Quieting Adium, or, OCD Dockwork

As technology continues to roll toward a more standards-driven regime, a delightful bit of nostalgia can be gleaned from the rich and varied history of the chat application. Not unlike the lineage of the User-Agent string during the browser wars, Instant Messenge applications were written, rewritten, copied, and abandoned while efforts to standardize the protocols of the big three IM companies (AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo!) foundered.