The buddy info option in Aim 7.3 beta is missing. AIM members are unable to edit the buddy info. Instead the buddy info button now links to AIM LIfestream. It’s possible that AIM Lifestream will act as the new profile page for AOL and AIM members, considering AOL has recent plans to either shut down or sell Bebo.

In order to update your buddy info you will need to use any version of AIM that is older than Aim 7.3.

• Aim 7.2 

We’ve recently found the reason why the buddy info is gone. Quoted from beta staff:

Good news! While Buddy Info is changing, you will (soon) have a place at Lifestream to provide the persistent information you used to place in Buddy Info!

Buddy Info will be returning, but as previously describe – in Lifestream. While it does require opening a browser window and signing in, the action of doing so from AIM will occur automatically and you shouldn’t have to manually sign in.

The steps being taken aren’t arbitrary, mind you. They’re coming with a bigger picture in mind and, hopefully, once we get there, you’ll fully approve. [via beta]

It appears AOL Lifestream will take place of the buddy info. It’s speculated Lifestream will become our new “profile system” as Bebo leaves AOL in May.

Aim 7.3 beta which somehow became a mandatory update, added the option for users to add their full name to their screen name. The purpose behind it was for others to search for your screen name by just entering your name.

Although they could still find you by submitting their email contacts. A friend of mine noted how there was not a clear way of removing your full name if you opted into it for fun.

Removing your Real Name from Aim 7.3

Taking off your Name from AIM

• Sign into AIM Full Name
• Uncheck Allow people to see my full name and find me in search results
• Click on First Name and Delete the entire text field
• Click on Last Name and Delete the entire text field
• Click Submit

If it worked properly it should say

“Your full name has been cleared. Thanks for updating your info on AIM!
To change your name, click here. “

Keep in mind the full name option does not apply to those who have manually added your real name as a nickname. Although, only they will see the name they typed.

If you have used the Plaxo service, you will have to remove your full name from there. Your name shows up to those whom you connected with.

You must clear both the First Name and Last Name text boxes before you press submit.

 /p>

What is AOL Lifestream

AOL released a brand new update to AIM Lifestream, or should I say AOL Lifestream. It’s a service where AIM/AOL users can connect their social networking accounts, such as Twitter, Myspace, and even Facebook. If you use any of these services, AOL Lifestream allows you to publish your status updates to these networks. In essence, it streamlines the process of being on 3+ websites at once.

AOL Lifestream is also an app on iPhone and Google’s Android platform. If you are poor like me and can’t afford the two, you can join in the fun on different applications.

AOL Lifestream is available  through;

• AOL Lifestream
• AIM 7.2
• Aim for Mac
• Google Android
• Apple iPhone

The Lifestream application does not allow you to communicate to other AOL and AIM members through IMs. This application’s sole purpose is to view updates through different websites and allow you to input your thoughts by liking or commenting on them.

Using AOL Lifestream

When you enter a status update in your application, everyone who has you on their buddy list will see it. They are able to “Like” or “Comment” on it as they please. You’ll see a nifty little notification at the bottom of the AOL Lifestream application which shows you what new updates you have in social networking sites, as well as new comments from AIM members.

Clicking on the globe icon will show you a list of trending topics. These are just the most popular word in everyone’s status update. As you can see, AIM is popular amongst kids who are bored out of their mind with homework.

If you notice, there is a filter section that allows you to view only one network. If you want to see only twitter updates, type the word twitter. Or if you want to look up specific friend just type the first part of their name. In fact you can type shortcuts for the various things like twit, mysp, face, digg, photo, video, etc.

Removing AOL Lifestream

If you add random people to your buddy list, their lifestream updates will show up.

The screenshot above is a great example of someone who may not understand the functions of AOL Lifestream. If you add someone on your buddy list, you will automatically follow their lifestream updates. You can alternatively view anyone’s lifestream updates without following them by viewing their buddy info or inputting their screen name through:

http://lifestream.aol.com/stream/screenname

If you don’t want to see a certain person’s lifestream updates, remember to remove them from your buddy list.

If you want to turn off AOL Lifestream, head to the Settings Page. Clicking the trashcan icon will remove your connections to these services. Alternatively you can also click the drop down box and select “No one -Private”. Don’t forget the drop down box for the “AIM” service which will stop any of your status updates and away messages from showing up in the Lifestream tab. If you scroll down further you can disable commenting by selecting “Only You (private)”.

Thoughts

Generally I love the new design AOL is taking with the AIM website. All of the ads are gone and everything is streamlined. The same design style goes on to AOL Lifestream, now if only they could apply it to the message boards. As for the Adobe AIR Application, I do like how it instantly notifies me at the bottom of the screen. I’m not sure if this application is useful per say, it’s more like a time waster. It’s practical to use this service within the AIM program, unless you are mobile and have to rely on the iphone or android app.

It appears there are those who don’t know how to chat with Facebook friends on AIM. Yes despite how there’s a huge banner that asks if you want to use Facebook Connect. Well maybe you closed it out or you really don’t understand the process, so here’s how you do it very quickly.

Choose your version of AIM

You need to download or use a specific version of AIM to start this process. You have only three choices:

• Aim for Windows 7.2 Beta
• Aim for Mac 2.1 Beta
• Aim Express

These are the only three versions that include the new Facebook chat feature. While you are installing AIM, you can set up your Facebook account by going to the Aim Lifestream website.

Adding Facebook to AIM Lifestream

f Connect allows third party websites like AOL to sign into Facebook

Head over to AIM Lifestream:

• Enter your AIM login details.
• Click on Settings in the top right corner.
• Click ADD near the Facebook Icon.
• Click fConnect.
• Enter your FACEBOOK login details.

Once you complete the process, your AIM screen name will be synced to your Facebook account. This synchronization will appear on all beta versions of AIM that support this feature. So you do not need to repeat these steps for each client. You can also add as many screen names as you want to the same Facebook account!

Within your buddy list check for the Facebook icon and full names of your friends on the buddy list.

Facebook Status Update Through AIM

Click that little Facebook Icon

To send a status update through AIM, you must activate the Facebook icon within the status update box. If you hover over the Facebook Icon it will say “Also update your status on Facebook (updating is OFF/ON).” If it’s turned on,  it will first show up in your AIM Lifestream, and might take a while before it shows up in your actual Facebook profile. 

If you click that little +photos icon at the top right corner you can also add post images to your Facebook Status. Pretty neat!

Facebook And AIM Problems

A sample of issues that affect AIM 7.2. Pay particular attention to the ones highlighted in purple, as your very likely to hit these problems through daily use.

• There can be a delay in seeing your Facebook friends go online, offline or idle.
• If you have a very large number of Facebook friends it can take a minute to load your AIM Buddy List, and you will not be able to IM until the Buddy List is loaded.
• Messages sent to an offline Facebook buddy will not be delivered when they come online.
• When you login to AIM as invisible, you will see a non-working “Sign In to Facebook Chat” prompt under your Facebook groups on the Buddy List, and in the Buddy List menu.
• An empty Facebook Friends group will appear on clients that are not Facebook enabled/capable
• If you are using IM forwarding to send IMs to your mobile device, you will receive, but not be able to reply, to messages from Facebook friends.
• Occasionally the association between AIM and Facebook account is lost with no visible user notification
•  IMing Facebook friends while your AIM privacy is set to ‘Allow only users on my Buddy List’ causes IMs to be bounced back.
• Your Facebook friends’ status message from Facebook will not be shown in the AIM buddy list, next to their name.

Just like Bebo Friends, the “Facebook Friends“ buddy list group will get added to your buddy list and will stay permanently until you remove yourself from Facebook Connect.

Currently there may be a bug where your Facebook Friends group shows zero Friends online even though they are supposed to be on. As this bug is currently being researched the suggestions would be to ensure “online presence” is checked on the Facebook Privacy page. Also check that your buddy list privacy settings are not set to allow only users on my buddy list.

Facebook Application Settings

Also check for the following:

• On Facebook.com, Click Account
• Click Application Settings
• Click Edit Settings Under AIM
• Ensure “Log into Facebook Chat on my behalf” is checkmarked.

As the settings on this page are straightforward, having one of them unchecked means that feature would not work within AIM. Is Publish to Streams unchecked? Well you wouldn’t be able to update your facebook status through AIM would you?

Today AOL released it’s newest version of AIM with version 7.2. This time it has integrated Facebook support. Wait a minute, wasn’t Facebook already integrated within Lifestream? Well the only new added feature in this version is that now you can see who is online on Facebook and chat with them.

Release Notes:

• Chat with your Facebook friends.
• Get your updates from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
• Comment, ‘like’ and update your Facebook and Twitter status.

Aim 7.2 Beta with Custom Skin

When chatting with a Facebook friend, you will see the Facebook logo at the bottom of the IM Window. Facebook Friends also show up under their own category within the buddy list, optionally you can show their pictures as buddy icons.

Aim Lifestream

It looks as if your supposed to be able to click the Like button under all the Facebook status updates, however this feature wasn’t working properly at this time. It appears to only work under your own status update and not your friends. You can note that it says “Like” under the status I posted. To view your friend’s status updates, click the “Lifestream” button.

Aim 7.2 Skin Support

Congratulations! All custom AIM 7.1 skins are supported under Aim 7.2. The instructions will change based on the installation directory.

C:\program files\aim7\services\imApp\ver7_2_3_10

Four Brand new Aim Themes for Aim 7.2 and Aim 7.3 

Each theme is done in a different style.

Aim 7 Theme: Sonar Royal [Preview Settings]
Description: Your Majesty! Your AIM subjects bow in your presence.
Tags: purple skin, 790 x 1024, tiled

Aim 7 Theme: Sonar Sky [Preview IM Window]
Description: Soar to the sky and see the stars!
Tags: blue skin, 790 x 1024, tiled, default.css

Aim 7 Theme: Sonar Red [Sign On Preview]
Description: Electrifying tentacles in pink and red.
Tags: black skin, 790 x 1024, seamless,

Aim 7 Theme: Sonar Orange [Preview IM Window ]
Description: A delicious orange during the summer day.
Tags: orange skin, 790 x 790, tiled, default.css

Download Aim 7 Skins

Requirements

Before installing you must be able to do the following:

• Know how to manage a ZIP file.
• Know how to unzip a file to a specific folder
• Know how to overwrite a file.
• Know how to navigate to a specific folder

If you are unable to perform these functions please read this tutorial.

This theme currently supports Aim 7.2 and Aim 7.3. To check which version you have

• Click Menu
• Click Help and Feedback
• Click About Aim

Verify that the first two decimal places matches with the requirements. Otherwise do not attempt to install the skin.

How to Install

To install the file you must follow these steps. Please note that simply copying and pasting the following folder paths will not work. You must manually navigate to the directory. For more information please consult the tutorial.

Folders highlighted in this color indicate a “variable name.” Based on your global location and version of aim 7, you may see a different folder name.

After opening the zip file…

Extract the folder “sonar” at:

C:\Program Files\AIM7\services\imApp\ver7_x_x_x\

Extract “themes.xml” and replace the existing file at:

C:\Program Files\AIM7\services\imApp\ver7_x_x_x\resources\en-US

Download

Aim 7.1 Sonar Series (983)

Extras

Default.css is a file used for changing text colors for aim. Unfortunately only one Default.css file can be loaded at a time. You may download default.css files at the top of this post under the respective theme name. The files will become available in the future. Check the tag section under each skin later on.

Extract one and only one default.css of your choosing at:

C:\Program Files\AIM7\services\imApp\ver7_1_x_x\content\im

Back again after 4 months of translating Japanese to English.

This time we’re going to change screen name colors for Aim 7.1, and it’s going to work without signing off.

AOL loads a certain CSS file each time you re open an IM window.

So feel free to go far beyond this tutorial and customize the colors of AIM as you see fit. This page will get rid of that ugly brown color they use for your screen name.

Before we Start

This tutorial requires a certain skill level. You must be able to do the following on your own.

• Navigate folders in Windows Explorer.
• Understand the process of opening a file in notepad.
• (Vista Only) Changing File Permissions under Administrator.
• Understand the process of copying and pasting text.

If you are unable to do these tasks please do not continue this tutorial.

Unlocking Vista’s Notepad: 

• Open Notepad with Administrative privileges by clicking Start, All Programs, Accessories, and then right-click Notepad and select to open as Administrator.

Preparation

Unlike Aim 7 Beta, Aim 7.1 has made the process of editing screen name colors very easy. All it requires is pasting a few html colors within the a CSS file.

The first step is to find the default.css file that controls screen name colors.

This file is located in the folder:

C:\program files\aim7\services\imApp\ver7###\content\im\ 

Simply copying and pasting the above path will not work in Windows Explorer. You must manually navigate to the folder using My Computer if you have Windows XP or Computer in Windows Vista.

Program Files, Vista users may see Program Files (x86), if you can not locate the AIM 7 folder, try the other Program Files folder.

Ver7### represents your Aim 7 version number which you will instantly see if you navigated to the folder manually.

en-US is the language and region folder.

Screen Name Color

Open Notepad (Vista users must open as Administrator) then drag the file, default.css, into notepad. You are going to look for the line below…

.color_font-header_local, .color_font-header_local_inline
{
color: #864F04;
}

Highlighted in brown in the code above is your screen name’s default color. To change your screen name color, replace it with an html color code of your choosing.

.color_font-header_local, .color_font-header_local_inline
{
color: #b2bf16;
}

I have now changed the color to #b2bf16 to match my new AIM  7 skin. You can of course edit the screen name color of the person you are iming by changing the color on the line below it.

.color_font-header_remote_0, .color_font-header_remote_inline_0
{
color: #e49600;
}

To summarize, .color_font-header_local changes your screen name’s color. Whereas .color_font-header_remote_0 will change the person you IM.

When you are done you must save the file.  For your changes to show up, close ALL IM windows, you don’t need to shut down AIM, then re open them. Even though you have completed the tutorial, you can also edit other colors as well.

Screen Name Status Color

If you still have default.css open,  look for this line.

.color_font-screenname_status,
.color_font-state_status,
.color_font-timestamp_status
{
color:#5D6E87;
}

Editing that html color will change the color of the status message. Here I changed the color to pink to match the website.

So you’ve been enjoying AIM 5.9′s incredibly familiar red and blue screen name colors. AIM 7 replaces the screen name color scheme yet again with a pretty natural green and a horrendous brown color.

Fear not, you can change these screen name colors to any color you wish to use.

You will do this by editing one extremely long file with notepad. So let’s get started!

Preparing your files

The first step is to find the file that controls screen name colors.

This folder is located at

C:\program files\aim7\services\imApp\ver7###\resources\en-US

Simply copying and pasting the above path will not work in Windows Explorer. You must manually navigate to the folder using My Computer if you have Windows XP or Computer in Windows Vista.

Ver7### represents your Aim 7 version number which you will instantly see if you navigated to the folder manually.

en-US is the language and region folder. Obviously if you are using the Spanish language of AIM7, the folder’s name would change to sp-US, or french would be fr-FR. This last folder will be instantly obvious if you manually navigated to the folder.

As you reach that folder open notepad. You will drag the file strings.xml into notepad.

Strings.xml controls a lot of stuff. It’s imperative that you do not try to edit anything else in this file unless you know what you are doing. You might want to expand notepad’s window a bit so you can see what you are doing.

Changing Your Screen Name Color

Search for the line below.

<string name="imForm.history.header.local.color">#864F04</string>

Note the HTML color code is highlighted in brown. Use the HTML Color Code site to insert a color of your into this area. After you are done you can save the file and RESTART AIM.

Changing Other Screen Name Colors

Similar to Aim 6, you can edit the colors of other screen names. Remote.color is located a tad below the local.color so it should be easy to find. Remote.color.0 represents the person who IMs you. Any number higher than 0 represents chatroom screen name colors.

    <string name="imForm.history.header.remote.color.0">#0172F3</string>
    <string name="imForm.history.header.remote.color.1">#0052a3</string>
    <string name="imForm.history.header.remote.color.2">#0860A8</string>
    <string name="imForm.history.header.remote.color.3">#F91361</string>
    <string name="imForm.history.header.remote.color.4">#0197B5</string>

The colors of the first 5 screen names in a chatroom are already highlighted for you. You can change any of them by typing any HTML color code you want. After you are done save the file and RESTART AIM.

Download Four New Aim 7.1 Skins

Even you can create a custom skin!

Aim 7 has been out for a while and it’s pretty much garnered lots of attention due to their lifestreaming project. So far there hasn’t been many questions dealing with skinning and customizing AIM. Our series of posts will detail the process of creating a skin as quick as possible. I can assure you that skinning AIM 7 is 90% easier than Aim 6. You can spice things up by using your own photo as the background.

What has changed since skinning Aim 6.

In Aim 6, skinning included editing 3 files. This was a very time consuming and difficult process for newbies as you had to edit each and every bit of color that shows up in AIM. The process was complicated more when you had to make gradients and set how they should show up in an area.

Aim 7 changes all this by doing the work for you. It takes editing just ONE file to add a skin. In fact all you are pretty much doing is setting a background color, a background image, and a skin icon. You no longer have to worry about gradients since the program does it for you by applying a transparent layer of white over the background.

Skinning Aim 7 is a three step process

It’s so simple, even a caveman can do it. Even one with no knowledge of coding can simply create a skin with ease. In this guide we will start with the background, then follow up with the background color and options, and finally adding it within Aim 7.

Step 1: Photoshop Your Background

Sorry I can’t help you much with your Photoshopping skills (besides I don’t use Photoshop anyway), but you can always search for your own background image on the net if you choose to do so. Your background image can be whatever pixel size you want. If you are creating your own image I recommend setting it to wider than 520 pixels.

However, if you are using a background that has a tiling effect, just make sure the image can seamlessly stretch vertically and horizontally when a user drags the window.

The grass skin is a perfect example of a tiling background.
It must match both horizontally and vertically.

Continue to next page

]]> http://bumped.org/tek/2009/07/16/aim-7-process-of-making-skins/feed/ 26 http://bumped.org/tek/2009/05/15/aim-7-releases-with-larger-buddy-icons/ http://bumped.org/tek/2009/05/15/aim-7-releases-with-larger-buddy-icons/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 22:45:04 +0000 WBMike http://bumped.org/tek/?p=1180 Today the next generation of the popular instant messenger platform released with a brand new version called Aim 7. It’s an early beta that will showcase some new features.

It seems the message they are focusing on this time is to keep the program light on resources. The last time this was done was for AIM Lite. Redesign appears to pay some homage to Yahoo and Facebook.

We’ll have an indepth of review of this new beta at another time. Here are some of the new features you can expect with Aim 7 beta.

• New Look
• Larger Buddy Icons
• Built in Buddy Icon Maker
• Larger status entry screen
• New Advertisement locations

[via AOL Beta]

Aim 7 Customization, Skins, and More