ok, so somehow my mentor managed to appear properly authorised on icq. but, then the evil news: icq's not using the same protocol. *most* of the rendezvous is the same, but it's a different cap, and the format of the 2711 TLV is totally different and undocumented. gaim, it seems, ignores this and pretends that icq is aim, which means it can't really do icq filetransfers with any client other than itself. should I do this, or try to reverse-engineer it, with two weeks left in my project? :P

also, I have a fucked-up bug. my counter in a for loop soemtimes fails to increment. seriously. there are times when it's fine, and times when it goes into an infinite loop. haven't a clue wtf it thinks it's doing.

oh, and while gaim uses utf8 by default, official aim uses ascii by default, and can't handle utf8. if I tell it that I'm using utf8, the other person never receives the filetransfer request. gaim just flat-out ignores what I say I'm using, and treats it as utf8 regardless.

also, aim 5.9 has gone backwards. suddenly it's saying it can't connect to me. I don't have a single thing between me and the open internet, and it can't connect. arrrgh.... it doesn't even try a redirect like 5.1; it just plain gives up.

I hate oscar. and gaim. and AOL. gah! why do all the problems only show up when I think I'm almost done? :P