We have developed a new version of AOL Desktop for Mac in order to provide you with an improved AOL Mail experience. We highly recommend that you upgrade to AOL Desktop for Mac 1.7 as soon as possible to ensure that you do not experience any interruptions in your ability to send or receive AOL Mail. Please be aware that during your upgrade, you may experience an initial period where your mail loads slowly. Don't fret though - this should only occur once.

We have been making significant changes in AOL Desktop for Mac to the way your mail is handled internally. As a result of these changes, we channeled the work being done for the AOL Desktop for Mac 1.6 beta into a new effort that fully supports this new mail architecture.

We are pleased to announce that AOL Desktop for Mac 1.7 beta is here! We want your help as we rely on you, our member and tester, to provide feedback that can be used to improve the quality of our software.

What you need to know before you get started:

• Downloading AOL Desktop for Mac 1.7 will indicate you are participating in this test and that you want to be an early Mac adopter for the new mail architecture.
• Previous releases of AOL Desktop for Mac (including 1.6) will not support the new mail architecture. You will not be able to use 1.6 or earlier versions to access your mail and there is no migrating back.
• If you store mail locally ("On My Mac") in AOL Desktop for Mac, please follow these instructions to move your mail to host storage.

In the event you encounter any issues using the new Desktop beta, including any issues affecting your mail experience, please report them. We ask that that you use webmail as your default email client until all issues are resolved.

Do you want to participate without affecting your current account? You can, but you must follow these instructions carefully.

As always, thank you for your support!

We just released an update to AIM for Mac (version 2.1.302) which fixes various issues reported by our users. Check for updates today.
Please stay tuned to the Mac@AOL Blog for information on future releases.

Larry Aasen
AOL Mac Team

Great news - we have another AIM for Mac beta ready with changes based on your feedback. Use Check for Updates in the app or download the beta here: http://beta.aol.com/projects.php?project=aimmac

The AIM for Mac 2.1 Beta provides a number of important changes including:

• All users may now edit and change their buddy icon
• Fixed an intermittent issue that prevented some users from expanding and collapsing their Buddy List groups
• Increased speed typing your username on the Sign In screen
• Your status will no longer be reposted when you reconnect after waking from Sleep
• IM logging is now a user-based preference instead of a global preference
• Passwords can now contain the slash character
• New option under Sign in: when you uncheck "Remember me", you now have the option to "Also remove IM logs"

Please continue to share feedback regarding your experience with us!

Best wishes,

The AIM for Mac Team

Upgrade to the latest version of AIM with fabulous new features and an improved user experience!

Don't have an AIM account? No worries, you can simply sign in with your Facebook Login.

AIM is better than ever! Faster, lighter, and with great new features to help you get organized. Now you can use AIM to chat with your Facebook friends - chat with them in AIM whether they're AIM users or not.

The new Lifestream tab lets you get all your social network updates in one place. Say it once and send it everywhere! Comment, like and update your Facebook, MySpace and Twitter status – all from AIM.

Features:

• Chat with your AIM Buddies and Facebook friends.
• Get your updates from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more.
• Comment, like and update your Facebook, Twitter and MySpace status right from AIM.
• Let friends easily find you - Add Your First and Last Name.
• Sign in as invisible.

Click here to download.

The AIM for Mac Team

Great news - we have another AIM for Mac beta ready with changes based on your feedback. Use Check for Updates in the app or download the beta here: http://beta.aol.com/projects.php?project=aimmac

AIM for Mac 2.1 Beta 6 provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• Accessibility fixes including shortcut keys for Add Buddy and File Transfer.
• Tweaks to improve the Facebook Chat experience.
• Fixed issues regarding the Connection Port.
• Improved performance with regards to AIM Sounds.

We hope you enjoy the new beta and thank you for your time and feedback.

Best wishes,

The AIM for Mac Team

Great news - we have another AIM for Mac beta ready with changes based on your feedback. Use Check for Updates in the app or download the beta here: http://beta.aol.com/projects.php?project=aimmac

AIM for Mac 2.1 Beta 5 provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• unable to edit buddy icon on Snow Leopard and Tiger
• outgoing font settings
• various crashes
• VoiceOver improvements on Sign In window

We hope you enjoy the new beta and thank you for your time and feedback.

Best wishes,

The AIM for Mac Team

We recently updated the AIM for Mac with Beta 3 and a few of our users have reported issues with slow performance, especially those with a very long Facebook Friends list. If you are experiencing periods of slow performance or beach balling, try hiding your Offline Buddies.

To hide Offline Buddies, start with the View menu. Then click Offline Buddies and then Do Not Show. After hiding Offline Buddies your Offline group will be removed and you will no longer see offline users.

If you continue to experience performance issues please contact us from the Help > Feedback menu.

Larry Aasen
AOL Mac Team

This is a beta of epic proportions! AIM has teamed up with Facebook, and now you can chat with your Facebook friends - right from AIM!

After you sign into AIM, click the "Facebook Connect" button at the top of your buddy list to set up Facebook chat. When you are done your Facebook friends will be added to your buddy list. You can now chat with your friends who are using the Facebook site!

We hope you enjoy the new AIM as much as we do. AIM with Facebook chat gives you a whole lot more to talk about!

Click here to download from the Beta site.

Larry Aasen
AOL Mac Team

It has been a while since we last released a Beta of AIM for Mac. Actually, it was almost two months ago. We have been working on our next Beta and it should be out in the next few weeks. We fixed a few bugs and made some enhancements that you will like.

Thanks to all of our loyal users who have provided their valuable feedback to us. We have been reading all of your comments, and while we cannot respond directly to everyone, we are working hard to address your issues and suggestions.

Please stay tuned for this next Beta release by checking in at AOL Beta regularly.

Larry Aasen
AOL Mac Team

We just released an update to AIM for Mac (version 2.0.229) which fixes various connection issues reported by our users.

• Fixed an issue that was signing out the user when an improperly formatted IM was received.
• Fixed an issue that was signing out the user when a linked screen name was not able to be authenticated.
• Fixed a few other minor issues.

Please stay tuned to the Mac@AOL Blog for information on future releases.

Larry Aasen
AOL Mac Team

Fit-and-Finish and Addressing User Feedback

We're now on our fourth Beta for AIM for Mac 2.0 and we're now working on fit-and-finish and addressing issues reported by our Beta testers. If you haven't set up your Lifestream, you can set up your social networks under the Lifestream tab (on AIM for Mac 2.0) or by visiting http://lifestream.aim.com. Please download and try AIM for Mac 2.0 (Beta 4) today.

Features Released in Previous AIM for Mac 2.0 Betas

• Consolidated mode selector. Just click the "Running Man" pull-down menu to select Available, Away, Invisible or Mobile. If you have created Away Messages in a previous version of AIM, you will see them as a sub-menu at the bottom of the pull-down menu.
• Away toggle, invisible toggle, group row color picker and Find Buddy have been moved to the new Search Toolbar in the Buddy List. You can open or close the new toolbar by selecting "Show Search Toolbar in Buddy List" or pressing Shift-Option-F.
• A new, streamlined AIM registration is now integrated with your AIM for Mac sign in window so you can create new screen names to be used with AIM or AIM Mail.
• Buddy List Builder has been added to AIM for Mac 2.0 to help new users find and add Buddies (even from Address Books on other services).
• Find out who calls you a buddy. But you'll need to open your Buddy List up too. "Buddy Lists I'm on" is now available on the Me tab, just click the number to see details. For your privacy, this feature is set to private ("Just Me") by default but will be available for you to manage in the next AIM for Mac beta (this feature is not yet available on iPhone). See privacy tab in AIM for Mac 2.0 preferences.

AIM for Mac 2.0 (Beta 4) New Features and Changes

• Enabled the dragging of text clippings, images, and links from the IM conversation history view.
• We are no longer going to close a sheet when a new IM conversation is started. Also, we will no longer change the tab selection when a sheet is displayed.
• Updated Buddy Icon sizing to accommodate additional sizes.
• Users can now open a window to display Buddy Lists I'm On.
• Added VoiceOver compatible text for IM window button bar.
• Improved support for languages (Japanese and other languages).
• General bug fixes and optimizations.

AIM for Mac 2.0 (Beta 4) Fixed Issues

• Users can use the auto-update engine if the Beta has been blocked for a mandatory upgrade.
• Fixed Growl button in preferences not working in certain version of Growl.
• Fixed an issue if the user resized the IM window to minimum size, the knock-knock window will be displayed.
• Fixed various memory leak issues that may lead to application crash.
• Fixed an issue if a Buddy Icon is not returned from the AIM network, which caused an issue with the Buddy Flyout.
• Fixed an issue that will always use the default location for application preferences.
• Pressing ESC from the keyboard will Cancel the sign-in process.
• Fixed an issue when the assigned Buddy Icon to a new AIM screen name is only 12 x 12 pixels.
• Fixed an issue when the Away Message was sent when the user was available.
• Fixed an issue where different font/size defaults were not uniform across all text input fields.
• Fixed an issue when your status was updated to say "Check out my photo!" even if the user cancels the upload.

As always, I appreciate your support and drop by the Mac@AOL blog to find out what's going on at AOL!

Thanks!
Lee GIvens
AOL Mac/iPhone Product Lead

If you cannot Sign In and you see this message, "Unconfirmed User Name", or "Unconfirmed Screen Name", or "Account Not Confirmed", it means that you registered your email address as a screen name, but have not clicked the confirmation link in the confirmation email. Before you can Sign In to AIM, you must first click on the confirmation link to confirm your account.

In the confirmation email sent you by AOL (Screen Name Service), you will see this link:
"Yes, I made this request and I want to reserve this email address as part of the AOL Screen Name Service". Click on that link to confirm your screen name. You will be asked to enter your password again to complete the confirmation process. That's it! Now you are ready to Sign In to AIM.

Larry Aasen
AOL Mac Team

We added support for Growl in AIM for Mac version 1.5 so users could get notifications when new IMs arrived, and when buddies went online and offline. There are a few other Growl events as well. To see these events and more, display the Growl settings where you can enable and disable each Growl event separately.

1. Run the System Preferences application.
2. In the Other section at the bottom of the System Preferences window, click on Growl.
3. On the Growl settings window, click on the Applications tab.
4. Click the AIM application in the list and then click the Configure... button at the bottom of the page.
5. Click the Notifications tab.
6. There you will see a Notification pop up button that is displaying Alerts. Click on that pop up button.
7. There you will see a list of all of the notification events that are supported by AIM.
8. Select the event you want to configure, like "Buddy Signed In".
9. You can click the check box next to Enabled to turn on that notification. The change takes place immediately.
   

We hope you enjoy the usefulness of Growl notifications. Take some time to get familiar with the other Growl settings to make your Growl experience more pleasing to you.

Larry Aasen
AOL Mac Team

Focus on Features - AIM for Mac

One of the nice features of the Buddy List® is placing your buddies into groups for better organization. The default set of groups include AIM Bots, Buddies, Family, Co-Workers, Recent Buddies, and Offline. You can also create new groups to better categorize your buddies.

The order of the groups in your Buddy List can also be changed. However, the Recent Buddies and Offline groups will always remain at the bottom of your Buddy List.

To move a group in the Buddy List, just drag the group row to a new position. You can do this by clicking on the group row and holding down the mouse button as you move the cursor. As you move the cursor below other groups in the list, you will see a blue line indicating a valid drop zone. The cursor must be moved over the triangle disclosure buttons in order for the blue line to appear. When the blue line is in the location where you want to place the group, release the mouse button. The group row will then be moved to the new location.

This may seem a little tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will find that moving groups is very easy.

Thanks for trying AIM for Mac!

Larry Aasen
AOL Mac Team

** Republished **