The newest member of the Trillian family is not overly far from public release but can it stand the test of being competitive with today’s messenger software?

Upon clicking the Setup.exe, I found the installation and upgrade from my previous version of Trillian both easy and quick with it easily importing my settings from Trillian 3.1. However not everything was as smooth as I hoped. After starting up Astra, I noticed that while it managed to connect all my accounts, bar taking a while to do so, it wouldn’t connect my ICQ account, I scratched my head and checked to see what had happened and apparently it’s forgotten my ICQ account, removing all references from it in the Identities and Connections Menu.

A bit of an annoying thing due to not remembering my ICQ number. This was eventually resolved by looking into my ICQ Logs. The next issue I came across was that initially it wouldn’t send my messages, telling me that it could not send them. I restarted Astra, and this promptly resolved the issue.

The guys at Cerulean Studios have obviously been trying to close the gap between the lack of features Trillian supports of MSN and other Messenger Networks. And it shows, Trillian Astra allows for drawing, Emotiblips, Buzzing (Oh yay), and a few other features which haven’t either been used or utilized in Trillian previous versions. Sadly, however, Trillian does not have proper support for Webcam at this time — the lack of this feature is astonishing in that this is probably the most sought out feature in Trillian. There are settings for the feature, however they are greyed out, and I can only imagine that it is something Cerulean Studios are working on and will probably be implemented before actual release.

Astra’s range of skins are limited at the moment, however look quite decent with a large amount of colours to use. However using some of these skin colours will mean the Drawing feature will not appear properly and is something Cerulean need to work on.

On the bright side, Trillian’s strongest point has always been the range of plug-ins, and Astra has backward compatibility with a large quantity of them, with this and that there will undoubtedly be many plug-ins made especially for Astra, I can only imagine that the range of plug-ins will be vast. Including usage of Gtalk, MySpace and Xfire which are all currently available and work well with Astra.

All in all, if the guys at Cerulean Studios keep working hard on this, this will be undoubtedly the best Multi-Client Messenger yet with near-complete interoperability.

Pros:
+ Skins really do load faster.
+ Less memory usage.
+ Much faster redrawing time.
+ Visually attractive.
+ Backward support with older plug-ins.

Cons:
- No properly implemented webcam feature.
- Needs better compatibility for the drawing feature with it’s own skins.

Trillian Astra 4.0.0.52 was used for this review which is in fact, A closed
Alpha version.

I was thinking recently about Myspace and YouTube and the power they currently hold, and it’s quite apparent that the power and influence they can use is quite proportionate. The Internet has always been a successful communicative medium since the Internet hit home users, however I see YouTube and Myspace as exceptional cases in which they have exceeded the stereotypical Website and became major power-players in the Real World, in not only Entertainment but Politics and News.

When YouTube was founded by several former paypal members, it took the Internet and quite literally the Internet by storm. Since it’s creation there has been Internet celebrities by the boat load, however unlike any period before, there has never been this many Internet Celebrities breaking into success in the Offline world. (See lonelygirl15; Brooke Brodack) Does this mean, in another generation onwards, that the merger of Internet and Offline forms of Entertainment will be complete? If one becomes famous on the Internet, they will be famous all over? When you consider the ever-growing numbers in which this is happening, it’s not so unbelievable.

News? Both YouTube and Myspace have been mentioned in the Offline Media numerous times, often painted in a bad light. Is this due to the fact they can be considered a threat in public manipulation? Possibly, but either way they are seen as extra-successful mediums on which to reach out to the public with messages, news and commercial marketing. It’s a given now that Myspace and YouTube make more money then most TV Channels do monthly. Both are even referenced in the Offline Mediums of TV, Newspapers and Magazines. Threats? Yes, and both Google and Rupert Murdock see this medium as being the future of not contributing information but controlling it.

The problem about these mediums receiving so much power is what they can do with it. Too much power will mean sooner of later someone will slip up and use it. And conterversies relating to manipulation of the public have already occurred.

Myspace and YouTube alike have both been used by Politics as staging wars between the political parties of their respective countries, both the Australian Liberal and Labour parties, and the American Republican and Democrat parties have successfully utilized the medium. This is both a double-edged sword. On the one side, the parties reach out to an audience otherwise untapped, and on the other is the fact that utilizing these sites are effectively giving them power. As for the future of these sites, we can only guess they will grow larger and other sites will be born which in turn will be successful. But from what I can see the Internet has never been stronger, and in only a few decades, the Internet will be the biggest medium with events which will occur being literally embedded in both the Offline and Online Worlds.

Funnily enough in a September 2006 investor meeting, News Corp. COO Peter Chernin claimed that virtually all modern Web applications (naming YouTube, Flickr, and Photobucket) were really just “driven off the back of MySpace“.

How very untrue.

So right, I plan to do University next year, but recently I found out that I couldn’t do the University Preparation Course at Sydney University. Why? Because I’ve done a qualification above a Certificate III in AQF. So that means I’ll need a plan to get in through another means.

So far the two options I have are:

- Apply to University using my Diploma in Network Engineering.

Sounds odd, using an IT Diploma to get into a non-IT degree. I think it’s suppose to show that I can do above-secondary education work. Either way, I sure hope it works.

- Apply to Open Universities.

Well, Open Universities is basically a program held by a group of universities that allow anyone wanting to do University in. The only catch is that the entire curriculum is online. It’s taught online and you only go in to do the exams.

I’m just hoping the first option works, because I’d rather be a student on campus rather then off, and using the Internet to do my work..

Well, this should be a rather long post. Where have I been off to? Well, not far really.

I got laid off by The Byron Group after three weeks of work.

Why? Well, the reasons they gave me to explain why the fired me didn’t make sense and were wrong. Basically, they accused me of “snooping” though documents, that I was late one day (Whereas I really came 27 minutes early…), and so forth. But as someone said to me, it’s good that they showed their true colours before I got sucked in too much. Oh well, I enjoyed working there, even if I did know more then my boss.

Gave up on German.

As stated on an earlier post, I knew once I got the job, that I’d have to give German the wave, even after I got fired, it would have been stupid to go back to it. So I did the first half, and missed out the last eight weeks. I got my academic transcript though and got competent on 2 of the 3 modules… Makes me wonder how good I was going in the course. German’s a pretty easy language to get the hang of, and I probably will go back to doing it at some point in time.

Had to pass on ReMix Australia and Paul & Nat’s engagement party.

Yes well, several reasons came up before it was held. My grandfather not feeling well, I had to enroll for a new semester at TAFE, and my financial status was just enough to get me to and from Melbourne due to some clients not paying me. But although I hate the fact I missed the party, there’s not much I could’ve done really.

Now doing a course in Mandarin dialect of Chinese.

I was finally able to enroll into the course, and although the language isn’t as easy as German, I think if I commit myself to it and buy various teaching aids, I’ll be able to grasp it particularly well.

As Will posted in his journal, I also got to meet-up with him in Sydney, which is always fun, for Yum-Cha and the Simpsons Movie.