Aim 6.8 Beta 2

Additional Plugins 

Aim 6.8 Beta 2, has launched with some reorganized features moved into different locations. Most notably, AOL Music, AIM Call Out, AOL Hot Searches, and AIM Mobile has been moved into a new My Plugins button. The My Plugins feature will allow developers and users to pick and choose what extra features they want with AIM. You are no longer tied to the four buttons at the bottom of the buddy list since now you can disable them and pick only the ones you like.

Two additional plugins were added called Notes and Stock Quotes. Notes allows you to write notes within your buddy list. Stock quotes just show Stocks within a small window. This is not a full featured Stock Ticker like many have been requesting but its a start.

Skinning Additions

If you’ve been skinning Aim, there has been some new functions added

    <linearGradientBrush id=”gradient.uiPluginPopup”>

        <rotateTransform center=”50% 50%” angle=”-90″/>

        <gradientStops>

            <gradientStop offset=”0%” color=”#FFFFFF”/>

            <gradientStop offset=”100%” color=”#EFFAFF”/>

        </gradientStops>

    </linearGradientBrush>

   <pen id=”pen.uiPluginPopup.border” color=”#000000″ WIDTH=”1″ /> 

gradient.uiPluginPopup, which was a pain to find, controls the box that shows up when you hover over “My Plugins”

pen.uiPluginPopup.border, controls the border around said box.

 

Look at how Things don’t work! :3

AOL now on SALE, but which company should buy it? (Part 1)

Time Warner is now deciding what it should do with its AOL venture. Now its time for the fun part. Who should buy AOL? Well lets take a look at each and every company suggested by various users around the internet. This will be split into 3 parts, adding new companies as we go along. 

Time Warner has decided that AOL should be split into two. One part deals mainly with advertising aspects, and the other dealing with community.  

Goal: To keep the AOL + AIM community together as it once was.

The Obvious

AOL + Google

Well personally, I like this idea only because of how Google treats its members. They take a very minimalist approach resulting in less flashy ads and faster loading times. AOL members have been pleading for less ads, but their wishes were never granted.

However, even if we take away those crazy ads, AOL (paying) members do not like change. It pretty much boggles my mind of how they want things to stay the same like it did from 10 years ago. If you change one thing they go crazy and start complaining. As long as Google provide some sort of blog that can address community issues, things might work out  more smoothlyfor them.

Google’s approach may not fare so well with AIM. AIM’s business relies on teens, glitter, and glam. So we’d hope for Google be consistent with AIM’s visual design and services.

AOL + Microsoft

Microsoft may do well with AIM members but not so much with AOL members. Microsoft is big on advertising so I would expect to see pretty much no changes in any of the websites AOL owns. AOL (paying) members love guidance and tech support, and Microsoft stance on this has been pretty lapse. Microsoft does work very well with troubleshooting on message boards, so hopefully problems can get sorted out there.

This seems to be the most obvious choice to keep everything running the same way. In fact I prefer this over Microsoft + Yahoo. Google’s reaction towards this would be very interesting. Google and AOL have done some minor cooperative efforts this past year, hopefully they won’t totally cut themselves off from each other.

AOL + Yahoo

I can definitely see Yahoo converting AOL members over to its own platform, which pretty much kills everything. So I’m not entirely liking this prospect at all, unless it becomes Microsoft + AOL + Yahoo. I don’t think Yahoo is mature enough at this point in time to handle two conflicting communities concurrently. Maybe this could have worked years ago when Yahoo was all the rage and Google wasn’t even born yet.

Aim 6.8 Skin: AimXP

Introduction

AimXP is a default Windows XP skin for Aim 6.  The purpose of this skin was to recreate the familiar feeling of Windows XP on Windows Vista.

AimXP is a part of the OS skin pack which includes five skins:

• AimXP
• AIMXP Blue
• Vista Basic
• OSX Leopard
• OSX Leopard White

Each skin is included in the pack, you do not need to download them separately.

read more

Calendar: March Updates & Planning

Delays Delays and More Delays. Can’t do much when tests count so much for your grade.

Bumped.org Site Planning

March 2008

• Windows XP Blue Skin for Aim 6.8
• Chatroom Trial on /Tek/
  
• Bumped.org Front Page Converts to Blog
• Stylin Profile Blog replaces WebApps
• Stylin Profile Blog creates Facebook & Myspace Page
  
• Upcoming Page for /Tek/
• PSU Blog gears for Maximum Attack G

April 2008

• RPG Game Project Starts Planning Mode
• Web Apps Blog comments Disabled

May 2008 – July 2008

• Untitled Purple Aim 6.8 Skin
• Skins will be gloss like (ex. Vista Skin’s Bottom Bar)