I meant to post this on Friday. But late is better than never.
Speaking of late is better than never, here is a picture I took last March when the Airbus A380 flew around Washington for a demonstration flight. I barely caught it as it was coming in for a landing. Here it is over AOL’s CC6 (Creative Center 6) Building.
A closeup of the A380 from that same image:
Enjoy your holiday.
AIM lets you create BOTs. BOTs are essentially custom clients that can sign-on and appear on the AIM Network so that anyone can send them IMs and put them on their buddy list. BOTs generally respond to commands and send their results back.
Here is an idea I doubt would be allowed by AOL’s Terms of Service (TOS). However, I am not a lawyer and like most ideas go, they can always help with the next big idea.
What if you had a Screen Name (SN) that you didn’t need it anymore? Rather than letting it go away unused, why not trade it (remember: hypothetical)?
So here is my BOT idea. First, some simple definitions: The Dealer is the one running the web site and BOTs used to trade SNs. The Seller is anyone who has a SN to trade. The Buyer is anyone that wants a SN that is available for trade.
Sellers register their SN with the Dealer and hand over the password (again: hypothetical). The Dealer takes control of the SN (that’s called assignment, right? It’s a no-no in AOL’s TOS, bummer) and turns it into a BOT.
The Dealer has a BOT and web site that Buyers go to and search for a screen name they want. SNs can be tagged with attributes so that you can search for things that the SN stands for like, sports, football, animal, celebrity, random guy, etc. Each SN that is for trade is also running as a BOT and you can IM the BOT your offer to trade. Buyers know the SN is for trade because the BOT keeps saying “This SN is for trade. Please make an offer”, and provides a verification link on the Dealer’s web site.
When the Seller likes an offer, he tells the Dealer to close the deal. The transaction completes and all parties are happy.
It definitely makes use of the AIM Network in an interesting way.
WDYT?
I have seen a number of questions come up in searches to my blog. Here are a few answers. Unless noted, these apply to AIM 6.x, including AIM Triton.
Q: How do I get the black theme to work in the AIM 6.5 Beta?
A: We have integrated the black them and you no longer have to modify any files to get it. Just click on the beach ball icon at the right of the menu bar in the Buddy List and select it.
Q: How can I transfer (or export or copy or move or send) my buddy list from one screen name to another?
A: You need to install the AIM Buddy Options plugin. See the posts on this subject at the AIM Buddy Blog and on tek. You can get the Buddy List Options plugin here. This plug works on all versions of AIM Triton, AIM 6.0, 6.1 and 6.5. [Update: I covered this before in my previous AIM 6.0 Q&A Volume VI post but this post has the latest links.]
Q: Why do my AIM buddies disappear when they go away?
A: Go to the View menu of the Buddy List. This menu is all about what and how you “see” things. Make sure the “Away/Idle Buddies” option is checked.
Q: Why is my buddy list alphabetical?
A: Go to the View menu of the Buddy List. Open the “Sort Buddy List By” Submenu and make the appropriate selection in there.
Q: How to go invisible before you sign on?
A: See my IM Tweaks plugin. It has several features on this.
Q: How to make yourself idle on AIM?
A: See my RX-plugin. Checkout the Idle Lock feature.
Q: Why does AIM not go idle?
A: Go to the Settings window in AIM (Press F7 from the Buddy List.) Select the Privacy Tab. Make sure the “I am idle” is checked in the “Allow other to see:” Section at the bottom.
The other day I was working on the CoreWitness plug-in in order to prepare it for use with the latest AIM SDK, version 1.3.0. I quickly ran into the issue of what to do when it’s loaded in a client running a previous version of AIMcc.
The first clue came when I ran the client to debug some of the new CoreWitness code. The release notes in AIMcc indicated that a new property, called AccSessionProp_Pause, was added to IAccSession. I started my test run the way I always do by running AIM 6.1, but that client is using the older AIMcc 1.2.4.
Here was what I saw when looking at that property from the CoreWitness trace:
{Unknown} = {Empty}
hr=E_INVALIDARG 0x80070057 (2147942487U) (-2147024809L)
“{Unknown}” is shown because “AccSessionProp_Pause” is not in the typelib of the older AIMcc version that loaded the plug-in. The encouraging news is you get E_INVALIDARG.
Reading this property in AIMcc 1.3.0 shows:
AccSessionProp_Pause = {Empty}
hr=E_INVALIDARG 0x80070057 (2147942487U) (-2147024809L)
Wait, they both return E_INVALIDARG? This must be a write only property. OK, so this won’t work for this property. I could try to set the AccSessionProp_Pause to false, but that might have some unwanted effects. Another thing I could do is inspect the typelib to see if it knows about AccSessionProp_Pause, but I will save that as a last resort. Are there any other new readable properties?
The release notes mentioned another new property; this one is in the IAccPluginInfo interface called AccPluginInfoProp_Windows. Lets, see what it looks like from CoreWitness in AIMcc 1.2.4 and then in 1.3.0:
{Unknown} = {Empty}
hr=E_INVALIDARG 0x80070057 (2147942487U) (-2147024809L)
and
AccPluginInfoProp_Windows = {Empty}
BINGO, that’s exactly what what we need. We can simply adjust our logic based on the support of the AccPluginInfoProp_Windows property. In CoreWitness, I use this method to filter out what data I show and add more command actions when running under AIMcc 1.3.0 since this version lets me specify where these menu items go in the UI.
While I won’t post a rule with actual profanity in it, I will help you get started on creating your own profanity filter. This won’t get rid of all the profanity in the world, but at least it lets you control what comes in through your AIM client. It can even help you in your own moments of angst by filtering what you send.
For starters, you need to have the RX-Plugin installed and running on your AIM 6.x client.
The rule lets you define a list of “bad-words” that will be replaced with “**EXPLETIVE**” in your IMs. Each “bad-word” is actually a sequence of bad characters. For example, if I filter out the sequence “test” then “testing” will show up as “**EXPLETIVE**ing”. So, choose your words carefully. 
The idea is that you don’t want to send or receive any of these “sequences of bad characters”.
Click here to import the ‘Profanity Filter Starter’ rule into your RX-Plugin settings
When you click on the above link, you will see the RX-Plugin Settings… window appear and show the rule. Here is a screen shot of part of that window:
First, for neatness, change the rule’s name by removing the “Starter” part. You can give it any name you like.
Let me explain the options in the Match section. Starting with the Scope options, I chose “Text only” because we are only concerned about the text and not the markup (HTML). Next is is the “Apply to” option. Here I chose “Both”, but feel free to set it to Incoming our Outgoing IMs only. Lastly, are the options. I want this rule to apply everywhere, so I unchecked “Skip in Chat rooms”. I could have chosen “Word boundary”, but that would limit me to matching “bad” and not “bad1″ or “1bad”. Ignore case is needed for obvious reasons. Global is needed to make sure it replaces all instances of any of the “bad-words”. Finally, skip in <a> tags is not needed in this case since I am not trying to insert a hyperlink.
The Replace section is pretty straight forward. I simply replace what was matched with the markup in there. Since this is actual markup, I left the “Escape all…” option unchecked.
Now, back to the Regular Expression in the Match section. This is just a list of words delimited with | bars which means OR in regex ease. One thing to note is that you need watch out for sub-words. If you want to filter out “bad” and “reallybad” then you need to make sure that “bad” follows “reallybad” in your regular expression.
You can have spaces if you want to filter out word phrases, but I find that it’s better to filter out specific words. Besides, you will need to do it in a way that accounts for multiple spaces and perhaps some punctuation marks between words.
Once you have the rule the way you like it, just hit Apply or OK.
The best way to test this rule is to send yourself the entire contents of the regular expression in an IM. Everyone of them should be shown as **EXPLETIVE** with the | bars between them.
That’s it. I hope this helps you sanitize your AIM experience.
Back in February, I covered some of the aim: links that can be used to add a buddy to your buddy list, start an IM, and start a chat. Today I will cover a new URL that works in the latest AIM 6.5 Beta that you can use to set your status message. First, some background.
A “status message” is a new feature introduced in the last couple of AIM Beta clients. They are plain-text messages of up to 251 characters in length (this can change) that are displayed under your name in everyone’s buddy list. Unlike away messages, these messages persist while you are offline. You can change or clear your status message at any time while you are online by editing it in the status bar at the top of the buddy list as shown here:
This new URL gives you an easy way to set your status to something you do often, like: At the gym, Call my cell, or Watching a movie. You can even clear your status message with this: Clear My Status.
While these messages sound like away messages, they really don’t have to be. It can describe anything from what you are doing now to how you feel. Remember these can be seen while you are offline. Messages like Go Skins!!! also work.
The aim:setstatus? URL supports two optional parameters: the target buddy list’s screen name, TargetBuddyList=, and the message, message=. The target screen name lets you create links that will only change the status for the specified screen name. If you omit this, the status message will be applied to the primary screen name; Linked accounts will be left unchanged. Your status message will be cleared if you omit the message parameter.
You can use the Set Status URL Generator tool to help you create these kinds of links. The tool takes care of all the encoding issues for you. Just follow the instructions on the page and then paste the HTML or URL in a web page, e-mail, IM, or desktop shortcut.
Nothing really important. But I thought it would be good to keep track of this.
My site was down this morning for an important upgrade to the latest version of WordPress. This is the second upgrade in 20 months of using WordPress. So far I am 2 and 0 in the successful (read: aspirin-free) upgrade department.
In other somewhat related news (since I am tracking significant events here), my site has been a little slow this past week. This was because my Web Hosting Provider started upgrading everyone to the latest version of MySQL. Things should be back to normal speed now.
I expect the faster database should make activations a little peppier.
Finally, I added Google Analytics to this site. I am very interested in feedback and will be doing all I can to get as much of it as possible.
The latest AIM 6.5 Beta is out. You can download it here. The release notes, as posted on AOL’s beta site, are as follows:
08/23/07 - Help us test drive our new AIM 6 beta software - version 6.5.3.12. We’ve heard your feedback on our earlier beta tests and have continued to make improvements to our new features. This version includes the following:
Status message in the Buddy List®: Broadcast a personal message to your friends, even when you’re available. Click Enter status message here… and type a message. It will appear under your screen name on their Buddy List and in your IM window. New! Thanks to beta feedback, we’ve updated this feature to only show a custom status message in your Buddy List view. Note: You’ll only see the set message of users who are on your buddy list and testing with the same version. We encourage you to create a new screen name and post it in the Message Boards created for this feature so others can add it to their Buddy List to see how this feature works.
State selector menu: Do you want to set yourself as Available, Away, Mobile or invisible? Choose from the handy state drop down button. Want to go away fast? Click the yellow sticky icon and we’ll set your away message. Click it again to come back from away.
Play games with your buddies: As part of the AIM install, you can choose to install additional software from QQ games. This plugin allows you to invite your AIM buddies to play games like Pool, Poker, Puzzles, Matching and more! Compete against buddies or other players in live games or relax in practice mode.
Modern design, plus more color: Check out the new sleek chrome. We’ve also added more color to the top of your Buddy List. Pick your favorite by clicking on the color wheel in the upper right corner.
Grouped IM tabs: Look for enhancements to your grouped IM window tabs. If your buddy goes away, you’ll see the away sticky to indicate this change. Look for visuals for mobile, idle, and offline too.
Get Buddy Info: We’ve removed the blue (i) from the Buddy List. It now only appears on your buddy’s details card when you hover over their screen name. You’ll still get the orange (i) in the Buddy List to indicate something new about your buddies.
Tips from AIM: Did you know you could do that on AIM? We’ve added more tips to the IM window since our last test.
Plus: Continue to test our new TXT Message mode feature from the IM window. Don’t waste your mobile phone text messages. Send them from AIM. Clicking the TXT Msg button on the IM form is just one new place you can access this mode. And, if you are having issues signing on AIM can help configure your firewall or proxy settings. Look for the Connection tab in your settings manager.
We hope you enjoy testing the latest version of the AIM 6 beta software.
As you can see there is a lot of stuff here. I hope you take some time to try this client out. If you do, i’d like to point out three things not mentioned:
First, I highly recommend that you uninstall the previous beta or AIM 6.1. You can do this from the add remove programs in Windows. Just, make sure you tell the uninstaller to keep your data when it asks. This should make your installation nice and clean.
Second, In case you are interested in Open AIM and plug-ins, this client is using an unreleased version of the AIM SDK, 1.4.0.
Third, The plug-ins page in the settings window and the rest of the client have been updated to support the new plug-in command flags. We support the AccCommandFlags as defined in the AIM SDK 1.3.0 and later. The biggest change, in the plugins tab, is that we only show commands that the plug-in actually registered to show there. Gone are the default settings commands for each plug-in. However, if you are running an old plug-in, you can still access the default settings command by double-clicking on the plugin’s name.
Please give this client a try. Feel free to leave a comment or question about this beta.
Thanks.
P.S. More to come.
Tonight, I am releasing an updated version of Gus Verdun’s IM Control Panel. This application lets you start and stop AIM (6.x and Triton). It also gives you one-button access to the various directory locations where AIM is installed and keeps its data. You can also use this tool to restore a lost AIM 6.x shortcut.
This new version adds support for controlling AIM 6.x clients that are installed in alternate directories. From my release notes, the new AIM 6.x Advanced tab lets you:
I also added an automatic check for new versions and some minor improvements.
You can read the complete release notes and download it here.
Give this tool a try and let me know what you think. Thanks.
