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This is weird, I left for work this morning with AIM working on my iMac (running Adium)... I come back home and I'm kicked offline, which is fine, because I signed onto it at work.

I try to sign back on but can't. I thought I might not have disconnected my work computer, not that that would cause a problem. So I try another account of mine. Still can't connect. I try iChat. Still can't connect!?

I fire up my PC, and try to connect using Pidgin. No connection! Pidgin says "could not connect to authentication server: unknown error." I try every combination of screenname on both iChat and Adium on the Mac, and Pidgin on the PC, and none of them worked.

And then, I tried AIM express, and it worked! It also worked with google chat, so that makes me feel as though it's not on AOL's server side. When I connect via a browser, I can see about 16 of my buddies still online, including someone just a mile and a half away.

What the hell is going on? Browser based works fine, but the actual programs don't work. I didn't do anything to my network while I was gone, and if it was a firewall problem why would it be blocked on two different machines?

My router is a motorola  WR850G using the stock ip configuration.


EDIT: I just restarted the router and cable modem and it's back on track. I hate that that trick still works, and I still don't know why it would cut me off to begin with with just AIM, or the port AIM uses, but drives me nuts.

Wow, I can't believe someone's taking a stab at this! Thank you so much! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work for me... since i have my taskbar on the left side of the screen, I can't drag it past that to make it "snap" (Pidgin and other IM buddy lists can do it fine), meanwhile when I moved my taskbar back to the bottom just to see, whenever I threw a window to the side, it would just disappear, and wouldn't reappear until I threw another window there, at which point the new window disappears, and the old one reappears.

Do other people get this problem, or is it just me?

But still, it's really great that someone's taking this on. This would be the most productive app I would use when it's finished!

TokyoDownstairs is an awesome program, better than Orbit, which was what I was looking for. Thanks for the help everyone!

orbit was what i was looking for, but the firefox extensions look awesome!

I feel awful not knowing its name or how to describe it succinctly, but it was an application launcher that worked by right or middle clicking on the screen to bring up an interface based on a circle (around your mouse pointer), and clicking on what you're looking for. It was shiny looking with alpha. Can anyone tell me what it was called, or the name of any piece of software that's like this? I like the concept a lot and want to try it out.

I want to be able to maximize my windows, and have windows i maximize not overlap the windows I've got docked. Instant messaging windows do this perfectly, I'm so surprised to find a utility doesn't exist for this already.

I've been looking for the longest time for an app that gave any window the ability to dock to the side of the screen like the Google/Vista sidebars, and the various instant messaging clients. I've got a 24 in widescreen that I want to maximize the visual efficiency of, and I prefer to work in a maximized window environment. I'm already using a vertical taskbar, docked IM buddy list, and vertical tab bar for firefox. I'm also already using Allsnap as a tiny step in the right direction (I used to use Gridmove but it was too sluggish). Being able to make my browser dockable would make it easy to put a spreadsheet up tiled next to it.

Anybody who can whip this up or even just point me in the direction of an existing app will get a featured article on my blog, http://www.greasypc.blogspot.com . It's not much of a reward but it's the best I can offer.