My imaginary friends
iChat’s a funny thing. It’s a Mac IM client that I’ve used ever since settling on OSX as my preferred platform. It’s very flexible with Jabber support so I can chat to all my contacts on MSN and other networks supported by Jabber should I choose. However, as far as native contacts are concerned I have three friends and two family members, not including the kids who are in the same bedroom (IM chats with your teen age kids in the same household. That’s a subject in itself).
iChat uses the same network as AIM and is directly compatible. The problem comes when AOL insist on automatically adding “bot” contacts on my list. At first there were a couple and there was an element of novelty value such that I could start a chat with them and hurl all my frustrations (read abuse) at them and they would try to reply to the best of their ability. But as they have increased in numbers they have disproportionately outnumbered my real life, flesh and blood, living breathing contacts. Now bear in mind that I work alone, in a little room, with one small window, that has a closed blind due to my paranoia that someone might be watching me, and you appreciate that this can’t be healthy… the number of artificial bot contacts, not my working conditions!
Lets have one last look at them as I wave goodbye with the “delete” key.
