AOL Instant Messenger

AOL Instant Messenger
(AIM 5.9) and AOL Triton (BETA)
AOL is one of the more popular Instant Messaging solutions that also has video call capa-
bility.AIM, as it is called, has recently gone through a major upgrade from version 5.9 to
what is now called AIM Triton.The amount of advertising and the invasive nature of the
advertising are really annoying. Usually, when a product goes through a large change as this
Free Video Call Software ? Chapter 6
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one has, it gets easier and cleaner to use. In AIM Triton's case, I think they took a step
backwards.AIM Triton is not very easy to use and there are no options to con?gure the
video settings.
If you want to make video calls with Apple iChat AV users, you are out of luck with
the new AIM Triton version, for now, anyway.You can still use AIM version 5.9 to make
video calls with Apple iChat AV users, but in order to have a video call, you will need to
open up the ports on your DSL/cable router as described in Appendix A. Currently you can
only make video calls between AIM Triton users and not with either AIM version 5.9 users
or Apple iChat AV users, so AOL has a lot of work to do.
We believe they should not have released this version until all the features were working
as expected.The video in AIM Triton is also still in BETA and not ?nalized and the frame
rate is slow.Though I like the fact that in AIM Triton the video screen is adjustable in size
and has a picture-in-picture that you can place anywhere within the video screen. If you
double-click anywhere in the video screen you get both images in an angled view, very
similar to how iChat AV works. I expect AOL will improve this over time and the bugs will
be worked out and function as it should.The video, even though it is not working well in
this version, is far better than AIM 5.9.The rating re?ects the BETA version and issues as of
June 2006. I expect by the end of 2006,AIM Triton will improve to a score of 3, maybe
even 4, so watch the Web site for an update to this rating.Also, Google has invested in AOL,
so expect that GoogleTalk will interact with AIM in the future and possibly even video calls
as well.
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www.aim.com
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VideoCallTips.com rating: 2
Article on how to make video calls between Apple iChat AV and AIM 5.9:
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www.mvldesign.com/video_conference_tutorial.html

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