Author Archives: Greg C.

About Greg C.

I am passionate about building awesome user experiences, working closely with publishers and watching people "get" technology.

AOL Radio 4.0

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At the end of December we launched a new AOL Radio. Instead of being based on a pop up window that contains a flash player, the new radio is all javascript and HTML. In fact the player is such an improvement both usability wise as well as from a data mining point of view, I may now be able to add support to AIM MusicLink finally. If you navigate to http://radioplayer.aol.com, and have Firebug installed, you will be able to view how you can capture current playing song data like artist, title, and album via DIV tags. This opens up the possibility to writing a song logger for AOL Radio, just like the one I wrote for the Mac last year. You can view the code I wrote for the AOL Radio on Mac here.

Weekend Tidbits…

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I am off to Tel Aviv and ICQ tonight so there will be only sporadic updates next week. Before I go though, one of my loyal readers mentioned that with the number of plugins available now, the Actions menu is getting crowded. We have been supporting multiple plugin command entry points for a while, but the latest AIM client built off of the Open AIM platform supports the following actions (to read all about plugin commands here is the documentation):

Now we also support flyout commands, via IAccCommand::put_Property(AccCommandProp_ParentId, …); For example here is the code from AIM MusicLink that could do the submenu support…

// Create Flyout Command Placeholder
CComPtr <IAccCommand> spiCommand;
piPluginInfo->AddCommand(kCommandId, &spiCommand);
CString menuCommand3;
menuCommand3.LoadString(IDS_ML_MENU_ITEM);
spiCommand->put_Property(AccCommandProp_Text, CComVariant(menuCommand3));
spiCommand->put_Property(AccCommandProp_Flags, CComVariant(AccCommandFlags_ActionsUi));

// add submenu by passing in the command ID of the above command

CComPtr <IAccCommand> spiSubCommand;
piPluginInfo->AddCommand(kShowLogCommandId, &spiSubCommand);
CString menuCommand;
menuCommand.LoadString(IDS_ML_SHOWLOG);
spiSubCommand->put_Property(AccCommandProp_Text, CComVariant(menuCommand));
spiSubCommand->put_Property(AccCommandProp_Flags, CComVariant(AccCommandFlags_ActionsUi));
spiSubCommand->put_Property(AccCommandProp_ParentId, CComVariant(kCommandId));

So as you can see we can easily manage the menus and keep them clean. I actually need to update a few of my plugins to take advantage of the flyout. As always keep the questions coming.

AIM MusicLink version 2.1.0.5

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UPDATE 6/9/08 11:00PM EST – The latest AIM MusicLink can be found at the home of AIM MusicLink. (http://www.gregsmind.com/musiclink)

Hot out of the oven for the new year is a new version of AIM MusicLink. I have added a few new features for AIM MusicLink including logging. I now write to an HTML file the time, song, and player so you can keep track of what you are listening to. In addition, I have added code into the installer to confirm that iTunes is installed where AIM MusicLink thinks it should be. If it is not found, then I warn you that iTunes support will not work.

I have tested AIM MusicLink using AIM 6.5 and the latest AIM 6.8 Beta released yesterday. I am using the latest version of iTunes, the latest version of WinAmp, WMP 10 and 11, Yahoo Jukebox, and MediaMonkey. AIM MusicLink also supports Songbird, RealPlayer, and AIM Tunes if you play AIM Tunes outside of the broswer via WinAmp.

By default song logging is turned on, and to turn it off you can access the preferences for AIM MusicLink via the ‘Actions’ menu in the bottom of the buddy list. In the same menu you will see a link to open up your AIM MusicLink Log. Here is a link to what my log looks like. Here are some screenshots from the latest release.

DOWNLOAD AIM MUSICLINK v2.1.0.5

I have added the logging purposely to see if we can narrow down where people say AIM MusicLink is not working for them. If the song is successfully logged, it means AIM MusicLink found the song, but setting it on our host failed. If there is no log item, then AIM MusicLink could not find the song for a variety of reasons.

As always I appreciate the feedback, so please do not hesitate to share it. If AIM MusicLink is not working for you please share the details of media player version and AIM client version.

AIM 6.8.1.5

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This morning we released a new AIM beta, version 6.8.1.5. You can read all about the release here. The major addition in this release is a feature called Real-Time IM. Real-Time IM lets you and your buddy see what the other person is typing in real-time, as it is being typed, right in your IM window. It is like seeing a preview of an IM. Normally, you can’t read a message from your buddy until it is sent and appears in the IM window. But with Real-Time IM, you see each letter your buddy is typing in the IM window even before it is sent to you. The only requirement is that both of you and your buddy needs to be using the AIM 6.8+ client for this feature to work. Here is a screenie that shows how to access the feature:

You can download the client here. As always feedback is appreciated.

AIM is now on the Sony Mylo

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This week at CES, Sony announced their Mylo2 Personal Communicator. Mylo was originally released last year and included some messaging, media and browsing capabilities. In the Mylo2, they have added AIM, Flash video support, and tighter audio/video integration. The thing I want to focus on, of course is the AIM client in the device. The Open AIM platform was used in building this client. This is the same library that is in AIM 6.5, AIM Lite, AIM Pro, etc. Its always neat seeing the platform implemented on technology other than PCs. For more information on the platform check out http://developer.aim.com. Here is a video and an image of the Mylo.

New Year’s Treat…AIM.app for the Mac

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Happy New Year everyone, and today we have some exciting news to go along with the new year. The AIM Lite team has been hard at work on various different projects, and we’re proud to announce a preview version of our favorite — AIM.app.

Download AIM.app for Mac

This is a native Mac AIM client with a large feature set. It’s made for Mac users, by Mac users, and I think you are all going to like it.  This client is used by the Open AIM development team to test the API.  AIM Lite is the test client we use on the Windows side of the house.  Much like MFC Buddy whose source code is shipped inside the Windows SDK and is available via the AIM Gallery, AIM.app’s source code is available in the Mac SDK.  As always you can download all of our SDKs and read all about our API on http://developer.aim.com.

This is the first public release of the client — but for those Mac developers out there you can see old versions in source at the OpenAIM developer website here. You can also see full release notes here.

AIM.app also supports plugins! Try out KidIM, which allows parents to setup a simple IM environment for kids. Try that our here

As always, we thrive on feedback. Just like in the windows version of AIM Lite, please send us feedback via the AIM.app Help menu.

Here are the screenshots:

AIM Broadcaster 1.1

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I originally wrote AIM Broadcaster as part of JAMS back in 2005. When I broke out JAMS into separate plugins Broadcaster was left out, but now it is back as a separate plugin. Download the executable, exit AIM and install the plugin. Restart AIM and to send out a broadcast message to an entire group, just right-click on the group and select ‘Broadcast IM to this Group.’ NOTE: In AIM 6.5 there is a bug where the group you select from the right-click menu will not be the selected item in the dropdown menu on the broadcast form. You need to select the group in the dropdown. This bug will be fixed by the client in a subsequent release. You can download AIM Broadcaster here.

Here is a screenshot of the broadcast form:

Also I have updated the AIM Gallery to fix problems with the twitterMan 3.0 plugin as well as AIM MusicLink.

Slow News Week…but busy week for me.

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It has been chaotic this week, as I was in San Fran for 23 hours on Monday and Tuesday and came back on Wednesday to pack up my office for a move a few offices away. The pack up provided lots of humor as I found documents and designs back from AIM 2.5. Lots of great memories of the original AIM architects writing up how things work. 🙂

Out in California I saw a few interesting things. First, the Netscape fish tank was really full of life on Monday, and I thought I would grab a picture:

You can watch the live feed of the tank here.

On the way back home taking the train from the rental car garage to the terminal, I spotted the new JetBlue plane that allows you to read email and send IMs via your Blackberry or Yahoo. While this seems like a very limiting service, it was weird to actually see this plane in person with the big Yahoo and Blackberry logos painted on the side:

Last but not least, we released a new AIM 6.5 beta refresh client this week available here. This build has some minor tweaks and some additional small features. I am working on putting together a new version of the AIM Skinning tool I wrote earlier this year. I am hoping to get it out the door after Christmas when I have some free time between the holidays.

Some more code samples

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I have added a more samples to my code page. I have included an entire project to download as well. In the sample I added today, is the base plugin project I use when writing all new C++ plugins. Download the project, and all you have to do is add your business logic. I have documented the code to the hilt and given you some ideas on what you can do with the project. I will be adding some more base samples, for example a basic javascript plugin, or a basic C# bot. Check out the basic plugin sample here.

Snowy Day in DC

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It always amazes me what happens in DC when the snow starts flying. Yesterday our 66 mile beltway around DC was backed up 26 miles because the roads were a little damp. Here was the view in downtown Bethesda today…as the theory goes, I trust my own driving but no one else’s driving.
Snowy Bethesda