The Digsby Dilemma

I was recently introduced to a new IM Chat Client, Digsby (www.digsby.com). There seem to be new chat clients popping up every day, but there was something about Digsby that caught my eye. It might have been the goofy looking logo (is that an egg??) or maybe the name, though I think in the end it was the cool ability to “skin” the chat windows that drew me in.

So where does the dilemma come from? I have accumulated many years worth of chat logs. Chat logs of hate, chat logs of love, chat logs of technical information, cool websites etc. What the hell was I going to do with all those chat logs?

In comes Google - “convert trillian logs to digsby log”

First hit brings me right to many others suffering the way I was suffering…why must we be teased with such a promising product, yet be trapped by “the logs?”

Luckily, I had a solution. I am a computer whiz, I know that Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V would let me copy my years worth of logs in no time……ok, maybe not.

Luckily, I had a solution. I am a computer nerd and know how to program! Out comes notepad++, regexbuddy, visual studio and after a couple hours I had a working prototype that would take all my old trillian logs, and convert them into properly formatted Digsby logs with the click of a button!

This converter is still probably considered alpha. It does not do anything to your old logs, they remain intact; so in case the conversion fails, the old logs are safe for another day.

Having discussed this with a couple people, it seems as if there is greater variability in logs then I thought there would be. While this doesn’t pose a huge problem, it will create a headache for you and me. If I need to ask you for examples of your log formats, please help me out!

So..without further ado…

Link: Click to Download