What is AOL Lifestream? How to Use it or Remove it?

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.

How to Connect and Sync Facebook with AIM

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?

Aim 7 Beta: Change Screen Name Color

This method only works in Beta 3 version of Aim 7
Aim 7.1 users read here

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.

Do You Get Charged for using AIM Mobile?

With the Aim help forums down, we tackle a question thats been asked on other help sites. We’ll tackle the American carriers and see how much it would cost to use AIM. Let’s take a look into some definitions first.

What’s the difference?

SMS Text: SMS messages are quite commonly known as texts. If your AIM Mobile application uses text messages, you will get charged one text for signing on, one for retrieving your buddy list, and one for updating your buddy list.

Additionally you will be charged for sending an IM and charged for receiving an IM. If you take this route it should take you at least 4 text messages to sign on and off. If your a heavy AIM user, you might want to consider asking for unlimited texting plan.

Data: Data messages are sent over your mobile phone’s data stream. This is commonly known as 3G, Edge, or Wi-Fi. 3G and Edge is provided by your cellphone carrier. More likely than not if you use 3G or Edge, you probably have an unlimited data plan, but you should still check with your carrier to make sure.

If you use Wi-Fi, it’s for the most part free if you have your own coverage at home. However in public facilities companies may charge Wi-Fi access, luckily they require a password before you connect, meaning that you won’t get charged until you supply credit card info.

In Plain English Please?

Texting: You will get charged per text, unless you have unlimited text messages.

Data: You will get charged per kilobyte or megabyte, unless you have unlimited data plan.

Sending Text Messages from the Computer?

If your on the computer, AIM allows you to send text messages to cellphones for free. The person who sends text messages on the computer will not be charged. 

The person who recieves the text message will get charged. Before texting anyone, please make sure to ask them before hand if they have a texting plan.

Any differences between phones?

• What about the Blackberry?
  • Blackberry for the most part uses a data plan. However T-Mobile’s built in application will use text messages. You can however download different IM applications for blackberry. Read here for more info.

• What about Windows Mobile?
  • Windows mobile phones use data. AOL has provided a beta for AIM for Windows Mobile.

• What about the iPhone?
  • The iPhone uses data through Edge, 3G, or Wi-Fi. The iPhone has an unlimited data plan so feel free to use AIM anytime.

• What about my Cellphone?
  • The regular run of the mill cell phone will most likely use texting. However there are some crafty ways around this. You can sign onto Aim without using any text messages.

Remove Buddy Update from AIM Buddy Info

Another frequently asked question. So we’ll walk you through on how to remove messages from appearing inside your Buddy Update box in the AIM Buddy Info.

Please note that it can take 5 days for buddy updates to disappear from the box.

Buddy updates are controlled through two locations. One is within Aim 6.8 and another is located at its own special website. If you use Aim 6.9 you’ll need to perform both methods. If you don’t use Aim 6.9 you just have to perform the first method.

Method 1: Buddy Updates Website

• Head over to http://buddyupdates.aim.com
• Sign In and Click Setup

On the Right side you will see a heading that says “Sites that you already have.” You need to click delete under everything that is listed there. Remember that it takes 5 days for buddy info updates to disappear.

Once your done the box will no longer appear as long as you do not alter your status message. However there are other programs that alter the status messages.

Method 2: Aim 6.9 Plugins

In Aim 6.9, plugins can trigger your buddy info updates in several different ways:

• If you install Aim 6.9 for the first time.
• If you install a new plugin.
• If a plugin changes status message for you, e.g. AIM Music Link

Aim 6.9 luckily has privacy settings for plugins. Some plugins like AIM Music Link, has its own built in settings that need to be disabled in order for this to work. Follow these steps to ensure status messages are not updated:

• Open Aim 6.9
• Click Edit.
• Click Settings
• Click Privacy
• Uncheck “I have updated my profiles or blogs”
• Uncheck “I have installed a new AIM Plugin”

Method 2b: Aim Music Link Status

• Open Aim 6.9
• Click View > Plugins
• Click Aim Music Link Preferences
• Uncheck Share Music with your Buddies.
• Click OK. 

So again, as long as you don’t update your status, your buddy info updates box will disappear after 5 days of the last update message.

If you need further help please comment below with your AIM screen name, or type your “AIM” email address in the mail section of the comment form.