About to switch, a few questions (AIM and such)

Hi all,

I've lurked for a while on this forum and you've answered a lot of my questions already, thanks for having such a knowledgable community!

I'm going to order myself a new 17"PB by the end of this month and before I take the leap, I've got some questions about AOL IM chat clients.

I've heard that the AIM client for Mac supplied by AOL is not that good. A few people have mentioned that iChat doesn't have the ability to view AIM member profiles. Is this true? If so, I'm wondering if there's an AIM client that will meet my needs. I do three main things in AIM on my PC:

1. Send/receive instant messages (duh)
2. View member profiles and away messages
3. Send/receive files

Is there a client that will at least adequately do all three of these? Video conferencing and group chats are not an issue for me.

I appreciate any advice switchers or long-time Mac users have on the subject. I'm really excited to switch, I've had it with PCs and look forward to the Mac experience, but it's a bit tough being a highly proficient Windows user to being a complete Mac noob!

First of all congratulations on the upcoming purchase. I think you will be very pleased the your PB. I love my 15" PB!

To answer your question about iChat.

1. Yes
2. Not sure what you can and can't see reguarding profiles but you can see the away messages at least for those on your buddy list.
3. Yes you can do this with iChat.

I think that you will find that you quickly adjust to using Mac OS X and soon you will discover that you prefer the Mac to the PC.

Adium is much better than iChat. It is the best OSX chat client I've found, and I've tried several. It's free for download at www.adiumx.com

I use adium 100% of the time, but i found that the only reliable direct connect-able client is AIM for mac. Adium can view AIM profiles.

Yeah. Adium works some/most of the time for file transfers, and for direct connect, it's always worked for me, but AIM does work all the time. Adium is infinitely better to use and better looking IMO, especially since it's Mac-native. The interface is beautiful, and you can use other chat accounts, unlike on AIM. I recommend Adium wholeheartedly. I also hear Proteus is very good, but it costs money.

What about MSN guys? Right now I am using MSN and I have MSnplus installed which adds a few extra things, most important is the ability to record all of your conversations. Does such a thing exist for Macs? Any other information that I should know about Macs and MSn when used together?

Thank you,

Stefan

Adium supports MSN as well, but yes, MSN Messenger does have a Mac version. The only advantage I can think of for using it the games, maybe, which I'm not even sure they ported with the application. And Adium logs conversations for you if you want it to.

Wow, thanks for all the great info!

I think based on the feedback you've given I'll use AIM and Adium and see which feels better.

I'm really looking forward to switching!

Adium still has problems, and so does Proteus, but Proteus to me seems to have less problems at this point, so I still use it. I am looking forward to Adium's next release though.. it's supposed to be pretty big and I think I will be able to go over to Adium permanently once the new release is out