Late Night Fiction

It’s been a while since I last used AOL Instant Messenger, but after downloading it today I was reminded of why I had stopped. The latest version of AIM, version 6.8, is more loaded with ads than the last version I regularly used: version 4.3 or so. Back then, when the only ad in the program was at the top of the buddy list, I could carry out my conversations with the least amount of unrelated, obtrusive advertising in my way.

Now, it seems like the folks in charge of AIM are too busy trying to support the immense number of people who have an ungodly amount of screennames to be able to have quality, usable software. Sure, it has a lot more features than previous versions (especially compared to the 4.0-days), but now I’m too busy avoiding the “tummy tuck” advertisements at the bottom of every window to even care what my buddy’s profile info is. If I was planning on using AIM more, I’d rather have an older version and lose all the fancy new features that the newer version sports. And luckily there are options like OldVersions.com, which hosts a whole collection of old versions of software like AIM.

There is a new version coming out that is supposed to be more “light weight” (version 6.9, currently in beta) and the screenshots look a little better than the current layout of the program (and, in fact, light-weight). I’ve yet to give the beta a try, but hopefully the changes made will redeem what used to be a very usable and not-so-annoying program.

Software reviews, usability, Websites

I recently discovered Zymic, a free web hosting service. I haven’t looked for free web hosting in years, but this was the first one I’ve ever noticed that actually had some good features.. PHP support, FTP, MySQL databases, and 6,000 mB of storage space. Most control panel controls actually give me more support than do the same controls on my paid-for 1&1 service.

WOW. Free? Impossible. I logged in an started messing around with it and– yeah, I should’ve known there was some kind of trade-off. For one thing the site is hardly up and running, and I can’t even get into PhpMyAdmin to work on my databases.

Basically what I’m saying is you can’t beat web hosting that you pay for. It’s not only the features, but (especially compared to free hosting like Zymic) the reliability you are paying for. And most services are so cheap, it’s really hard to resist. I use 1&1 and I pay $5 a month for 5 times the databases and 20 times the web space of Zymic. And that is plenty of space and power to run the power-house that is FlashStuf, along with my personal site, chicken-cheese.com. And in the almost 2 years I’ve been hosted with them, I’ve never had any downtime. What it comes down to is that if you have the ability to actually pay for something online, web hosting is more than worth the cost; especially when the cost is so cheap.

Internet web hosting, Websites