tag: network

The idea of "Online Presence" is one I've thrown around with friends a lot over the years I've had a Sidekick, and I've been meaning to write about it. Yesterday Mark Cuban posted his thoughts [currently down], so I thought I'd add mine.

I'm really happy with my email and instant messenger setups at the moment, so let me start by documenting them, and then maybe consider how to bring other services to a similiar state.

Sidekick

I don't think it's interesting to go over the history of all the setups I tried, but let me just note that a central tool in my scheme is my Sidekick. I got the original color sidekick right after I graduated, primarily for SSH and the web browser, but it's ended up being email and instant messenging that have made a bigger impact. I upgraded to the Sidekick II, and now have the Sidekick III.

How to set things up wasn't obvious to me at first, but after two+ years of ownership, this is what I've settled on.

Email

My email system is fairly straightforward. Wherever the email comes in (NYU, MIT, Rhythm, null-terminated), it goes through the local spam filters, then a copy gets sent to GMail. After the gmail spam filters, I have some logic to avoid loops, and a copy gets forwarded to my Sidekick mailbox. Both gmail and the Sidekick have Reply-Tos set to one of the feeder email addresses, usually whatever I feel is my most "official" at the time.

My sidekick then automatically BCCs all email I send to gmail also (which is where the loop logic is needed). I primarily send email from gmail when at a computer, and the SK when on the road. The automatic BCC means if I'm looking for something I sent, it's all in one place. The only time I send email from the other account directly is for more official/formal things like requesting licenses or communicating with professors or the administration. Those don't get CCed, but by their nature I usually know where to look. More recently I've started using gmail's multiple-sender stuff to do even those from gmail.

Maybe this is all obvious stuff, but it took me a while to get it right. One great sideeffect is that it's always safe to delete anything on the SK. I basically keep current personal conversations and anything I might need to lookup on the road, and everything just gets trashed. I can always browse over to gmail's html interface on the SK's web if I need something.

Instant messenger

The instant messenging wars are alive and well, and unfortunately a combination of Sidekick support and features has left me on the side of AOL.

For the first couple years, the Sidekick only supported AIM, so I went with that. Along the way, I got used to a very nice feature of AIM- you can login from multiple computers, and it will send any received messages to all non-idle instances (so I set myself never idle everywhere).

That's a great setup, but it took me a while to get the notification right- at first I had a brief quiet sound, but even that was enough that I would mute the sound, which I would then forget. Eventually I used a vibrate-only notification, and then set it to sound-without-vibrate during conversations. Basically the Sidekick needs more intelligence in its AIM sound system, but that's another subject.

Generalization

So the basic rule is that switching modes is hard, and computers aren't good enough at doing it for us yet. Therefore my preferred strategy is to send all my messages to any device I'm logged in on.

So what can't I set up something similiar for?

Phone

The Sidekick only barely qualifies as a phone, but its deficiencies there could be well hidden if they would let me have phone calls simultaneously ring my landline and/or computer. I'd even be okay spending minutes on it, because what bugs me is the connection quality, not the cost.

Some people probably wouldn't want all their phones ringing, but again I want to avoid the explicit state-change and just answer whichever I feel like. It'd be reasonable to have the computer/landline phones have only a visual ring or something though, and rely on the Sidekick for the audio.

Bookmarks / Current State

I actually started writing this before del.icio.us was on the scene, but it's a step in the right direction. What I'd like is to have my browsers all keep each other in sync, so that if I open a tab on my laptop, I can read it on my desktop later.

Obviously this would have to be applied judiciously. Maybe in this case the state change could be avoided, but instead a request button could grab the state from the last touched browser.

Music / Audio Books

I like to do language tapes, and occaisionally audiobooks. On my old mp3 player, it was really easy to hit the wrong button and lose my place. Also, occaisionally I'd be at home doing dishes and laundry and want to listen through my desktop speakers for an hour or two. Again it'd be great to share state between my different devices so that if I listend to a chapter and a half in the subway, I can pick it up in the same place on my stereo.

There are many other examples.

Communication of Presence

The last issue is whether or not my communication partners should know or care where I am and what state I'm in.

With email you can currently tell because I leave my From address as gmail or tmail on my computer or Sidekick respectively. I think there are some heuristics on AIM that sometimes indicate where I am, but nothing solid. I used to have a seperate IM name for my cell phone, but I much prefer the unified front.

I came up with a scheme once (with Jon) to have AIM change the capitalization of my username based on where I was logged in from. In the end though, I think it's fine to always look available, and just not answer or say "sorry, driving" occaisionally.

Some day I'll have a device with more accessible GPS (my first cell phone actually had it, but no way to use or access it) and have a real-time map.

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