OMG AOL WTF?

BBQ!

Several of my office-mates use IM, just for quick comments/questions to one another during work or to help decide where to head for lunch: Specifically AOL accounts. So after being here for three months I decided to download AIM and resurrect my long-dusted account.

Now I’m well aware that AOL historically has a reputation for difficult software, but damn. With all the options and functionality available out there, you’d think they’d finally create a piece of software that played nice. I mean, it’s been some silly huge number of years since I was looking at chat programs, it’s got to be better now, right?

I installed it, told it not to open on start-up, and not to set AOL as my homepage. I added my work colleagues to my decrepit buddy list, tested it, and had it open in the background while I worked.

At one point, in the middle of doing nothing with it, it randomly sent my web browser to the AOL site. Annoying.  I didn’t think too much of it at the time though (hey, I was, you know, WORKING, and thus distracted from the grander problems this might entail).

So, I start back to work this morning, and turn on my computer, and start to login to Groupwise. The AOL chat client opens up (did I somehow accidentally not toggle that box I was so careful to toggle during install that told it not to do this?) redirecting my typing to it, and simultaneously opening my browser to the AOL site. (Did I miss unchecking the checkbox that said “Randomly and capriciously send browser to AOL.com”?)

Of course, this was death as far as this program on my machine goes. I started to look for a replacement (the names Gaim and Trillian surfaced in my brain from the depths of my long ago chat client meanderings) though one of my coworkers recommended Pidgin (which I will talk about more in another post).

I went to shut down AIM so I could uninstall it, and the program refused to close. It stalwartly remained on my Windows 7 start bar, only pretending to hear me when I told it repeatedly to close. I wound up bringing up the task manager to close its sorry self before exiling it from my machine forever.

I would have used the basic AOL AIM chat program. It was the obvious, easiest path. But I need my chat client to fade into the background until requested, and the AOL AIM program always needed to be the center of attention.

It looks like Pidgin is getting my rose.