Jabber Status

The icon at the bottom of each page shows my instant messenger status. Jabber is an open source chat network that also connects you to AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, etc. If you don’t have one yet, Psi is a pretty good chat client.

	Available	Here at the computer.
	Away	Stepped away, likely back in a few.
	Do Not Disturb	Here but busy, please don’t interrupt.
	Not Available	Out for a while: sleep, work, play date…
	Offline	Dead to the world — er, the web

The text after the icon is my status or away message and is almost always a quote from something I’ve recently read or heard. Some are funny, some are insightful, some are surprising, some are insulting, some are offensive, and many fit several of these categories. I’ve gone through several per day since fall 2001.

The live icon/text are done with Edgar, a Jabber to Web bot made by my friend Nathan Fritz. It’s fun stuff, made possible by open source and good standards.