14 DAY TRIAL // The beta releases spree continues, and this time it's AOL's turn. In fact, their launch is not a regular program, but a four-in-one applications suite. Before talking about the program, I want to try and figure out why they chose this name.
The term ?streamliner? usually applies to trains, mostly the high-speed train sets designed in the United States between the 1930s and the 1950s, as well as successor ?bullet trains? incorporating some of the same ideas in Europe and Japan. Streamlining is used to obtain a shape that provides less resistance to air, increasing speed and engine efficiency, while being more pleasing to the eye.
Getting back to our AOL suite that represents today's target, I must say that its design is a real eye candy, setting a new standard for mainstream Internet browsers, while the all-in-one design helps you decrease wasted online time, no matter if you surf, chat, check your email or want to enjoy some multimedia content.
Getting to the point, Streamliner's installation kit weighs almost 32MB, the installation process is easy to complete and unfortunately installs some additional software that you may not need, but worse about this is that you're not asked if you want this to happen or not. Leaving these behind, let's see what we can say about this product...
Just like most all-in-one suites, Streamliner's components are gathered into the same interface, which allows you to switch back and forth from one to another without wasting your time. Even though the four parts of this suite come together, I will take them down one by one and see what they're up to.
The Browser
When talking about Internet, most people think about Web sites and browsing. Of course that the leader on the browsers market (if I can call it this way, since most popular browsers are free...) remains Internet Explorer, despite its drawbacks. AOL thought that it would be a good idea to attack this market area, and here's the Browser component from Streamliner!
It seems there's nothing special about it. If you already checked the AOL Explorer, than you will find the browser included into Streamliner as being exactly the same stuff. For those who missed that one, here you go...
The browser's interface sets a new standard in terms of design style and ease of use. You can use skins (they are called ?themes? here) and when placing your mouse over an opened tab you can see a preview of the page loaded into it.
To ease the transition from Mozilla-based browsers and also those like Maxthon, this browser allows you to use both Ctrl+T and Ctrl+N as keyboard shortcuts for opening new tabs.
RSS feeds can be loaded easily into the multi functional left panel which can also host your favorites, channels, history or even custom content.
The Power Browsing tools that I found in AOL Explorer appear here too, so if you need to know who the owner of the site you're visiting is, highlight links on the current page or turn the current page upside down, just right click inside the browser window and enter the Power Browsing menu!
The bad part about the browser component from Streamliner is that you don't have any menus present here, so if you don't figure out how to save a Web page by yourself (my hint: use Ctrl+S!), you won't get any help from the program. It's a pity to keep away beginners with problems like that, but I am sure they'll solve it in the future.
Let's move to the next stop now. Plug in your speakers, think a while about what kind of music you would like to taste, and prepare for...
The Media Center
There are so many people using their computers for browsing, multimedia and games that Streamliner couldn't have missed the second item in this group. The media center included into the suite has five areas that can handle most online and offline media playing tasks.
First, we have the Video area, which is a shortcut to the AOL Video content that can be found online built into the program. This way you can load easily media content that you'd have to look for on a Web page otherwise. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't able to see a single second of video with this program, but only get an error each time, and I am sure it wasn't about the installed codecs or other software component from my computer.
Second stop is called Radio with XM which is an online radio stations centerfold. The stations are well organized, and all you can do is choose your favorite music and hit the Play button, just as easy as that!
Leaving the online stations behind, let's get into our own computer...there should be some music inside it somewhere, I am sure! The problem is that your music should be placed into the My Music folder so that the Music component could see and display it. Once your music files are displayed, playing it is done the same way as with the radio stations, so no problem here! You can even share each song with your friends using IM or email, but take care about the copyrighted materials!
Before I move on, I have one advice for you: when playing music files, don't double click them, but click only once and then use the play button. If you choose the double click solution, you will be taken away from the playlist, which may not be such a good idea...
When we talk about multimedia, right next to sound we'll always find the image. Pictures is the next area of the Media Center, and its mission is to ?play? images. When you start Streamliner, the Pictures module scans My Pictures folder for images, and displays the ones found inside a list.
You can view your pictures into the fixed size view window or press the Play button, enjoy a slideshow and, of course, share them through email or IM. It would have been nice to have full screen view, but that's life...sometimes you have to do with what you?ve got until it gets better.
The last stop of the Media Center is called My Files and it serves as a ?find'em all? tool...or this is what it should do. The reality is that it will help you find your music and image files that are located into the My Documents folder, and I must say that I hate this! Maybe some people like to keep their Windows partition clean and store their media files in other places, come on guys! I am sure it can get much better than this!
Just one more thing before I continue ? HTM and LOG files are supposed to be media files?? As far as I know, the answer should be no, and if this is the truth, then why do I see files of this type listed into My Files list?
In order to use the email client built into AOL Streamliner you have to create an AIM account if you don't have one already, since it won't work with other services like Yahoo or Gmail.
This component can only be used with the mail service provided by AOL, as I was saying, so it's no more than a front-end to it. Don't get me wrong, it has an excellent interface, it's very easy to use and does its job well, but I'd like to see more about it in the future.
The nice features packed into the Mail area include a Spell Checker, Spam Control with four levels of protection and customizable Away Message. The mail editor has a nice interface that allows you to add signatures, files attachments or images as easy as possible.
If you don't use AOL's mail service, this may be the right time to get an account, since it's free and you are trying this program...why not?
AIM Client
Email and Instant Messaging are two modern ways of bringing people together and making distances disappear, and the last one is my final destination in today's safari through Streamliner's land.
First of all, it should be obvious that in order to use the IM client included in this suite, you have to create an AIM account, if you don't have one already.
The messenger is nothing more than AIM Triton built into Streamliner. I am an AIM user but I don't use Triton because I log into my account using Trillian, this is the only reason. From what I see here, this is a small, nice and easy to use messaging client, nothing more, nothing less.
The settings available in this little tool give you enough power to make it work the way you want, so I'll let you explore them and draw your own conclusion, I will disengage the AOL Streamliner suite now and land my final thoughts right away.
Conclusions
When typing in my final thoughts about AOL Streamliner, I have to start with the bad part ? bundled software. I don't need it, and most of you don't either. Every computer connected to the Internet has, or should have, an antivirus program. Windows comes with a built in firewall. Streamliner comes with a built in Security Center and doesn't give you any choice to deny its installation. Now that's BAD.
Leaving the bundled software behind, there's one more big problem: AOL ads and built in content, but they are not that evil as they sound. I don't like ads at all, but those present here didn't stress me that bad to make me feel uncomfortable with this program.
?The beta syndrom? is also present here, since all components still need to have some features added or polished to be really ready for the final launch, but that depends on the individual users' opinion, since other people may not need things that others use on a regular basis.
The good part starts with the excellent interface and the time saving all-in-one design, goes on with the good customization features available for each component, and the finish still has to come, since this is ?work on progress? software.
AOL Streamliner could be an excellent suite with only one condition: throw away the junk, keep the good stuff, add those missing features like multi-IM support, enhanced options for video/music players and others, then you'll find the path to success!
Watch Streamliner's tools in action:
