Getting Myself in Trouble
Ever notice how I tend to get myself into things?

So over the course of this summer I have become a very active member of the Adium Community. Adium is an Open Source Instant Messaging Client for Mac OS X. If you are using Mac OS X I highly recommend you check it out (www.adiumx.com). It allows users to connect to pretty much every instant messaging service under the sun and as the original catch phrase went “so customizable you’ll shit your pants.” Simply amazing software really.

First it started by posting on the message boards. This started because I wanted to ask a question or report a bug or suggest something I can’t remember. Since joining at the begining of the summer I’ve posted over 300 times and counting on the boards. Next thing was submitting an “Xtra” to the Xtra’s Website. Xtras are basically packs to customize Adium. Contact list themes, Message view themes, Dock icons, emoticon packs, Sound sets loads of stuff to make Adium act and look just the way you want it. Since my first Xtra I’ve put 8 on the site one of them is the 6th most downloaded xtra of it’s type and gaining every day(not bad!). Then I started frequenting the IRC channel talking about Adium and tons of other topics with other users. Heh, users, makes it sound like we have an addiction. I don’t but the program is a great one.

Now the cool thing about the Open Source Software movement is that everyone can and is encouraged to help. If you know how to program you can help add features or fix bugs. Thus far I’ve only help troubleshoot other people’s problems (non bugs) on the forums and IRC channel. My knowledge of Objective-C (the language it is written in) isn’t good enough to help program or debug but I’ve found another way to help out! The one place that I have the ability to help and not have programing knowledge of Obj-C is the help pages! Currently Adium just links to the Adium website’s Frequently Asked Questions page when someone tries to get help. Obviously this wont do so I’m putting my free time to some good use.

Now I’m sure by this point you are probably wondering What does this have to do with getting in trouble? Well I’ll tell you. THE HELP PAGES ARE A BIG PROJECT!!!! Right now I’ve spent about an hour making a To Do list of sorts and what should go into the Help pages. I’m hoping that I can get everything together before the next release of Adium which could be pretty much any time in the next few days. But who knows. Well now that I have a job to do (even though I’m not getting paid) I’ll be a bit busier and less board.