, Jabber, RSS, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, and LiveJournal
    - It's free as in speech (GNU)

    AND

    It can be put into a screen on a server, you can detach, then simply ssh into the server from a different location and reconnect to your screen as though you never left. I do this all the time. ;) I have connections to all the major services, a slashdot RSS, and any other RSS feeds I find interesting on our shell server at our data center, and it never skips a beat.

    FYI, if this interests you, contact me for a shell account. ;)

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    1. Re:If you're really geeky... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I wouldn't recommend giving shell accounts to random Slashdot people. That's a security risk waiting to happen.

    2. Re:If you're really geeky... by Jo+Owen · · Score: 1

      ALthough they dropped support for MSN when the protocal went ssl..

    3. Re:If you're really geeky... by numbski · · Score: 1

      Still works here...? In FreeBSD make WITH_MSN=yes does the trick.

      --

      Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    4. Re:If you're really geeky... by numbski · · Score: 1

      Heh. A paying customer that I'm keeping an eye on doesn't bother me too much. ;)

      Besides, if you can't trust /. AC's, who can you trust? ...

      oh. I see your point.

      --

      Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    5. Re:If you're really geeky... by kundor · · Score: 1

      There are patches for new MSN support, which may or may not have worked their way into the main package (it's been a while since I used centericq.)

  63. Learn to the difference between english vowels???? by zarniwhoop · · Score: 4, Funny

    'nuf said

  64. It's about the iSight folks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It seems that with Apple's public comments about the enhanced iChat to ship with Tiger they are pushing greater adoption of iChat as a communication tool. With text chatting, file exchange, audio {with up to 10 participants} & video {with up to 4 participants} conferencing it seem logical.

    If Apple would develop the Windows counterpart of iChat and include it with the iSight, they would be able to further entrench QuickTime into the Windows market (I'm assuming that QuickTime is needed to pull off the multiparty audio & video conferencing) and offer their digital lifestyle solutions to the widest possible market.

  65. Re:Sex with a mare? by dasmegabyte · · Score: 1

    Technically speaking, there wouldn't have been such dipshits until he was bored.

    Incidentally, the quality of flames here is going down. You cats have to try harder.

    --
    Hey freaks: now you're ju
  66. offline messaging and WAN support by kfs27 · · Score: 1

    does jabber allow for offline messaging in the ICQ sense... when they sign on the messages sent to them get shown...

    also can you open up this in tiger server to roll your own ichat network... or would it be LAN only. just wondering. but everyone can run their own networks and not be bothered by other services... at the cost of reiability of course

    --
    Kenny Sabarese
    www.kennysabarese.com
    1. Re:offline messaging and WAN support by lethe1001 · · Score: 1

      yes to offline jabber messages.

  67. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 1

    My experience of setting up a Jabber server wasn't all too good either. I managed to get one up and running in the end though. To make life easier I made sure that any person could create a new account on the server, since it was the easiest solution. If you are interested I could find out the configuration I had.

    Things that you should note is that the server needs to be able to resolve the address of the server it is running on and the other servers is may need to connect to. This was an issue when I tried it as home, since my DNS does not have the name of my computer in it.

    Also, check all passwords in the config files are set correctly.

    As to clients, there aren't really too many good ones. On the Windows side Trillian Pro and Miranda seem fair enough. On the Mac side I have experience with Fire and on Linux Gaim.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  68. Re:Your not alone by lavar78 · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    He clearly meant to be funny. "Your" should be "You're" and "apostrophe's" should be "apostrophes."

    Hey, I thought it was funny.

    --
    "Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
  69. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by DrHogie · · Score: 2, Informative

    I wish they had posted Perl scripts -- all the comments that I read merely said "I used This::Library and got it working. It's really easy."

    That being said, I did unmerge jabberd1.4 and got jabberd2.0s3 up and running this morning after posting that comment, and the experience is much better. Changes I make to the MySQL database are picked up by the clients, whereas changes I made to the xdb files in 1.4 were overwritten by the clients.

    I just hate using non-final software in a production environment.

    --
    --DrH, the Sandwich with the Ph.D.
  70. Some of jabber has been in for a while by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If one uses some of the cocoa decompile/dynamic classloading stuff they would notice that some parts of jabber have been in iChat for a while

  71. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Qzukk · · Score: 1

    "Well, I've setup a nifty Perl hack to fix that problem . . you just need these 4 libraries and then write your own XML commands."

    Well, I found a windows program to do the same thing, you just have to download this .exe file, scan it three times for viruses and trojans, strip out the malware with adaware (voiding the eula) and somehow locate copies of msvcrt40.dll, olepro32.dll, and vbrun200.dll.

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  72. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Doktor+Memory · · Score: 2, Informative

    Jabberdoc is helpful, but it won't do anything for this guy: he's not looking for documentation of a feature, he's looking for a feature that doesn't exist in any of the current server implementations.

    --

    News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.

  73. See ejabberd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The best Jabber server in my opinion is ejabberd. It does scale very well and is really very easy to configure.

    See: http://ejabberd.jabberstudio.org/

    --
    Mickael Rémond
    http://www.erlang-projects.org/

  74. Network effect by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why should people running Microsoft's service have some right to connect to a service owned by another company?

    There's no reason except that tech people are a bunch of hippies.


    Well, actually, there are a number of other pretty solid business reasons as it turns out.

    The main one is the network effect - if you combine two huge pools of IM customers, then the total becomes more useful than the sum of its parts. If you have five different companies all with different IM's, then you'll get fewer users than if you just have one big pool that everyone can use. Fewer users, means less revenue (assuming an IM provider is able to eek revenue out of users somehow!)

    Did hippies steal your cat or something? Not quite sure where that would enter into things.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Network effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, there's really just two IM companies, Microsoft and AOL. And they probably both think they can win the entire market.

  75. not geek enough by BinLadenMyHero · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Even geekier is bitlbee, an irc gateway to aim/msn/icq/jabber, based on gaim IM code.

  76. While I do adore using Jabber for non-chat purpose by Sunnan · · Score: 1

    I think using the protocol for sensors such as that is a bit overkill. There has to be a simpler way.

  77. SIM by BinLadenMyHero · · Score: 1

    I tried gaim, but I didn't like the interface.
    Back when I used Windows at work, I was using Miranda, which is the best FOSS for Windows I've seen (Firefox doesn't count).
    Now I'm using SIM, (based on Qt, but can be compiled without KDE), and works for Linux and Windows. Not as perfect as Miranda, but I'm pretty satisfied, and it's light and modular.

  78. Encrypted memory! by teridon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Meanwhile, additions to Tiger's [...] "Security" preference panes have unveiled [...] an option to encrypt memory when its being swapped to disk.

    Wow, that's paranoia! :) I guess Apple is taking pointers from Linux users. I found this script to encrypt swap -- what other options are there under Linux? Windows?

    --
    I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
  79. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I think the mere fact that there exists an entire Web site dedicated to providing documentation for the product testifies to what a lousy product it is.

    --

    I write in my journal
  80. Re:There's something bad about letting this happen by ratlater · · Score: 1

    I don't agree with your assumption. Even with iChat there is still heavy development of Adium, Fire and Proteus. As for Jabber, thank goodness Apple is adding it to iChat. Current Mac Jabber clients are dreadful. With iChat server and iChat supporting Jabber it will increase the Mac markets Jabber awarness and cause an increase in demand for Jabber clients. I'm sure Fire/Adium/Proteus will all improve their Jabber capabilities do to the increased demand.

    If you like Jabber this is very good news.

    --
    http://thewonderllama.com
  81. Re:There's something bad about letting this happen by mbadolato · · Score: 1

    Even with iChat there is still heavy development of Adium, Fire and Proteus

    And Justin (the original creator of Proteus) recently graduated college, handed over the reigns of Proteus to other developers, and went to work for Apple on their iChat team. so, who knows what could be in store (though I believe he is working in a QA aspect at the moment)

  82. Adoption by Apple first step to success? by Sunnan · · Score: 1

    Yeah, 'cause everybody uses Dylan and Hypercard now.

    1. Re:Adoption by Apple first step to success? by dasmegabyte · · Score: 1

      Everybody uses Access, which does what Hypercard did. Remember, these tools were Apple only; other people couldn't adopt it but they COULD clone the idea. Dylan, as well, came up with a ton of good ideas that were borrowed by modern IDEs...VS.NET has a class viewer which is essentally Dylan without the management, and Netbeans' document selector is, again, Dylan on steroids.

      I should have mentioned this -- technologies that Apple selects that aren't available elsewhere can indeed die out. Open technologies Apple selects rarely do. I have high hopes for AAC, not so many for ALC.

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
    2. Re:Adoption by Apple first step to success? by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I have to wonder about Apple Lossless. I know why they made it instead of using FLAC: because it's easier to encode/decode. But why haven't they opened it?

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    3. Re:Adoption by Apple first step to success? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah this interwebslashdotthingee is completely different from the hypercard method of clicking on a link to go to a new card.

      Dylan sucked after he found god. Shit, does this mean Linda and Yoko are gods?

  83. It's too late for Jabber by Nurgled · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Jabber's model is excellent. It's very similar to the email distribution model where there is a network of servers and then each server has a bunch of clients hanging off it. Although email has a few security issues, the general model is sound: it's decentralised, and yet it still makes efficient use of the network unlike the current "peer-to-peer" apps which generate an extra network over the network usually with little regard to the underlying topology and proceed to shove redundant data everywhere.

    The difference between Jabber and the email system, though, is that the email system happened during the early days of the Internet. Consequently, when it got enough momentum for commercial ISPs to appear providing access to homes it was a given that every ISP "had to" provide customers with an email account and run email servers to handle the customer's mail.

    If Jabber had come along at the same time, it too would be one of those things ISPs just provide with every account. Some ISPs would even let customers have multiple Jabber IDs per account like they used to do with email addresses to differentiate themselves from the competition.

    The problem is that, with a few notable exceptions, the only companies that actually get paid for Internet services are ISPs. There is no viable business model to provide free Jabber services just as there is no money in free email with POP3 and IMAP access. The availability of Jabber is limited to geeks who set up servers of varying scales and people who know said geeks. The only way a commercial Jabber service could be provided is to use a proprietary protocol for client-to-server communication and then bridge that onto the Jabber network at the server side. This is comparable to web-based email which uses proprietary HTML to encode the data, meaning you get the service on their terms and not on yours. (usually one of these terms is the presence of advertising)

    On the other hand, if every viable comsumer ISP provided customers with a Jabber server and at least one Jabber ID it would have flourished. These days, though, there is no way to add new "required services" to ISPs and they are frantically trying to shed the few they have now. (Notice the decline in ISPs providing USENET servers and customer webspace)

    It sucks, but there is no way at this point in the game to introduce a new distributed and open protocol. There's just no money in distributed and open protocols.

    1. Re:It's too late for Jabber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      There is no viable business model to provide free Jabber services just as there is no money in free email with POP3 and IMAP access.

      And commerical businesss charge their employees how much for their email accounts? Nothing?

      While a nice analysis it ignores the fact that many companies provide "internet" services on their own intranet and they may use commericial software to do that. That is what the Apple product is aimed at and that is what the upcoming Oracle server are targeted for. Not to mention the handful of folks selling commerical servers based upon different protocols (IBM, etc.).

      I suspect a number of companies are wondering if it is a good idea for their "internal" IM travel out to AOL, Yahoo, MSN and back.

    2. Re:It's too late for Jabber by codemachine · · Score: 1

      Very insightful. The exact same thing applies to almost any internet protocol or service. For example, it has been possible for years to do efficient multicast streaming of high quality media to end users, but since many ISPs are owned by companies that are starting to offer this service themselves, there is no way they'll provide an easy means for a 3rd party to do this across the internet.

      In fact, for many reasons, a lot of ISPs don't support multicast at all. The only way to get around this right now is through application layer protocols (such as most P2P protocols), which generally aren't as efficient as ISP proviced or network layer services would be. Plus an ISP an always degrade the service levels of such traffic if they really wanted to.

      It is a business problem more than a technical one. Many interesting things have been done at the network level on Internet2 and PlanetLab, but they can't easily be commercialized without support from the ISPs. That is why I'm curious to see where Intel is trying to go with their announcement that PlanetLab should become the next internet. How does Intel plan to turn a research project into a commercial one, and how do they intend to make money and get support from (or bypass) the ISPs? Or are they just looking at the technology and saying it'd be a good idea, without actually thinking through the business problems?

  84. IIRC kerberos as well. by jerkyjunkmail · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I vaguely remember when Tiger was anounced that they were also kerberizing it. so iChat and their server will be kerberized. It's pretty cool they have kerberized a lot of the stock services on OS X Server. I use OS X Server to host my personal mail and use Mail.app as the client. I really liked the no fuss procedure to get up and running with kerberized mail service. I've come to REALLY like and respect Kerberos. I never really took the time to set Kerberos up using a Linux or Solaris or BSD before but it motivated me to really learn how it works. I'ved added in some non mac hosts to the kerberos keytab(via the CLI. there's no GUI that I know of) now so I can ssh with no passwords entry to, at least so far, a linux, an OpenBSD, and a FreeBSD host. OpenBSD's lack of nss support is a bit of a bummera and damn Solaris is a bugger. I was thinking it might be cool to have OpenLDAP export a NIS map for the OpenBSD host but I haven't looked into it very closely yet.
    ok now that getting I'm off on a tangent I'll stop.

    jerky

    --

    --
    What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
  85. Re:Affect, not effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I think the editors just put mistakes in to annoy people.

  86. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by VAXGeek · · Score: 1

    I looked into doing the same thing, it's true. Most of the people suggested overwriting all contact lists on the server with a list of all users. Of course, if your users add anyone on another transport or anything, it will be neatly overwritten. This is a KILLER feature, and I hope it gets added soon.

    --
    this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
  87. Fire not happy-happy with Jabber by mughi · · Score: 1

    When it comes to MacOS X, there are several worthy contenders: Fire, Adium to name a few.

    One big problem I have with Fire is its lack of good Jabber support. Basics are there, but I can't reliably use it for group chatting. (It might not even support it, IIRC)

    For Jabber, I've had to use Nitro to get the group support I needed. And on Linux (since I have an ancient RH 8 box) I end up using Gabber instead of GAIM

    1. Re:Fire not happy-happy with Jabber by firedeveloper · · Score: 1

      You will be happy to note that the imminent release of Fire 1.1 will include improved support for Jabber including Group Chat Support, and improved support for the challenge response authentication model.

      Also, Fire will be 100% Tiger compatible when Tiger hits the streets... Testing for that is already underway... Including interoperability with the Jabber Server on Tiger

      We are working on support for Jabber server-stored buddy lists, but that may have to wait until a future release. You can give the new version a trial run by downloading the alpha at http://fire.sf.net/Prerelease/snapshot.dmg

      (BTW, we used the jabber libraries from Nitro, so hat's off to that team for the help.... Isn't open source great!!!)

    2. Re:Fire not happy-happy with Jabber by AndyElf · · Score: 1

      For Jabber I've always beeing using Psi. Multiplatform as well, thanks to Qt.

      --

      --AP
    3. Re:Fire not happy-happy with Jabber by AndyElf · · Score: 1

      Any plans for secure communication? Such that it would work with Psi?

      --

      --AP
    4. Re:Fire not happy-happy with Jabber by firedeveloper · · Score: 1

      Fire has supported secure IM (GPG) for over 3 years, which works between two Fire clients. We are talking with the other IM providers (GAIM, Trillian, etc) to come up with a cross application one, but that will take some time because we have all used different mechanisms.


      As it stands, the Jabber support does include SSL, which provides some level of privacy (although message contents can be seen by the server, just not on the wire.)

    5. Re:Fire not happy-happy with Jabber by danielsfca2 · · Score: 1

      I love Psi. Wonderful little program. Use it on my Mac and keep a copy on my USB key for chatting away-from-home.

  88. Re:Sheesh, is Jabba getting Slashdot headlines now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh and I suppose you could do better?

  89. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We went with commercial software for in the office (E/pop by WiredRed). Encrypted streams, ties into NDS or AD, has a Java client.

    The biggest bonus is that the Pro client comes with built-in remote control software. Very handy to have in a distributed office when you need to see what the other person is looking at. (The only alternative is pcAnywhere, expensive, or VNC, slow-bulky... WinXP remote desktop doesn't do what you think it does.)

  90. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by nursedave · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    You know, its funny.... As much as I read this and the parent, I can't quite think of why it has been rated as, currently, '-1,Flamebait.'

    Then I realized - this is Twirlip. And this is Slashdot. Populated by Slashholes who probably hate having their silly lefty ideas thrown into the garbage disposal by Twirlip, and hey, now they have modpoints to use to get back at him!

    What a bunch of dicks.

    --

    The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!

  91. Where's the 'rumor' in a developer build? by SeaFox · · Score: 1

    those "couple of stories" both come from a rumor site

    The stories are about features found in a developer release from Apple. How is it a rumor to be skeptical of when Apple itself is the source?

  92. Awesome. by mindstrm · · Score: 1

    This is exactly what iChat needs to get me to use it.

    Now they just need to make iChat AV compatable with Messenger & NetMeeting so the iSight can be more than a useless appendage unless everyone you want to chat with has a mac.

  93. ubergroups.com by jimmyp9999 · · Score: 1

    We've been developing something along the lines of what a geek would dream Google IM to be like - ubergroups.com, a secure team-oriented IM/Blog web service. (Please check the service out, we're in beta, launching in October, and welcome your feedback!)

    We've chosen XMPP as the protocol of choice for our service because of the wide range of client software, and because it was easy for us to implement our own client and server software.

    Naturally this is great news for us since iChat is perhaps the nicest consumer IM interface out there. It gives us instant access to the entire deployed base of OS X users. Apple users are very interested in staying ahead of the curve and are early adopters of new technologies. It's very exciting to know that every Mac user will have a great experience with our service.

  94. Wow by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 1

    One of the most insightful posts I've ever seen on Slashdot.

    --
    Forget the whales - save the babies.
  95. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Pizzop · · Score: 1

    http://www.businessim.com It's what I do. I wrote the script for the commericial implementation of our jabber server to manipulate rosters. If you wanted to do it the fun way, install the port on a BSD box (we use freeBSD for ours) with a mysql backend. Make php-based web pages to manipulte the DB, or install cli php module and do it that way maybe

  96. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you're looking for free XMPP-based IM that requires no "configuration," and will solve the problem of having to manually add users to your lists that you need to communicate with -- you may want to check out ubergroups.com. It works via users establishing networks or "workgroups" of contacts, rather than (in a large corporate example) throwing everyone together in a directory of thousands of users.

  97. Minor nit by SJS · · Score: 1

    Perhaps "affect" was meant instead of "effect"?

    --
    Pick One: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~stremler/sigs/sigs.html (Note - disable Javascript first!)
  98. multiple simultaneous jabber connections? by pohl · · Score: 1

    The one feature that I'd love to see in any jabber client is the ability to have multiple, simultaneous jabber connections open at the same time. I have yet to find a jabber client that does this well, and I floated the idea to more than one. The reason that I'd like this feature is that I have one jabber id for communicating with my wife (on a public server) and another one for communicating with my coworkers (on a private jabber server inside the firewall.) Currently, I have to run two instances of Gabber and hope that they don't have an argument about config files and logs. No project seems to be willing to complicate the user interface by adding this feature, sadly.

    --

    The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...

    1. Re:multiple simultaneous jabber connections? by codemachine · · Score: 1

      Since gaim can do multiple connections to MSN and AOL/ICQ at once, one would think they might be able to do the same with Jabber.

      But I can't say for sure, as I haven't tried out gaim's Jabber support yet. It is on my todo list though.

  99. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you care so goddamn much, then use your mod points on Twirlip to counteract the occasionally unfair karma bomb. Me personally - regardless of the political slant, I mod him down when he's pointlessly ripping into people, which is often. In these cases, the posts deserve it, and it's a quick, reliable way to dump off my points. Find me a similarly consistently belligerent poster and I'll be glad to spread the love.

  100. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Erno_Rubaiyat · · Score: 1

    jabberstudio.org has a developer community and list that you might find useful as well.

  101. Re:While I do adore using Jabber for non-chat purp by revscat · · Score: 1

    If you're sending data over a wire that pretty much necessitates a protocol.

  102. gaim does it by pixel+fairy · · Score: 1
    1. Re:gaim does it by pohl · · Score: 1

      Thank you both so much. This is excellent news.

      --

      The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...

  103. Re:There's something bad about letting this happen by firedeveloper · · Score: 1

    Yep, we are improving Jabber support in Fire as we speak...

    And by the way, I have personally spent over 1000 hours on Fire development after iChat was available for Free... It's all about multi service support (And it's also fun to add cool features like automatic translation, profanity filtering, or whatever else I feel like doing that day....)

    The Alternative clients are still alive and kicking :)

  104. Ayttm and Gaim by cintyram · · Score: 1

    Webcam and Voice support in Gaim and ayttm is poor; especially for yahoo users. unfortunately things arent improving much. -- why doesnt slashdot post some news on rsi related stuff? im suffering and would appreciate a broader support from the community ; cheers ram

  105. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you want to use an IM server on your corporate network -- for free -- and for some reason you expect free support, as well. In other words, your company plans to make more money with the help of Jabber -- or at least, save money by not using a commercial IM product -- and yet you expect somebody to help you out for free. Does that make sense to you? Pardon me if I don't sympathize.

  106. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by nursedave · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    So you admit you are a stupid cock. Figures. In this case, the post DIDN'T deserve it. It had nothing to do with slamming your ultra-leftwing bullshit.

    Idiot.

    --

    The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!

  107. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by dn15 · · Score: 1
    I merely want to setup IM clients for 20-30 employees, and have their buddy lists controlled by the server itself, so when a new employee is added, all 20-30 existing employees don't have to add them.
    It sounds like the existing Rendezvous messaging in iChat would be a good solution for you. No need for server-side buddy lists, or a chat server at all for that matter. Just fire up iChat on the new employee's machine and they will automatically show up in everyone's buddy list.

    This is assuming your organization is 100% Mac, of course. But Apple has released a Rendezvous SDK so hopefully some Windows/Linux clients will add support for this if they haven't already.
  108. Forget iChat, compile your own Gaim by dangil · · Score: 1

    drop iChat, download the Developer Tools and the X11 enviroment, download the gaim sourcecode and compile yourself your own jabber + AIM + whatever client !

    remember to check those lib dependencies !

  109. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're reading comprehension's a bit off. Oh well, you've convinced me: with friends like you, Twirlip doesn't need any enemies.

  110. However... by Xenex · · Score: 1

    Yahoo! Messenger for Mac only supports video chat, but not audio chat. So you can see your friend, but not hear them.

    I guess you could use Yahoo! and Skype at once if you really wanted to avoid using AIM, but iChat's video quality is much better...

  111. Not from Linux, but from OpenBSD by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 1

    OpenBSD has had encrypted swap for a few years now.

  112. AIM and iChat interconnectivity by MartinB · · Score: 1

    /me looks at desktop

    Oh look, here I am sat in front of Lotus Sametime at work, and I can see my father on AIM and my wife on iChat at home. All 3 of us can see each other and talk to each other, instigate 3 way chats etc.

    From iChat, I can do video and audio with AIM perfectly smoothly (once AIM was configured to recognise the webcam - none of the simple "plug in iSight[1] and It Just Works(tm)")

    This is running from a public AIM server, but would probably work as well from a private one.

    [1] Other webcams *should* work just as well, but my experience is with the iSight, which *does*

    --

    The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's

  113. Re:While I do adore using Jabber for non-chat purp by Sunnan · · Score: 1

    Well, duh, but is Jabber really the best for that? How about, for example, BEEP?

  114. Assuming "applause" is meant non-literally by Sunnan · · Score: 1
    Are you saying companies shouldn't be applauded for using standards?

    The more openness, the more applause, of course.

    But Apple is very much looking out for themselves first and foremost, and they still have a very long way to go before I give them a full-on standing ovation.

    It's still vendor lock-in. It's still proprietary programs (Safari is closed, WebCore isn't).

    Why should I have to write a better iCal? Had it been free, I could've "stood on it's shoulders". Apple Mail is also a program I'd want a better free version of.
  115. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by nursedave · · Score: 1

    You didn't answer parent post - how was Twirlip's post off-topic? It wasn't. It was the poster, not what he posted, and the reply as much as admitted this.

    --

    The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!

  116. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > It was the poster, not what he posted, and the reply as much as admitted this.

    Sigh. I (same AC) didn't mod, and wouldn't have modded, said post. Are you catching up now, cupcake?

    > http://www.iridetheshortbus.com/

    I solemnly believe you. I really do.

  117. Enabled, Not Included. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Long before it was an AIM client, prior to release, iChat was Jabber-based. In fact, AOL initially rejected Apple, but later gave up the goods, forcing Jabber into a lesser role: it is still used for Rendezvous messaging.

    The Jabber codebase never left, and has always been a flip of the switch away from inclusion in the shipping version of iChat. Other good features; like tabbed windows and a floating mini-buddylist; also fall into that category.

  118. H323 Compliance? by mbourgon · · Score: 1

    That would be lovely to have. While there are some open source alternatives (OhPhoneX and Gnomemeeting-via-Fink), it would be damn handy to have iChat talk to H323 clients, especially since modern H.323 Endpoints use the same codecs (H263, H264) as iChat.

    --
    "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
  119. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by nursedave · · Score: 1
    Sigh. I (same AC) didn't mod, and wouldn't have modded, said post.
    Then why the hell are you arguing about it? Sheesh...
    Are you catching up now, cupcake?
    Uhm, yeah, I guess so, sweet-tits.
    I solemnly believe you. I really do.
    Hey, wasn't that you sitting up by the driver, licking the window? I was in teh back, wearing the special helmet.
    --

    The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!

  120. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Then why the hell are you arguing about it?
    > Sheesh...

    You suggested that moderators, who you assume are "liberals," are out to get Twirlie because they are tired of losing arguments to him. Nonsense. He's not the only intelligent conservative on /. Really, people are out to get him primarily because he sets himself apart - he goes that extra mile to tell posters how stupid they are, or to call them shitheads, psychoanalyze them, or whatever other inflammatory thing he can think of. Since he's an able writer and has such a sharp, ascerbic tongue, and an extraordinary ability to post ad nauseam to boot, many of those people get frustrated and mod recklessly in revenge.

    IF YOU CARE SO MUCH, then mod accordingly and quit bitching like a liberal grad student. Actually, just quit bitching - it's not like he cares that much, or he'd post his more insulting stuff as AC.

    I've always gone out of my way to read Twirlip because despite the rough edges, his positive qualities are also extraordinary. I suspect he's really a good egg. I also mod him because he's easy to mod (he's prolific, and almost always troll, flame, interesting or insightful... never a dull moment), and he posts in threads that interest me.

  121. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by nursedave · · Score: 1
    IF YOU CARE SO MUCH, then mod accordingly and quit bitching like a liberal grad student
    Still didn't answer my post. Or, rather, confirmed my suspicions of Slashholes moding posts such as the parent (no politics or rudeness in it)down just to be dicks, instead of responding intelligently as to why they disagree with them. I posted an opinion. A well founded one, one you basically confirmed - that of out of control mod'ing. So, how's about this- I'll ignore the rest of this thread, and you can too (or not) and then we'll all have bread and circuses, m'kay?
    --

    The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!

  122. Re:Maybe Apple can make the damn thing configurabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Still didn't answer my post.

    That's funny, I hit reply, and here you are again.

    > confirmed my suspicions of Slashholes moding posts such as the parent (no
    > politics or rudeness in it)down just to be dicks

    By "responding intelligently," do you mean saying something like "what a bunch of dicks?" You're right that people karma bomb, but you're wrong that it's because of politics... with Twirlip, it's mostly just people fighting fire with fire. If that's not a pointed response to a component of your answer, than there is none that you will understand.

    > I posted an opinion. A well founded one, one you basically confirmed

    You posted a theory... a model - one that is inaccurate, and you're hearing that it's wrong from the mouth of someone who mods Twirlip regularly and fairly. You're just too stuck on defending your ranting, barely coherent original post to actually pay attention to the content in the replies. But hang on to that liberal conspiracy bit, if it makes you feel good.

    > I'll ignore the rest of this thread, and you can too (or not) and
    > then we'll all have bread and circuses, m'kay?

    You couldn't resist peeking. By the way, you should look up idioms before you try to use them - you're going to hurt yourself trying to think hard like that. Better keep that helmet on, while you're at it.

  123. iWish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why aren't they modded up iNsightful?