Isn’t it odd how you get used to the little features of an IM client?
My current favourite is Gtalk, mainly because at its most basic level it only requires a browser. It also stores the conversations in a handy google-able format. However, it does suffer from a few problems. One is lack of file transfer support, and the second is its behaviour when you log in to GTalk on another machine. And this, friends, is what’s currently annoying me.
I have two machines, one at work, one at home. I log into Skype and Gtalk on both in order to keep in touch with work and personal contacts. Skype is particularly crap (and I’ve noticed GTalk does it as well) at working out which machine you’re logged in as. As a result, I skyped someone last night and got no response, to find this morning, their somewhat irate responses on my work machine.
Come on, people, get it together. MSN handles this by setting a concurrency limit of 1 on logins, which IMHO works nicely thankyouverymuch.
*mumble grumble*
What bothers me about Skype is its apparent inability to keep track of who is online. I’ll get an IM, reply, and then a few minutes later get the irritating ‘Skype has been unable to send this message’ notification – and THEN it updates to show the contact is offline. (particularily irritating if I’ve been babbling …The people on the other end get the babble the next time they log on and I’m online too, which makes for some interesting delayed reactions, mostly along the line of ‘WTF?’)
It’s also got other interesting glitches in the program, but that’s the daily irritant for me.