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Date:	Wed, 20 Aug 2003 18:29:02 PDT7
From:	Michael Rakijas <mrakijas@oco.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help <scoug-help@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Anyone instant message?

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Hi folks,

In a house containing one teenager and one pre-teen with like minded
aspirations, I've been confronted with a request for instant messaging
capability (they each did a Freelance presentation on it to persuade me - I
think they're getting the hang of trying to manipulate me). As you might
expect, with mass media being what it is, they want AOL Instant Messager (AIM).
For reasons that many an OS/2 user should understand, I'm inclined to set them
up
(being the sysadmin, not the father) with something not so platform specific
(due to AIM compromises on OS/2/eCS) and a little broader based like ICQ. I've
done a little research and found that sufficiently recent AIMs (> v5.1)
interoperate with ICQ so the latter would seem to be a viable option.

Also, there are OS/2 clients for ICQ. I've found AICQ. Unfortunately, it is
text mode and given the nature of the request is not likely to go over well.
IceCQ looks like an option and is $16 to register. However, pwICQ looks
reasonably featured, although I haven't yet registered for an ICQ ID yet to try
it out and appears to be free to use. The kids, being AIM focussed, are pushing
just to use the Java client of AIM (AIMExpress). Since I'm still using shared
dialup, I fear the download burden every time they get on-line. From what I
hear, though, the old Win3.1 client for AIM is supposed to still work although I
also had indications that they are trying to phase it out (grandfathering out of
compatibility.)

Does anyone have any recommendations relative to either the choice of framework
(AIM/ICQ) or the quality of client choice (AIMExpress, any of the OS/2 ICQ
clients)? Will ICQ interoperate seemlessly with AIM users? My baseline approach
favors pwICQ unless I hear otherwise. Any other suggestions are welcomed.
Thanks in advance.

-Rocky

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