Sometime Today, DRR cobbled together some glyphs to say:
I expect an answer to my poblems...
ok, fine, here's the answer to your problems. Go ahead, download the source code of gaim, hack it to make it work with a proxy (not too hard, I've done something similar myself, it involves using a packet analyser), and send a patch back to the gaim folks.
If your patch gets accepted, then that's really great, because... - You get your name in gaim's credits - You can put this fact on your resume - No one will ever have this problem again
Of course, someone has to do it first, and there is absolutely no reason why it cannot be you. I can see the passion in you to get at a solution. Here's your chance to actually make it happen. How cool would that be?
There is no excuse for you not to do it. Let me repeat. No Excuse!
About meebo - here's a technical reason why it's not 'as good' as a desktop app. Meebo is based on a pull model. ie, the web client keeps polling the server to find out if something has changed, and then pulls the data if it is. Your desktop app works in a push-pull model. The server can push data to the client when it has something, and the client can pull data from the server if it wants something.
Why is one better than the other? Polling in general is not good. There is too much CPU, application time and network overhead lost in checking for updates. There's also the issue of how often does one poll. If you poll too fast, you could overwhelm the server and network. If you poll too slowly, you lose the pseudo real time feel. With sufficient guess work and testing, you can settle on a reasonable window that's 'acceptable' if not perfect.
I don't see anything wrong from meebo's point of view. I'd thought of doing something similar in 2003 as a sample implementation of libyahoo2, but the aforementioned trust issues are what told me to spend my time elsewhere. If you're good enough, maybe you can take that forward.
It's fine to ask questions, but when you live on the cutting edge, you have to be prepared to maybe find the answer on your own.
Philip