Gus What?!

Gus What?! turned 1 today. Looking at the results, I wrote 45 posts or an average of 3.75 posts per month and got a total of 84 comments. Not a bad start considering I survived the first year of blogging.

When I started this blog, I knew there were three things that had to happen in 2006 for me to actually keep it going: 1.) The introduction of Open AIM, 2.) The release of AIM 6.0. and 3.) Write some Plug-ins. I had no problem writing plug-ins and was deeply involved with AIM 6.0. However, I had no control over Open AIM—This is AOL’s greatest gift to the AIM community and it will only get better. I think the traffic statistics prove I was right. Traffic did not really pickup until the AIM 6.0 betas started rolling out in October and has been doubling every month since. I was pleasantly surprised that January continued the trend.

My plan for this year is to post twice as much useful information as last year. I will also be working on two more plug-ins that should be out by mid-year (Unfortunately, my day job keeps me from doing it full-time.) As an update to my first post… The AIM 6.0 about window still has me in the credits:

Thanks for reading this blog and I look forward to another great year.

I received a number of inquiries lately on how to get Idle Lock to work and some reports on it not working as well as it should. Therefore, I thought it would be a good time to gather these questions and answer them all in one place. Idle Lock is one of the more popular features in Gus Verdun’s RX-Plugin which works with AIM 6.0 and other Open AIM clients. Here is the description of it from the features list:

• Lets you immediately appear as idle while you continue to work at your computer.
• Idle Lock can be toggled via a user defined hotkey.
• A user defined initial idle time can be set when activating Idle Lock.
• Optional system tray icon can show you when Idle Lock is active.
• Can be automatically deactivated when you send an IM.
• Idle Lock can also be activated passively allowing you to continue to appear as being idle when you return.

(more…)

I thought I’d answer a few “quickies” that I often see in the search queries used to access this blog in one form or another. If you have a question about AIM 6.0, just ask. You can leave a comment with your question and I will do my best to answer them.

Q: Can AIM 6.0 let me send messages while away?
A: YES. Make sure you check the “Allow me to send IMs while away” option in the Away Status tab of the IM window.

Q: How do I check offline IMs?
A: Offline IMs are delivered every time you sign-on from any AIM client.

Q: Where are offline stored?
A: They are stored on the host. You can send up to 40 of them per 24 hours and the host will save up to 40 of them per SN for as long as two weeks. Your buddy must have you in their buddy list in order to save offline IMs from you.

Q: How to import AIM 5.x settings into AIM 6.0
A: This is done for you when you install AIM 6.0 for the first time.

This volume covers some of the more common settings related questions derived from the search data to my blog. Be sure to read the comments on these posts, since they may contain more answers to some of your questions.

Q: How do I find the settings for something?
A: Open the Settings window, Press F7 from the Buddy List. You should see a search edit box at the top right of this window. Type in the name of option you are looking for in there. This will filter the Settings window to show only tabs that contain the word you are looking for. In some cases, the word will be highlighted where it is found as you click on the visible tabs. If you don’t see an option try a different name for it. Click on the red circle with a white dash in it to clear your search filter.

(more…)

Since this is a new year, I thought it would be a great time to improve one of the original RX-Plugin rules.

The “goim” rule let you send a screen name as a link so that your buddy could click it in order to open an IM with that new buddy. Thus, saving your buddy the effort to copy and paste the screen name into an IM form.

(more…)

You can register and download this plug-in for free here. Click here if you have already installed this plug-in; then click on the “check for updates” button to get a link to download this version.

From the release notes:

• Added .calc command to open the Windows calculator.
• Added support for drag and drop with AIM 6. You can drag a buddy from your Buddy List and drop it in the Last Seen window to see the information for that buddy.
• Added an option to exclude a rule in chat rooms.
• Reduced volume of IMpulse sounds.
• Last seen now saves away messages for buddies that were already away at sign-on.
• Restructured the code to improve performance.
• Be sure to pickup the rule fixes below if you installed a copy prior to version 0.11.2.
• Versions prior to 0.11.2 have been disabled. Please update to the latest version.

Here is a screen shot just before I dropped “Gus Blog” in the Last Seen window which will then show the information for “Gus Blog”:

Let me know if you have any comments, suggestions, questions, or experience any problems with this plug-in.

Just in case you ever wanted to do this: Here is how to turn off the lights (and keep them off) when it is controlled by a Novitas sensor like the one shown below and you don’t have the optional manual switch wired to it. You will need a small flat-head screwdriver for this simple procedure.

(more…)