My Aim Is Not So True
I've been using Trillian for a while as my IM client on Windows, and it's pretty slick. Great-looking interface, great IM interoperability (even does IRC! Cool!), just really a terrific program all around. On Linux, though I'm flirting with Gaim again, I'd been using TNT, an emacs-based client. But on Windows, I couldn't see any reason to use AOL's client, especially given the crappy flashing ad-gewgaws the program is overloaded with, so I was happy with Trillian.
So it was a big disappointment to try logging on with it this am and find that it can no longer connect to AIM. I've read about this problem on a few sites (ok, Metafilter) and in the past I've thought that it's not such a big deal. But it is. I don't see why AOL continues to block access to IM; beating MS in this arena means really blowing it wide open so that everybody wants to write to your spec, or at least to something like Jabber that plays nice with everybody. As it is, everybody I know, for better or for worse, uses some form of IM provided by AOL, whether via the ubiquitous AIM client or the lumbering beast that is the AOL client software. Before PC Magazine gets hold of this and declares MSN messenger to be the best choice for the business user (the "business user" is easily the most boring, tedious, joyless computer user in teh whole world, and you should avoid anything that gets recommended for them like the plague) AOL should make AIM the Windows of IM, except that they should copy the numbers and not the quality.