Fnordstrum
Posts: 164
Joined: 2/14/2006 Status: offline
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I tend to prefer IMing to sending mails -- I don't really care as far as the medium for either (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, are all the same, and any email vs mail on collarme is all the same, as far as my preferences go anyway).. I don't have the problem of being swamped from IMs ever, and I also have Pidgin open 100% of the time (Pidgin being a program to connect to AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, and anything else I want at the same time without having to run a million things -- plus, of course, doing it in Linux), even when I'm not home/sleeping/whatever (That, of course, is what away messages are for)... However if you do have the problem of being swamped by IMs, there are a few things you could do.. One of which is to go invisible, so nobody knows you're on unless you IM them first.. Another would be to use more than one screen name, one for when you want to talk to only a specific couple of people, and another for when you want to talk to any random person and/or don't care about being 'swamped' at the moment.. Also, if you're getting inundated with IMs from people you just don't want to talk to at all / ever (or, with spambot IMs), you can just block everyone except people on your list. Also as far as email vs IMs in general, sometimes I use IMs more in the style of mail -- Someone will message me while I'm at work, and then I'll respond when I get home, and then they're not there but they respond later on when they get back to their computer, etc... Just because you can respond instantly doesn't mean you have to. (Although if you're trying to actually hold a conversation it does work better if you respond without too big of a delay) ---- But then, that's really the thing people would like or not like about IMs vs mail -- If you just want to send a message; think about it for a while, write it, send it, get a response sometime later which you respond to sometime after that, that's more of a mail type of thing, but if you want to hold a conversation with someone, same as talking to them in person or on the phone, that's an IM type of thing... And many people prefer having a conversation the same way you would if you were talking in person / on the phone, to sending delayed messages, hence, why IM is so popular. But yeah if people are bugging you with IMs, just go invisible (or at the very least change your status to away or something), or block people, or just tell people you're busy and you'll talk later. Fnord. ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
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Power = Work / Time Knowledge is Power and Time is Money, so Knowledge = Work / Money, and Money = Work / Knowledge Therefore, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity (regardless of work done), and vice versa.
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