If any of you added me to your buddy list, or have me as a contact in Gmail, you probably noticed that I sign in only once in a blue moon. There is a reason for this. I like to do things certain way – I want to be able to respond to you on my own time. I’m breaks your flow, and forces you to deal with the interruption right there and then. You can either choose to ignore the other person, engage in conversation, or let the other person know you want to finish something and go back to your tasks.
Sure, you can set your status to away, invisible or whatever. But then you have to ask yourself – what is the point of using IM if your are away or invisible most of the time? I figured there is not much reason, and so I stopped using it. Now I only sign in when I feel like I want to chat. Most of other time I keep it off. I get enough interruptions in real life so at least I can minimize the virtual ones.
Because I value my time, and despise interruptions I usually don’t like to bother other people on IM. In most cases I’d rather shoot you a quick email rather than IM. I sometimes get annoyed that certain people prefer IM over email. For example my brother hardly ever checks his email. And when you ask him about it he actually hast to search his memory to remember a valid email address of his. On the other hand he is signed into 2-3 of his favorite IM network 24-7. When he is not at his desk, he just puts up away messages, and then checks all the collected IM’s that got queued up during the day.
So essentially he is using IM like he would use email. But it pisses me off, because when I need to send him URL I can’t use my handy Gmail bookmarklet (it takes me 2 clicks to send someone a URL) but I have to launch an IM client, sign in, find him in the buddy list and etc.. Sigh.
How about you? Are you an IM addict like my brother, or rather an email person like me?
[tags]im, instant message, client, interruptions[/tags]
I’m an IM person myself, but I can relate to you. I have a bitlbee server running on my computer and irssi on a screen. So whenever I want to I can check the irssi-window and see if anyone has talked, but without being interrupted. I also have set up fetchmail and postfix, so linux tells me whenever I’ve got mail
I’m like you on the begining. I’m connected to msn messenger, but “not available” most of the time, anyway I prefer e-mail, because with e-mail, probably the person that wrote you, has taken his/her time to write the e-mal, so he/she’ll probably have something interesting to say, and probably, I’ll take the time to respond accordingly.
Sure . . . its all about you. We get it now . . .
;-)
I suppose i use IM more, if its already running it is quicker and it is usually running. I might be and usually am signed in as away but that doesn’t mean I am away. But it is a good excuse to ignore someone cause i hate interruptions too. But i use e-mail for more serious stuff or for like long messages, i also use messaging on social network sites alot too. But the downside of IM is that ppl i chat with all think I am using the same client they are, MSN, AIM, Yahoo and the like with all the features those provide and that is like never the case. And most of them can never remember that, hmmm, honestly I think they smoke too much weed. But anyway in windows i use trillian and in linux, pidgin and amsn mostly. Trillian is a killer app but pidgin, kopete and the like are not as supportive. I haven’t tried to make trillian work under wine but I think it might be possible.
My brother is a Trillian person too. :) I haven’t really used it much but everyone seems to love it. I was always a Gaim (now Pidgin) person but people always get annoyed when they can’t send me files over AIM or do all the other quirky stuff that pidgin doesn’t fully support.
Some time ago I installed the new AIM client and I absolutely hate it. Somehow they managed to copy the GTalk’s light and easy design, while at the same time made it slow, bloated and unresponsive (or how we like to say it, they added the AOL brand touch to the Google design). :P
I love GTalk, but most of my friends are on AIM so I don’t really get to use it that much.
Trillian is the best of the bunch IMHO, i wish they would port it to linux…I actually would buy that one!! For MSN aMSN is pretty decent, doesn’t support everything but I like it.
That is exactly my problem with gaim, i like gaim and i like kopete but they just don’t support enough stuff. BTW i hate the new aim client, and the same goes for MSN and Yahoo’s garbage. Too bloated, adware bs anyway. I have them installed in Win but seldom use them. Plus i gotta get rid of all the other garbage they try to install. Only if somebody i really like begs and whines will i use them.
Most of my friends online are not “Computer people” so I’m fighting a losing battle. Hell i can’t even talk most of them into using FF, but if they got a spyware or windows problem guess who they IM? I wish i could pretend to be ignorant, lmao.
I am a Contact Me in any way possible person
Online people have access to EVERY messenger i use (which is all of them) I also provide my email (a personal prefrence when it comes to requests and help) and my phone number.
If I want an answer right away I’ll try IM first then go to email if they aren’t there.
Contacting me, I don’t mind which way it happens, I check my email regularly and I’m signed in fairly often (don’t have that many people in my contacts though, maybe if there were more I would decide to stay off for most of the time and mainly use email)
I use both (Trillian for IM and Outlook 2007 and Thunderbird for e-mail), but I’m not addicted to either of them. There are times when I prefer one over the other, but both are very useful to me both professionally and personally.
Milos! Are you still in Serbia? Hehe, I just noticed the flag next to your name. ;)
And Akismet still seems to hate you. LOL!
Yes sir! I’m still in Serbia, but they need to update flags as that’s a Yugoslavian flag (doesn’t exist anymore) :) I’ll be back on the 15th.
It must be association with either my name or e-mail, that’s just wrong either way.
Well I’m off to do some more drinking – catch you later.