Getting rid of unwanted person in Mac Rendezvous list.

Factual Questions
1

Whoops, I committed the ultimate computer sin again: I pressed a button somewhere on accident and now can’t undo whatever I did.

Formerly, my Rendezvous list on Mac iChat was empty. It seems I pressed an IM button or something on Amazon, and now a person’s name is on the list. I just want to get rid of it, but dragging it off the list doesn’t work, nor does a right click, nor anything. Questions:

  1. How do I get that name off the list?

  2. Why is there a Rendezvous person list in the first place? It seems fairly unrelated to the Buddy List. For that matter, what does Rendezvous have to do with IM and Chat anyway? I thought it was for making different programs talk to each other.

Thanks for your help.

2

Surely someone knows.

3

“Rendezvous” is Apple’s system for sharing resources across a local network. In this case, your copy of iChat is talking to every other computer that has iChat running. What this means is just that someone else on your network has set up an account using iChat. They’ll be on the list whenever their computer is turned on and connected to the network. Rest assured that you’re on this person’s Rendezvous list as well.

You can’t remove individuals from the list, because it’s a dynamic list that is automatically updated to reflect available resources. I think there’s an option in the iChat preferences to turn of chatting via Rendezvous entirely, though I don’t have a system running OS X handy to verify this. Turning it off should remove your computer from other people’s lists also.

4

I don’t think so. This really seems to be some guy on Amazon whose link I pressed accidentally. And when you say “on my network,” what meaning? I am just using the Internet at home with a cable connection. I really don’t have anything to do with this guy.

Thanks for any further advice.

5

Do you use Rendezvous messaging? I ask because I’m about 99% certain that it’s disabled by default. In Preferences->Accounts there’s a checkbox that says “Enable local Rendezvous messaging”. Mine’s unchecked. When I check it, I get a rendezvous buddy list with no one in it.

Unless you’re using it, I’d turn it off. Unless it already is off. In that case I’d complain to Apple.

Actually, I’m wondering if it might be someone else on your cable modem connection. Back when I had a cable modem, after they’d “secured” everyone’s line, I could still see other people’s traffic, just not their Windows network shares. If they’ve just blocked certain ports and not properly compartmentalized everyone’s cable modems they may not be up on the newer, hipper stuff like Rendezvous.