My Dark Knight movie review

Progress on the Arcade Cabinet

I have been working on the arcade cabinet the last couple nights with Zach up in Sherwood. All my photos/videos are posted on my Phone Blog here.

Here is one video showing our progress:

Fireworks! And Lily

Lily shares her thoughts on fireworks at the end of the video.  Here are some of the MANY fireworks we shot off the night of the 4th:

First firework injury of 2008

OUCH! That hurt like nothing else! Gah! Zing! 

Playing in the Pool

Whirlpool with Brian and Sarah

Cannonball!

I thought I'd post some videos from our trip to Tenino for the Independence Day weekend. Here is the first of many :)

A Rant on IM Status

Instant messaging started out as a toy for me way back in 1996 when ICQ first launched. It quickly became more and more a part of my life. Now, I can’t imagine living without IM (instant messaging). I am constantly logged into MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, and ICQ. I talk to people more over IM than I do over the phone (by a long shot). IRC and IM comprise the majority of my daily communication.

After using IM for 12 years, there are some basic IM concepts that I am so surprised that some people do not respect. The most common offense in the IM world is bogus “status”. IM status is a vital part of IM. If you are available or online, you set your status to that. If you are away you set your status to that. If you are working on something or are otherwise not available, you set your status to that. It’s not that hard. The online/available, away, and offline can happen automatically with any IM client out there. I am just amazed how many people ignore this courtesy to others by completely ignoring their IM status.

I have heard several reasons and none of them justify being rude to others by not giving them the courtesy of knowing your status. It has been a part of IM since day one. It makes a lot of sense to let people know what your status is so they know if they are leaving a message while you are away, interrupting something important, or to know if you are online and they can expect an answer/reply.

It’s not that hard. Let me break it down for you:

if you are ______, then your status should be ________

if you are online/available, then your status should be online/available

if you are away, then your status should be away

if you are not at the computer for a significant amount of time, then your status should be offline

some IM clients have idle, extended away, etc...

All I’m asking for is to know! It’s really not hard and it’s a common IM courtesy... have I mentioned that before?

I’m not targeting anyone specifically here, but you know who you are ;o)  I know a few people that are flagrant offenders of ignoring IM status, but it is becoming more widespread.

I need to think of a good bumper sticker for this cause... Maybe this:

Be Nice, Go "away"

LOL

Okay, sorry - I had to get that rant out of my system. It's been slowly building up the last few months.