Affiliate AIM Etiquette

AIM is a staple of life when you live and work on the internet.  There are quite a few different IM services out there, but AIM is the most widely used.  It’s gotten to the point where a good 90% of the conversations that I have with people in the industry are through AIM.  It’s quicker than picking up the phone, and for the most part it is less intrusive.  If they are in the middle of something they can get back to me when they are available.  It’s also nice to see your buddies login every morning, letting you know that you aren’t alone in what can be a very isolated industry.

That being said, there are some AIM users that tick me off. I made a tweet about this yesterday and it got a lot of responses, so I know I’m not the only one that feels this way.  It was about one of my pet peeves, when somebody comes on AIM and just types, “Hey,” and then says nothing else.

To be fair, I am sure that I have done this before and I am guilty of it too, because you want to see if the person is there before you go into typing a long discussion.  Saying, “Hey,” in itself is not what annoys me, it’s what comes next, which 9 times out of 10 is… Nothing!  They say, “Hey,” and I say it back, and then that’s it.  They never respond or say anything else.  What’s the point of that?  Just to make sure that I am there in case you actually do need to ask me a question?  Annoying.

emoteThe other thing.

That’s annoying.

Is when people.

Type fragments.

Of a sentence.

And hit return.

After each one.

So that you get.

16 different beeps.

One for.

Each line.

That they type.

If I’m in a conversation with you, I’m already paying attention.  You don’t need to get every single line out there for me to read before it’s a fully formed and logical sentence.  Take your time, form your sentence, and then hit return when you are ready to say it.  Now that wasn’t so hard was it?

If you are reading this article, then you are probably either nodding your head in agreement with me, or one of the offending parties and you will never AIM me again.  Don’t do that.  I love AIM.  I use it for at least 10 hours every single day.  Just follow some conversational etiquette just like you would if we were talking in person.  Can you imagine coming up to someone in person, saying, “Hey,” then just walking away?  In essence that is what you are doing online when you don’t respond.

That’s the end of my rant for today!

The Top 5 Free Open Source Programs

The amount of programs that are available for free these days on the internet is astounding. Software that would have cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars just a few short years ago can be had for nothing, all thanks to the Open Source movement in the tech community. Technically speaking, Open Source means that the source code for the software is freely available to be downloaded, compiled, and edited by anyone. But for non-programmer-types (me included), it means that you can use the software for free!

Here are a few of my favorite Open Source equivalents of popular software packages:

1. OpenOffice.org (Microsoft Office / Productivity)

open officeThis one is probably the most popular Open Source program out there (except for FireFox of course). I haven’t bought a new version of Microsoft Office for years because of it. The newest version is practically identical to Office in functionality. As is often the case, the only real thing missing is the Templates and Wizards for making pre-formatted documents. However, these can be found online for free as well with a little extra searching.

2. GIMP (Photoshop / Image Editing)

gimpGIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It started out on Linux, but now there are Windows and Mac OS X versions as well. This will be plenty powerful to handle about 90% of your image editing and graphic design needs. For most people, they will never miss the extra bells & whistles that Photoshop has. This is perfect for installing on a laptop or second computer, if not your primary workstation.

3. Pidgin (AIM / Yahoo / IM)

pidgin

Pidgin is another Linux convert that is available for the major platforms. It is a very lightweight and slick little IM program. It supports all of the major chat protocols, and it won’t pester you with annoying ads like the default AIM and Yahoo clients. You can sign into all of your profiles at once and chat across multiple protocols, including Facebook Chat.

4. FileZilla (WS_FTP)

filezillaThis is hands-down my favorite FTP program. I’ve used paid software like WS_FTP in the past, and FileZilla blows it away in speed and reliability. And did I mention it’s free? This is a no-brainer download for anybody that works with websites at all.

5. ThunderBird (Microsoft Outlook)

thunderbirdIf you are reading this blog, there is a good chance that you are already using Mozilla’s FireFox browser (according to my logs, over 60% of my readers use FireFox, and only 9% use Internet Explorer; way to go guys!). But you may not know that Mozilla has another excellent program called ThunderBird that is a totally free replacement for Microsoft Outlook. You do have to download an additional free plugin to get the Calendar functionality, but it is well worth the extra 30 seconds that should take. I personally like ThunderBird even better than Outlook, it is much faster.

So there you have it, a first step into the world of Open Source software. Beyond these, a simple Google search for “Open Source Software” will bring up hundreds more programs to check out. What are your favorites?