Another Hack by the pickle: Hacking your AOL Instant Messenger Net Find URLs

Ever get annoyed by that AOL Net Find search engine in AOL's Instant Messenger software? I have. To be frank, I think it sucks. So I dusted off my copy of ResEdit and here's what I came up with. Note that this works with AOL Instant Messenger 4.x and later; for directions on hacking older copies, please e-mail the pickle. To change any of the AOL Net Find URLs (Find a Person, Find a Business, or the general Net Find)...

1. Open a COPY of your AOL Instant Messenger application with ResEdit, Super ResEdit, or another resource editor.
2. Open up the 'URL ' resources.
3. Open the 'URL ' resource that you wish to change (you probably want one of the "Search the Web" URLs). I've made a ResEdit template to facilitate editing of the 'URL ' resources. (Requires Stuffit Expander 5, about 0.4K in size.) To use the template, download it, unstuff it, and open it with your resource editor of choice. Copy the 'tmpl' resource out of it and paste it into your resource editor's Preferences file, assigning a Unique ID if necessary.
4. For the White Pages, I personally recommend Four11 (http://www.four11.com), now a part of Yahoo! People Search (http://people.yahoo.com/). Simply type in the new URL you wish to use in the right side of the edit window. You may have to click in the ASCII text area so that you aren't typing in hexadecimal.
5. There are several excellent general WWW search engines; I use Altavista (http://www.altavista.digital.com) and Google (http://www.google.com) for the most part.
6. For a business search, I recommend using the excellent FreeYellow (http://www.freeyellow.com/) search.

DISCLAIMER: I take no responsibility for ANY damage you do to your computer, your software, yourself, or others as a result of this hack. YOU, the user, are ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS. Recognition with which the version of this hack for AIM 4.x has been honoured:

• Featured on ResExcellence, Wednesday, 13 September 2000.

• MacWorld magazine's Mac Tip of the Day, 12 January 1999.
• Featured on ResExcellence, Monday, 04 January 1999.