My work uses email for everything, I work on the Health industry and I communicate with several people in different countries and time zones, doing it by phone or chat will be almost impossible.
If I check at work at 7:00AM I usually start reading emails from people that are in Europe and Asia, it will be almost impossible to get in touch with me in the middle of the morning for them unless is an emergency, the beauty of email is that the moment you sit and try to write your thoughts you start to realize whats important and what is just anxiety, I have even noticed that people tend to write in simple words their most extreme problems that helps them and me to actually see what I need to do to be able to comply with their request.
I specially see this in Latino countries (I am Mexican) when phone calls tend to drag a lot on unnecessary chit-chat that only takes time and wont contribute anything to the discussion (endless weather, economic, nonsense chat).
Of course one thing that helps me is to either give an instant answer to their problem or just to shoot a quick reply that you saw their request and that you will fix it ASAP.
Also email helps you to see a history of the conversations without the blah added to them.
My personal email is a different beast, I usually receive the chain mail email, spam and other stuff but I don't need to respond immediately if something is discussed that actually needs my attention (get together, dinner parties etc) the moment you treat work email as work and not as a social gathering you will see that is a really nice work tool.
Last week I got a call from a lady with a Colombian accent, I never really figure what they were trying to sell me but I started the conversation stating that they were doing a scam.
She got really angry and at some point one of her coworkers even got to the phone and said that they were part of a Drug Cartel, after that it was hysterical.
I did the usual genetic jokes ("I hope you dont get marry and pass your genes to the genetic pool") and stuff like that, my record was 25 min, and at some point I got disconnected, and the lady called again because she wanted to continue the fight.
At the end I told her that I was a church ministry and got her praying with me on the phone and she promised that she will change jobs.
(I am not a church ministry but that should have been a really expensive call from Colombia to Mexico)
I am going to tell you a true story regarding companies and stolen goods.
I brough a Wii 2 years ago, and after 6 months somebody broke into my house and stole it.
I tough well I will contact Nintendo and will let them know that it has been stolen so that they can have a note in the system in case the thief will bring it down to repairs or something like that.
Wrote an email to their customer service, stating the serial number and my name, guess what was their response?
"Sorry but thats not our problem we cant help you if they want to make a warranty valid we will honor it"
Not their exact words but I am to lazy to search for the email at the moment.
So I tried to inform them that my product was stolen and that if they received it for service just refuse it to do it but they didnt care about it.
I am not blaming nintendo its true its not their problem, but if Alienware is doing this I am not sure that their motive is to protect their customer, it has to do with greed and the fact that they didnt got to sell the product to the client directly.
I agree that finding a Computer game that you can play at the same time is a little difficult, on the other hand there are several console games that are specifically designed to play against another person.
In my experience my GF hates games, with the exception of solitary and card games, but she started playing Tekken 4 with me and now she really likes to play that one.
Now I havent tried another game (I play mostly RPGs) but I believe that if I will find another title that enable us to play at the same time she will play it with me.
After reading the article I almost found myself rushing to my home and throwing all my games to the garbage bin.
Ok. Seriously I have been hearing all my life (a long life) that games are evil, even playing Asteroids on the 2600 was bad, why? Well you wont accomplish anything in life if you spend your time playing games.
Now we read of how videogames are promoting violence, and teaching kids skills that are only suitable for war and destruction.
I just wonder what kind of games the big CEOs of Enron, Worldcom and other criminals played when they were kids. IMHO they are committing crimes that affect a lot of people but they are treated in a different way, guess jail is only for the poor these days.
Now I don't think that a person who wrongful takes another people life deserves less than jail, they should be punished with the full extend of the law. But stop blaming a whole industry because they lawyers need a motive to present in court.
I still remember that you had to hide your gaming magazines, they were believed to be even lower than p0Rn, you had to either buy a newspaper and tuck them inside or be laughed at the cafeteria.(that was in the 80s)
All of my coworkers always seemed to disdain games as something that a good engineer wont do, and now I can see that almost everyone of them are either playing some kind of game in their computer/PDA/cell phone/TV.
Damm I must be getting old, rambling like this at this time.
"A big name draws attention, it's really that simple," argues Sony Online Entertainment's Chief Creative Officer, Raph Koster.
Well some people will find atractive to live the same experiences that are on the movies/series/comics/etc, but sadly most of the licences today are really vague on content.
It looks like most of the games tied to an allready developed marketing campaing (SWG, etc) seem to lack a certain appeal to the mayority of the players.
I dont deny that some licences have some good theme to develop content from them, but it will seem that most of the game publishers are rushing the products to meet the deadline, and deadlines and creative content usually dont mix very well. (HULK, Matrix, etc)
I believe Time is the reason why most ppl who have been playing games for a long time doesnt play the new ones.
You either need to be a college boy to play 8 straight hours of the new FPS or RTS on your couch, call for a pizza and not worry about anything the next day (night).
I can hardly think of a day that I have 2 or 3 hours free to play any game (and I still purchase them but hardly play them).
I remember playing the original Wing Commander for 6 straight hours without remembering to eat or sleep.
How many games are on my playing stack now that I havent even able to load up?. Close to 10.
Of course money is an issue, but I remember purchasing Atari Cartridges with my savings money, and now all my PC/PS2 games come from the remaining money after paying the bills.
Slashdot Mirror
My work uses email for everything, I work on the Health industry and I communicate with several people in different countries and time zones, doing it by phone or chat will be almost impossible.
If I check at work at 7:00AM I usually start reading emails from people that are in Europe and Asia, it will be almost impossible to get in touch with me in the middle of the morning for them unless is an emergency, the beauty of email is that the moment you sit and try to write your thoughts you start to realize whats important and what is just anxiety, I have even noticed that people tend to write in simple words their most extreme problems that helps them and me to actually see what I need to do to be able to comply with their request.
I specially see this in Latino countries (I am Mexican) when phone calls tend to drag a lot on unnecessary chit-chat that only takes time and wont contribute anything to the discussion (endless weather, economic, nonsense chat).
Of course one thing that helps me is to either give an instant answer to their problem or just to shoot a quick reply that you saw their request and that you will fix it ASAP.
Also email helps you to see a history of the conversations without the blah added to them.
My personal email is a different beast, I usually receive the chain mail email, spam and other stuff but I don't need to respond immediately if something is discussed that actually needs my attention (get together, dinner parties etc) the moment you treat work email as work and not as a social gathering you will see that is a really nice work tool.
Last week I got a call from a lady with a Colombian accent, I never really figure what they were trying to sell me but I started the conversation stating that they were doing a scam.
She got really angry and at some point one of her coworkers even got to the phone and said that they were part of a Drug Cartel, after that it was hysterical.
I did the usual genetic jokes ("I hope you dont get marry and pass your genes to the genetic pool") and stuff like that, my record was 25 min, and at some point I got disconnected, and the lady called again because she wanted to continue the fight.
At the end I told her that I was a church ministry and got her praying with me on the phone and she promised that she will change jobs.
(I am not a church ministry but that should have been a really expensive call from Colombia to Mexico)
If you believe the latest gossip on the tabloids he may start flirting with some boys too.
I am going to tell you a true story regarding companies and stolen goods.
I brough a Wii 2 years ago, and after 6 months somebody broke into my house and stole it.
I tough well I will contact Nintendo and will let them know that it has been stolen so that they can have a note in the system in case the thief will bring it down to repairs or something like that.
Wrote an email to their customer service, stating the serial number and my name, guess what was their response?
"Sorry but thats not our problem we cant help you if they want to make a warranty valid we will honor it"
Not their exact words but I am to lazy to search for the email at the moment.
So I tried to inform them that my product was stolen and that if they received it for service just refuse it to do it but they didnt care about it.
I am not blaming nintendo its true its not their problem, but if Alienware is doing this I am not sure that their motive is to protect their customer, it has to do with greed and the fact that they didnt got to sell the product to the client directly.
Just my 2 cents.
I agree that finding a Computer game that you can play at the same time is a little difficult, on the other hand there are several console games that are specifically designed to play against another person.
In my experience my GF hates games, with the exception of solitary and card games, but she started playing Tekken 4 with me and now she really likes to play that one.
Now I havent tried another game (I play mostly RPGs) but I believe that if I will find another title that enable us to play at the same time she will play it with me.
After reading the article I almost found myself rushing to my home and throwing all my games to the garbage bin.
Ok. Seriously I have been hearing all my life (a long life) that games are evil, even playing Asteroids on the 2600 was bad, why? Well you wont accomplish anything in life if you spend your time playing games.
Now we read of how videogames are promoting violence, and teaching kids skills that are only suitable for war and destruction.
I just wonder what kind of games the big CEOs of Enron, Worldcom and other criminals played when they were kids. IMHO they are committing crimes that affect a lot of people but they are treated in a different way, guess jail is only for the poor these days.
Now I don't think that a person who wrongful takes another people life deserves less than jail, they should be punished with the full extend of the law. But stop blaming a whole industry because they lawyers need a motive to present in court.
I still remember that you had to hide your gaming magazines, they were believed to be even lower than p0Rn, you had to either buy a newspaper and tuck them inside or be laughed at the cafeteria.(that was in the 80s)
All of my coworkers always seemed to disdain games as something that a good engineer wont do, and now I can see that almost everyone of them are either playing some kind of game in their computer/PDA/cell phone/TV.
Damm I must be getting old, rambling like this at this time.
Quoting the article:
"A big name draws attention, it's really that simple," argues Sony Online Entertainment's Chief Creative Officer, Raph Koster.
Well some people will find atractive to live the same experiences that are on the movies/series/comics/etc, but sadly most of the licences today are really vague on content.
It looks like most of the games tied to an allready developed marketing campaing (SWG, etc) seem to lack a certain appeal to the mayority of the players.
I dont deny that some licences have some good theme to develop content from them, but it will seem that most of the game publishers are rushing the products to meet the deadline, and deadlines and creative content usually dont mix very well. (HULK, Matrix, etc)
I believe Time is the reason why most ppl who have been playing games for a long time doesnt play the new ones.
You either need to be a college boy to play 8 straight hours of the new FPS or RTS on your couch, call for a pizza and not worry about anything the next day (night).
I can hardly think of a day that I have 2 or 3 hours free to play any game (and I still purchase them but hardly play them).
I remember playing the original Wing Commander for 6 straight hours without remembering to eat or sleep.
How many games are on my playing stack now that I havent even able to load up?. Close to 10.
Of course money is an issue, but I remember purchasing Atari Cartridges with my savings money, and now all my PC/PS2 games come from the remaining money after paying the bills.