A couple days ago someone mentioned Pidgin, so I thought "what the heck, I'll see what the commotion is about". And hey! It's come a long way since the Gaim days when I last used it! Support for Jingle and XMPP audio/video is very cool, and it really doesn't look & feel that bad (okay, other than the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons being backwards from the Windows norm on every dialog). Unfortunately I haven't been able to test the Jabber support, since it appears the entire amessage.de server that I used to use is just gone...so I tried using my old FBE28E45 AIM account & what the heck????!!!! it still works!

I mean, it's been years since I used that account! (this is where someone is going to point out that I've actually been logged in this whole time (from some random transport server), and that this explains why I've been such a jerk and not responded to thousands of IM's over the years...)

But yeah, not only did logging into the account still work, all my contacts were still there! A whole bunch of people were online that I haven't talked to since the beginning of college...plus all the defunct accounts from people that have moved on. So I think I'll keep Pidgin around for a bit & see if I can't "reconnect" with some people (translation: Pidgin is going to sit around and run in the background for a while, until I forget about, then get uninstalled once I rediscover that something's using a bunch of resources...hehe...).

Update: hey, it turns out that amessage.de is still there...I'm just an idiot and 1) remembered to add the enabled AIM protocol to the TMG firewall access policy, but 2) forgot to define XMPP, add it to an access rule, and enable the rule. So I'm also reactivating NTSN@amessage.de! Yay! (although, ouch, it turns out people were trying to contact me on that account...sorry Taylor!)

Now playing: Jim Croce – I Got a Name – 11 The Hard Way Every Time