How old is my AIM screen name?

September 30, 2006 7:08 AM

How do I figure out how long my AIM screen name has been active?
posted by honorguy7 to computers & internet (13 comments total)

I *think* if you use GAIM as your AIM client, there is a place where it tells you the date you registered if you have yourself on your buddy list (perhaps when you try to look at your own profile). I don't remember what version I used, but I use Windows XP. I'd check, but I don't have it installed anymore.
posted by needs more cowbell at 8:29 AM on September 30, 2006 [1 favorite]

Yes, if you check your own profile in the latest version of GAIM (I think this feature has been around for a while, but I'm not sure) you will see a "member since" date.
posted by qz at 8:35 AM on September 30, 2006 [1 favorite]

I can vouch that in GAIM 2.0 beta, qz's method works. (Have I really had the same screen name for over 7 years? wow...)
posted by chrisamiller at 3:49 PM on September 30, 2006

It worked.

Check it out...



Thank you!
posted by honorguy7 at 3:59 PM on September 30, 2006

I never even knew they kept a record of that, thats nifty info
posted by spacesbetween at 8:20 PM on September 30, 2006

How can someone on an apple check? We can't run GAIM.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:53 AM on October 1, 2006

Member Since: Sat Jul 19 15:29:05 1997

I now, officially, feel old.
posted by gregschoen at 2:19 AM on October 1, 2006

How can someone on an apple check? We can't run GAIM.

Why not?
posted by grouse at 7:55 AM on October 1, 2006

Grouse, because Gaim doesn't exist for OS X. (Did you even look at the downloads page?)
posted by delfuego at 1:36 PM on October 1, 2006

Did you even try Googling for [mac os x gaim]?
posted by grouse at 1:40 PM on October 1, 2006

Yep.

The first return is a project to port GTK over to OSX with no downloadable for Gaim.

The second is for Wikipedia's Gaim page, which makes a claim that users can run it using Apple's X Server, but with no info to make that happen. (I assume I could download the many-hundered-of-Mb developer tools for OSX, then compile Gaim, then download Apple's 40+ megabyte X server, then figure out how to configure it to run, and then somehow run Gaim, but that's certainly not a downloadable install-and-run solution.)

The third is an ExtremeTech article about a guy who moved to OS X and needed an alternative to Gaim, probably because it doesn't realistically run on OS X.

The fourth is an OS X FAQ forum post about someone who couldn't get Gaim to compile under OS X.

The fifth is a Cypherpunks post that mentions that Gaim doesn't run on OS X.

I could go on... or I could say that this all points to Gaim not being a viable option -- in a reasonable user's notion of viable -- on OS X.

Sorry for the derail.
posted by delfuego at 4:59 PM on October 1, 2006

Adium (for macs) is built on the same base as GAIM - it very well might have this functionality.
posted by chrisamiller at 10:56 PM on October 1, 2006

For the love of God, there is a binary Fink package for Gaim (mentioned in the second hit on my search). For all the talk of Mac OS X as being "the UNIX for the rest of us," if it is really difficult enough to be unviable to install a binary package and get it to run over X (the X server won't run without configuration?) then I am extremely disappointed.
posted by grouse at 12:27 AM on October 2, 2006