I have this quirky little thing about me…I don’t like to be bothered.

A few months ago I was at the airport and I was hungry as ever. I went through security and walked up to the only food place that was still open (I tend to fly at night.) I grab my sandwich, go sit down, and I see this man across from me chatting it up with two ladies. “Oh he’s a flirt” I thought and then I prepared myself to eat. A few minutes later the women get up and I say to myself “Oh no, he’s going to start talking to me”. I quickly grab my iPod and put in the earphones.

I’m a stinker, I know, but I didn’t feel like being flirted with.

The man says “That’s a big sandwich.”

I heard him, but I pretended as if I didn’t. After all, I had on headphones.

Then he clears his throat “AHEM! I SAID that sure is a big sandwich!”

I did all I could to not laugh as I got up, walked to the other seating section, and enjoyed my sandwich.

People don’t care if you are wearing headphones or not, if they want to talk to you they will, but still I don’t want to seem rude so my iPod makes my life easier by giving me an excuse to block out reality.

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I don’t like talking on the phone (more on that later) so if you want to reach me and get a timely response, then email and IM are the way to go.

I’ve found that most people have AIM, some prefer Yahoo, and others like MSN. Then of course there is Google Talk but who uses that?.

How is a person supposed to keep up with all these different screen names and applications? Do you just pick the one you like the best and say “oh well” to any potential contacts or clients that don’t use it? Of course not.

The solution is Pidgin, which is an application that lets you chat with more IM clients than I can name.

* AIM * IRC *MSN
* Bonjour *QQ *SILC *SIMPLE
* Gadu-Gadu *Sametime *Zephyr
* Google Talk *XXMP *Yahoo
* Groupwise *ICQ *Myspace IM

Now I can chat with a friend, catch up with an associate, and network with a potential partner all with one application. The best part about it is that it’s free. That is why Pidgin makes my life easier.

P.S. If you have a Mac then try Adium.

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Who is still using Internet Explorer?

I know it has it’s place, but if you work on the net for extended periods of time, using Internet Explorer is like using a typewriter to write a letter and sending it via pigeon express.

The main thing that attracted me to Firefox a few years ago was the tabbed browsing. Internet Explorer has caught up with that, but it still lags behind in the productivity factor. Here are the extensions I use to make my life easier.

- IE Tab. Sometimes you have to use Internet Explorer or the page just won’t work. There’s also the testing issue when you are building websites. Instead of opening I.E. I simply right click in Firefox, click on the button, and I can view the page in Internet Explorer. [Download]

-Screengrab. It’s an easy way to take a screenshot. The benefit of using this over CTRL + Prnt Scrn is that you can take a snapshot of the entire web page from top to bottom; you aren’t just limited to the visible portion. [Download]

-Web Developer- If you do any kind of web design and setup then this will be useful. I mainly use it for the CSS tool that allows you to change elements of a site right on your screen so you can see how it looks. [Download]

-SEO Firefox - Simply put, if you have a website, you need this tool. I initially downloaded it because it allows you to see which links are nofollow on a specific webpage. This is useful in blogging. But there’s so much more that this tool does. You can get the full rundown here.

Are you still getting virus, after virus, pop up after pop up? You don’t have to go through that. Download

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