racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Okay, I’m trying it out now, just to prove a point I’d been considering for some time now. Also, it’s been one of my favorite Instant Messenger status indicators for a while now, among some other interesting ones. Bundle in the Gaim “Idle-maker” plugin, which makes you appear idle or away from the keyboard, when you’re really working away (or playing) at your computer, and that would make for good fun! Here are the usual suspects:

* Busy. Very. – Great for telling people you’d really really rather not be bothered unless it’s something important (like an asteroid’s about to land on the Pacific, and it would be TEOTWAWKI).
* I’m probably online, but just pretending to be “idle.” But then again, I might be busy. – This is great in combination with Idle-maker. I’m probably actually busy, anyway.
* I’m probably hiding. From you! – Ah yes, the good ol’ alternative to “Invisible” mode, especially when there is no “Invisible” mode, such as on Google Talk.
* “Invisible” or “Invincible” on Google Talk. – Only the smart ones notice you’re not really invisible at all. And Invincible? Probably true, this age we’re in (until we lose the innocence of youth and realize that we all do die sometime).

Hey, with the birthday nearing, isn’t this a great time for existential meanderings. Alcohol surely helps in that area. I just hope I don’t take in too much. Otherwise, I’d probably get the ultimate reaction/response to the greatest existential question.

If my IM status says “I’m dead,” I’m probably not.

There, now that I’ve probably been loading enough alcohol into my bloodstream to get the good ol’ creative juices kicking in, it’s probably time to put an end to this nonsense and start with some real work. Ah, so many things to write, so little time.

One of the things I like best about Google Talk is the automatic logging of conversations–built into Gmail at that! I prefer IMs to be logged because of the following reasons:

* IM is increasingly becoming the business communication method of choice among netrepreneurs like myself–sometimes, email just takes so long for a quick response. So it’s good to have something on record. Email is already recognized as official communication here in the Philippines. As for IM, well, the law’s probably a bit more vague on that. But having a record of IM conversations assures me that I don’t forget anything, and that I can refer back to those chats when the need arises.

* I work on multiple computers. My laptop’s for when I’m mobile, and when I’m writing stuff. My desktop’s for the more power-hungry work (like games!). I like everything to be accessible from both PCs, and even other computers via the Web. Gtalk lets me access my chats from anywhere with a Web browser and a decent connection. Gtalk also lets my correspondent access the same thread over his/her own Gmail account!

However, the same does not go for Yahoo! Messenger, which I think is the IM of choice here in our country. Yes, YM has a lot of snazzy features, but what’s lacking with it is a decent logging capability. Third-party IM apps that run over the Yahoo! network, though, are increasingly getting better at this. And Gaim is one such application. Gaim is popular among the Linux-using crowd, because it lets them (well, us, actually) communicate over various IM networks that do not even release Linux-native clients, such as YM and AOL, for instance. Of course there’s a Windows client, too.

I use Gaim on my laptop, since I feel it has a smaller application footprint than YM (at least when running only over one IM network). I also prefer the clean, tabbed interface over the cluttered IM session windows of YM–something that you would appreciate with limited screen real estate of a laptop. And then there are the plugins. You have different functionalities for everthing from “idle-maker” (lets you pretend you’re actually away from the keyboard/mouse) to spell-checker, to the minute details like iChat-like timestamps.

And of course, what’s best is that you can set Gaim up so it will remember your conversations with your contacts. It may not be over-the-Web logging like Gtalk, but at least you’re sure to have a comprehensive log of your conversations with contacts, arranged by date. You can export this as HTML or text as a whole or on a per-day/session basis. YM does have an export feature for current conversations, but once you close that window (or the app itself), you lose the message thread forever.

I used to use YM on my desktop since I also had to use the video-conferencing feature once (YM supports both audio and video!). But since I rarely use that feature anyway, I think it’s best to switch to Gaim on the desktop from now.