Microsoft Ships Windows Live Messenger

I've heard good things about Trillian, but i've also seen some of it's mishaps. In particular, during the AIM 4.8 - 5.0 era, things like file transfers didn't seem to always work right between Trillian and AIM (of course, some of it had to do with the fact people didn't realize they needed to do things with their firewall). Some older versions appeared to have trouble with IRC too (people not showing in the channel when they were there, people seeing modes that weren't set anymore).

And yeah, those verification images are wierd. Hope I don't need to start using charmap to submit posts here :\\.

"Again, i'm stating the obvious which I should not have to do."

You're also trying to reason with a wall made of depleted uranium. You might want to give that a rest. :)

The only practical thing EFI enables is more sophisticated DRM. I'm glad the Apple community is thrilled about having it.

"Things like GAIM are nice (and usually secure) but they seem to lack features seen in the official clients."

I've used Trillian since the early point releases. I even received the first few versions free due to a donation to the development effort.

As far as I'm concerned, the others have nothing to compete with the Pro version of Trillian. I can't wait to see the 4.0 version (I'm hoping for tight Vista integration)

Ha! I just had to refresh the page due to the fact that the "text verification image" was a string of special characters that it wasn't physically possible to type. That was odd...

Sounds like Windows Live Messenger might be worth using sometimes. Going to do a review, Paul?

----

"No, thanks, I'll stick with iChat (uses AIM, the #1 IM protocol) and Google chat through Jabber. MSN is for 14-year-olds who use smilies in every sentence."

I really shouldn't have to say this, as it's pretty bloody obvious, but AIM is also for 14-year-olds as well. I personally despise AIM, because of AOL's whole sucky security record with it (Microsoft releases paches, AOL waits several versions with AIM typically). Ever been in an AIM public chatroom? Welcome to cyber-hell :P. Lastly, on a Mac, do you even have an MSN equivalent FROM Microsoft? Things like GAIM are nice (and usually secure) but they seem to lack features seen in the official clients.

"which OS was a joke"

Neither, next...

"you know, hardware that doesn't rely on 25+ year old BIOS technology to slow it down"

Wow, more idiocy. Modern operating systems on the PC architecure utilize protected mode, which is restricted from calling BIOS, with the exception of virtual 8086 mode (and nobody really does that anymore, because of problems, see Windows 98 for more info :P). Once all the minor boot-up stuff is complete, the OSes leave real-mode.

"Sorry, I care about computing history being held back by five years because of an illegal monopoly."

Pfft, we've gone over this. They were convicted of anti-trust violations. If they were a "monopoly" according to government terms, they should have been broken up. Anti-trust (not) != monopoly.

"based on a codebase so old and complex that Microsoft developers actually refer to it as 'broken.'"

Two problems. For one, not every Microsoft developer feels the way some of them do. Secondly, complex does not equate broken. Again, i'm stating the obvious which I should not have to do.

"Bonch, I need you to quell a sweatshop rebellion in Shanghai. Someone gave the iSlaves some pitchforks and a copy of the Bill of Rights, and now they're demanding an 18-hour workday and complaining their MacBooks make a loud whining sound. Take the corporate tanks and make sure no one gets any pictures of you as you run them over.

P.S. Be back by 8 for Scrabble."

That's funny ****!

Guru: your comments about the x86 architecture are correct. Unfortunately, Apple was between a rock and a hard place. The "legacy" x86 chips were still faster than the latest round of Power PC chips from Freescale and IBM. I think Apple made the right decision.

And with the switch to 64 bit computing on the horizon, maybe we'll lose a little of the "legacy" architecture along the way. That would be a great boon to both Macs and PC's alike!


As far as OS X being based on Darwin: Thank God it is. I'm not sure where you're getting the "sluggish" claim from, however. Unless I'm rendering something in Photoshop or opening 5 programs at once, OS X is swift and snappy. And I'm on a 12" PowerBook with only 512 megs of RAM.

The one complaint that I do have is the first time you open Dashboard. OS X loads all the widgets the first time you launch Dashboard, not at boot. Hence, the first time you switch to Dashboard, the widgets take a few seconds to load. Thankfully, this is changing in Leopard. Of course, with Intel Macs booting in about 15 seconds, they can afford to tack widget-loading onto the boot process.

And as far as the price is concerned, I'd rather spend $129 every two years and get great new features than shell out $300 every six for features that have been around for years!

Windows Vista is just now getting User Account Protection, desktop search, and tabbed browsing? Remind me again, which OS was a joke?