2GN.ORG

Does anyone have any experience with trillian? I'm sure there are a few.

Since I can't install any thing on my work computer I want to have some form of IM. I have a Sandisk flashdrive with U3 capability and I can download trillian as a U3 software.

How does it work, yada, yada, yada.

www.meebo.com

it's all im's on a website you can log in and have a buddy list window and open im's in your internet browser page....it's what i use at home and work

i use it and love it
idk about the flash drive part thou

I use it also... never tried it on a flash drive though. I'm using Pro and it's very nice. I really like the plugins you can add and it's logging feature. Might try that for work now though lol

Will I be able to retain all of my AIM buddy lists and preferences?

I used trillian way before I knew anything about computers, so I can't really speak that much of it, but it had good reviews.

Go do download.com and get portable apps. I love it. Has open office, gaim, Thunderbird, and Firefox and a couple game I think. Gaim looks like an older aim version but has all the features that newer programs have. Unless you plan on using the U3 portion of that drive I'd ditch it. My opinion of U3 is that I bought a damn flash drive and I don't want something to tell me how to use it. It would always come up and mount itself as a CD drive and wouldn't let me play with it much.

If you want to uninstall it you have to do some searching though, don't exactly know how. I got rid of it within the first half hour of fiddling with it

I'm pretty happy with the U3. The main reason that I am looking at the U3 version of trilian is because this would be for my work computer. I have zero administrative rights and I probably would not be able to get the IT department to install it for me.

I will be traveling a lot so I want something.

I prefer pidgin. Its an open source program which used to go under the name Gaim. I've used it for years. It is incredibly versatile, has a usb portable version, and supports any chat client you can think of.

Also, there are a crapload of plugins for it, and its always nice to support the open source community.

Sorry I forgot to say that Portable Apps installs on your flash drive, not the computer itself. Also,
you're able to access a flash drive? I know at my high school they turned off the usb ports in the students and teachers user groups.

Thanks for the info, Kevo told me about Pidgen last nite. I figure since I have trillian Ill use it till it pisses me off.

Yeah, I have full access to the USB ports. This is a little different than some high school kid trying to get away with some stuff. I know if I were to use this during work, the IT department could watch my network traffic, so I won't use this at work. Just when I'm on the road, or using the computer off hours.

dont confuse AIM with Trillian.. they are different programs, so yes you will have your AIM buddylist, but your AIM-specific preferences will not be there... and if/when you delete a buddy from your Trillian list it will still be there on AIM because Trillian does not delete the buddy from the server list.

Personally, since I've used Trillian for so long I can't get off of it. I've tried gaim/pidgin and it's plain, ugly, and lacks any real features that would make it suitable for my use. Same with Miranda. Meebo.. if I'm online why am I going to use a website when I can use my program? There's no good sense to using a web based IM when you can run the client and have much better results.

As far as the U3 flash drive itself, off topic but I want to respond to the comments above...... the point of U3 is not to have "something to tell me how to use it", it's to provide a Start Menu-Like interface to run your programs from and make using portable apps easier. And as far as it always coming up and launching the app if you had used that half hour looking at the SETTINGS rather than trying to figure out how to remove it you would have seen that you could disable the automatic launch, and indeed you could also uninstall the U3 stuff from within the settings.

don't blame the flash drive for doing what it was supposed to do, blame the user who didnt know what they were doing

jT wrote:dont confuse AIM with Trillian.. they are different programs, so yes you will have your AIM buddylist, but your AIM-specific preferences will not be there... and if/when you delete a buddy from your Trillian list it will still be there on AIM because Trillian does not delete the buddy from the server list.

Personally, since I've used Trillian for so long I can't get off of it. I've tried gaim/pidgin and it's plain, ugly, and lacks any real features that would make it suitable for my use. Same with Miranda. Meebo.. if I'm online why am I going to use a website when I can use my program? There's no good sense to using a web based IM when you can run the client and have much better results.

I was the same way. I used trillian since the early days. I also used IM2 for a while until they disappeared along with miranda, meebo and a few others. On the other hand, trillian is so unbelievably buggy and continues that way even with the latest astra builds. Lets not forget that Trillian is also a huge memory hog. Once i tested astra, i just had enough and bit the bullet to pidgin. I have not looked back since. Everything that i need in an IM client works, its quick and relatively free of major bugs.

On the ugly comment, yeah pidgin is terribly plain. It is one of the downfalls of an open source IM client. GTK is not one of the perttiest window managers. One of the lead developers is actually porting over apples webkit code. This will improve html style messages and allow pidgin to use webkit skins like the ones adium and google talk use.

kevo wrote:trillian is so unbelievably buggy and continues that way even with the latest astra builds. Lets not forget that Trillian is also a huge memory hog.

i guess we must have different opinions on what a bug is, and what a huge memory hog means... because i have zero problems with trillian.. no bugs whatsoever. i've never even experienced any of the problems with aim or yahoo or anything else that they create fixes for... and for memory, currently trillian is using less than 8MB of RAM, and when my gf is home we have two independent copies of trillian running, one mine one hers, with no problems or memory hogging.. so if 8MB is a huge problem for you... well i dont know what to say to that

this is just one of those things that everyone will have their own opinion on and there is no right answer, its all personal preference

jT wrote: As far as the U3 flash drive itself, off topic but I want to respond to the comments above...... the point of U3 is not to have "something to tell me how to use it", it's to provide a Start Menu-Like interface to run your programs from and make using portable apps easier. And as far as it always coming up and launching the app if you had used that half hour looking at the SETTINGS rather than trying to figure out how to remove it you would have seen that you could disable the automatic launch, and indeed you could also uninstall the U3 stuff from within the settings.

don't blame the flash drive for doing what it was supposed to do, blame the user who didnt know what they were doing

I did disable the automatic startup, and found the utility to remove U3, but I didn't like that fact that it mounted itself as a CD drive and wouldn't allow me to touch that section unless I had U3 running, yes I could still use the flash drive as a separate drive, but why does it need to mount itself so I can't touch it in Windows? That's why I switched to Portable Apps it's a program that gives you the same end result, but still allows all the functionality of the flash drive, for me less hassle is better, I work on some slower machines and I want my data without having to jump through loops. Yes I still realize that I could have left it there, but the main reason I got rid of it was because it was causing issues with Portable Apps.