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From: Ken Rogers <[log in to unmask]>

Has anyone had experience with instant messages using JAWs? Which instant
message program do you use and where can you get a copy of it?
Last Friday I tried to download i c q and the computer tied out on me
without downloading anything... which brings me to a couple of more
questions: 1/ Using a 56k modem how long should a file that is 52Kb take?
Is there a formula that can be used to compute the download time? Or with
past experience, how long has these downloads taken for you in the past?
also 2. Is there anything that can be set on my computer that  can be set
to ring when done, or anything else audible when finished?
Than is for your help.
Ken
At 11:12 AM 7/25/99 -0500, you wrote:
>There are other instant message programs other than icq, including
>offerings from Microsoft and yahoo!  ICQ was purchased by America On-line
>for $325 million, so instant messaging is big business.  Unfortunately AOL
>has a poor track record when it comes to accessibility of its services.
>the article below addresses the current issues with instant messaging and
>the giant battles that are emerging from this technology.
>
>kelly
>
>
>the New York times
>
>July 24, 1999
>
>In Cyberspace, Rivals Skirmish for Control Over Messaging
>
>By SAUL HANSELL
>
>     America Online Friday closed its online service to people using
>     new software from two of its fiercest rivals, Microsoft and Yahoo,
>     that had been designed to tap into one of America Online's most
>     popular features: instant messages.
>
>     On Thursday, both Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo introduced software
>     that could send messages to some 40 million users of AOL Instant
>     Messaging, a program that enables people to hold "real time"
>     dialogs. Unlike standard e-mail, which arrives in a recipient's
>     in-box to be read only when it is opened, instant-messaging
>     software places a message in an open window on the recipient's
>     computer screen only seconds after it is sent.
>
>     And, unlike e-mail, these systems have until now been closed,
>     meaning that users of one system cannot connect to users of
>     another.
>
>     AIM is part of the software distributed to America Online's 17
>     million members, and it is available for free as a stand-alone
>     product to anyone who takes the time to download the program from
>     www.aol.com. Many computer manufacturers also install it on all
>     their machines.
>
>     Its widespread use has made it a de facto standard for instant
>     messaging over the Internet, which is why Microsoft, the world's
>     biggest software company, and Yahoo, the most heavily trafficked
>     site on the World Wide Web, designed their software so that it
>     could interact with AIM. But this is not a simple matter of
>     adopting the same rules for addressing the messages, because one of
>     AIM's most popular and useful features is its "buddy list," which
>     notifies a user when friends or others on the user's list log on to
>     the Internet.
>
>     To determine which users of AIM are online at any given time, the
>     new products from Microsoft and Yahoo had to blaze a path into
>     America Online's servers in a way that America Online says violated
>     its copyrights and trademark
>
>     Late Thursday night, America Online blocked both products, as last
>     month it had blocked a similar product by Prodigy.
>
>     But Microsoft refused to roll over. Late Friday, the software giant
>     said it had revised its MSN Messenger program to circumvent America
>     Online's block. Within hours, America Online answered that
>     challenge with a new block.
>
>     The feud is an odd reversal of the war over Internet browsers
>     between Microsoft and Netscape Communications Corp., which America
>     Online now owns. Now, Microsoft is arguing that America Online is
>     using its exclusive technology to prevent fair competition based on
>     open standards. That is exactly the complaint from Netscape that
>     prompted the U.S. Justice Department to file an antitrust suit
>     against Microsoft now being tried in Washington.
>
>     The stakes are enormous because instant messages have become one of
>     the most popular uses of the Internet, letting users chat
>     throughout the day with their friends.
>
>     America Online believes so strongly in instant messages that last
>     year it paid $325 million for a competing instant-message service
>     called ICQ (for I Seek You), even though it had never earned a dime
>     of revenue. Today, America Online's two instant-message services
>     have 80 million users, who send 780 million messages a day, more
>     than all the mail handled in a day by the U.S. Postal Service.
>
>     America Online argues that the programs offered by Microsoft and
>     Yahoo were inappropriately gaining access to its internal computer
>     systems without its permission.
>
>     What is more, users of both the Microsoft and Yahoo programs are
>     asked to type in their America Online password, something America
>     Online discourages. Indeed, one of the most common abuses on
>     America Online is when hackers pretend to be customer service
>     representatives and ask innocent users for their passwords.
>
>     "They are undermining all the efforts that AOL has put into making
>     an environment that people can trust," said Ann Brackbill, a
>     spokeswoman for the company. Internet executives argued that
>     America Online is hurting its own users by this policy.
>
>     "Why should I demand that all my friends use the same
>     instant-message system in order to communicate with me," said Steve
>     Glenn, chief executive of People Link, which makes instant-message
>     software. "What is right is for consumers to have a choice."
>
>     There are efforts by an industry consortium to develop a standard
>     so that Instant messages, like e-mail, can be exchanged
>     universally. But that standard has not been completed, nor has
>     America Online committed to comply with it.
>
>     In the mean time, Microsoft, which is a latecomer to the
>     instant-message business, used a technique called reverse
>     engineering to make its software mimic the behavior of AOL's own
>     program. This is no different, the company argues, than if it found
>     a way to make its word processing program read files created by
>     competing programs.
>
>     "It is a big benefit for our users if they can speak with someone
>     on any instant-message system," said Deanna Sanford, a product
>     manager with Microsoft.
>
>     Yahoo and Prodigy say they didn't need to use reverse engineering
>     because America Online actually published the specifications to its
>     instant-messaging system on its Internet site and authorized other
>     people to link into it.
>
>     And indeed, America Online did create a version of the
>     instant-messaging program using the increasingly popular structure
>     known as open source software, in which programs are published in a
>     form that users can see how they work and make modifications. The
>     most popular open source programs are Linux, a rapidly growing
>     version of the Unix operating system, and AOL's Netscape Navigator
>     browser which was shifted to open source last year.
>
>     America Online said that the only reason it published an open
>     source version of its instant-messaging program was so that Linux
>     users could communicate with each other and with their friends who
>     used AOL's other products. The company said it never intended for
>     companies to use that version as the basis for a mass market
>     product.
>
>     But Yahoo and Prodigy said that America Online had clearly made the
>     instant-message system available for them to use.
>
>     "We based our product on the America Online site, which never once
>     said there were limits as to who this was intended for," said Brian
>     Park, a senior producer at Yahoo.
>
>     Bill Kirkner, the chief technology officer of Prodigy, said America
>     Online was being "disingenuous" to cut off that company's message
>     system after publishing the open source version.
>
>     "This is how the Internet works. People build software, and other
>     people build on it and improve it," Kirkner said.
>
>     He said that America Online has told Prodigy that it in order to
>     let its users send messages to AOL users, Prodigy must pay a fee
>     and use AOL's proprietary AOL messaging software, which carries
>     advertising that AOL sells.
>
>
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