The next wave in internet communication
What if you could download files, chat with your buddies, and read the latest news all at the same time? Big deal, you can already do that. But what if you could do it all with one program? Now there's a novel idea. Unfortunately, the people at Hotline Software came up with it before me, so I can't cash in on it. But that's OK, they have produced a top notch program and will probably reap millions from it, and all's well that ends well.
A Hotline server consists of three main areas. The chat area, the file area, and the news area. While these all seem self explanatory, they are actually quite different from IRC, FTP, and USENET, respectively. That is because both the client and server for Hotline run on Macs, so many Mac-specific things can be implemented. One major thing that you see throughout Hotline is that the entire set of characters in the Geneva font can be used without producing boxes on other people's computers. This can be a problem on the Internet because not all computers can recognize all of those characters.
Hotline vs.
IRC Other than the character set
difference, the chat and news portions of Hotline
lag behind their Internet counterparts. The chat portion supports only one
chat
"room" on a server. You can't chat privately except through private messages,
similar to AOL's instant messages, but... a little worse as I recall (private
chat and multiple chat rooms are both planned for a future version). An admin
(like an op on IRC) can't even kick someone out of the chat room without
kicking
them off the server completely, and even then they can come right back,
with our
without a different name. One solution for this is to post the annoying
person's
IP address in the news or in the chat room, so other users can flood ping
him to
death. Unfortunately, the proliferation of dynamic IPs has made even this
difficult. So as of now, there is no way to effectively get rid of a person on
Hotline, but some people are pushing for wildcard bans in a future version, so
this may change. It may also lead to the same problem some people have
with IRC
- an entire domain can get banned from a server because of one person.
Hotline vs.
USENET The news portion of Hotline is also
in dire need of improvement. It
significantly lags behind USENET in just about every way. People familiar with
the threads that form in newsgroups will find it difficult to even read news on
Hotline, because it's all just one long strip of text. It's often hard to
figure
out what people are talking about, and when people "spam" the news, it becomes
even more difficult. Fortunately, threaded news is a feature planned for a
later
version. Like chat, there is only one news area per server. There are no
separate newsgroups, it's just one big group. That can become difficult to
sift
through on servers with a wide variety of files. There is no reply feature
either - if you want to quote someone else's message, you must do it
manually or
with a separate utility.
Hotline vs.
FTP File transfer is the area of Hotline
that truly shines. Everything about it says
"Mac." Folders are designated by the Copland folder icons that started showing
up as soon as the first screen shots appeared in magazines. Other files are
displayed with their small icons, if one exists. Filenames can include any
character
that can be used to name files on a Macintosh - everything but a colon. If
you need to
know more about a file than the size, you can "Get Info" on it, just like you
would with a Mac. This is also good in that it allows you to add a short
comment
to
files you upload. I think one of the most important features of Hotline is
that it doesn't require files to be BinHexed before they can be uploaded. All
files are either in plain StuffIt format or un-compressed. This is rare on FTP
servers, because most FTP servers are UNIX-based, and chop of the resource fork
of Mac files (something that you kind of need).
Another feature that makes Hotline so easy to use is the tracker. Trackers keep track of all of the Hotline servers, so chances are you'll be able to find the server you want by checking the tracker. This is especially helpful for servers that have dynamic IPs.
New in 1.2 At the beginning of this summer, Hotline Software was promising a new version by the end of July no matter what. Well, it's here, and it doesn't have nearly as many features as we were hoping for. The only significant change is private chat. Instead of encrypted chat in the main chat window, you can now have an actual private chat room and invite whomever you want. Other than that, you won't notice any changes when you launch Hotline, because most of them are simple things that you could already do in a different way. For instance, you can now drag-and-drop out of Hotline to download a file. It may save you a little bit of time, but it does save you a little bit of time. Overall, the most noticable change in Hotline 1.2 is the 15 minute time limit for people who haven't registered. This may discourage people from using Hotline, but Hotline Software deserves payment for the time they spend working on Hotline. You never know, if enough people pay, we may actually get the features that were promised a long time ago, like threaded news.
Since I started using Hotline, I have all but completely stopped using IRC and FTP, and don't read USENET newsgroups much anymore. I don't browse the web as much either, but I tried to avoid that before I used Hotline for various reasons. Fortunately, when I do want to browse the web, I can now use MacLynx and avoid all of those graphics that take forever to download. I found MacLynx on a Hotline server - you can find just about anything on Hotline. That's just another thing that makes it so great.
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