I never thought back then that chat would slowly morph into a means to take care of my clients at the office, and even have live chat software as a plugin to our website.

Nothing beats instant response. For me that holds especially true when a client has a question and the phone lines are busy. Enabling the client to click on a button that says “Live Chat” or “Online Now” and getting an instant response to one’s inquiry is a great plus for any company.

Blogs, Photos, Videos, Podcasts, Polls, Surveys, News, Forums and Groups remain the core of Thoughts.com’s offerings, and the best thing is it is still 100% free. Unlike other all-in-one social networking sites, Thoughts focuses on user interaction through blogs and forums and file sharing, rather than opportunities for advertising and profit. As a rule, money-making activities such as affiliate marketing and the promotion of external blogs and sites are not allowed.

In fact, Thoughts even supports and recommends a few charities for its users to support, such as Heal the Ocean, the National Alliance to End Homelessness and Amnesty International.

But if you think Thoughts is starting to sound like a fuddy-duddy dull site, think again. Once you’ve signed up you can jazz up your pages as often as you want with the various themes and widgets available through a simple click through interface.

Thoughts has the lowest allowable member age that I know of. Minimum age that you need to be to become a member is fourteen. At first I thought that was rather young, but on the other hand, since Thoughts is ad- and promotion-free there’s less likelihood of a teener running through suggestive advertisements and promotions.

But today SmartBro tech support visited us and raised our antenna by another 5 feet. The difference is remarkable.

The above speed test was taken from my laptop while I was connected to the wireless, with two other computers sharing the connection.

The other pleasant thing I learned today is that SmartBro does allow you to install a router on your home network, as long as you do not use it to put up an internet cafe. They have other packages for small businesses.

So now I’m enjoying an even faster, and definitely more stable internet connection. Still one more reason to banish the blues.

(And all the more reason to do without a shoulder pain pump.)

As I read the TR list I realized that in the Philippine context, Jason Hiner’s list was in the wrong order. This is the list as it appears on the article on Tech Republic.

5. You get a lot of fingers pointed at you
4. People assume you’re an expert in all things tech
3. You have to continually re-train, on your own dime
2. The hours are long and irregular
1. The job market is tumultuous and in transition

Having been in the I.T. business since 1995 (and a professed computer addict 10 years prior to that) I would say that list is upside down, and so may I offer my explanations to the same list, reordered for the Philippine I.T. setting.

5. The job market is tumultuous and in transition – Yes there are a lot of I.T. jobs out there, but quite a few of them are now going into the contractual basis which means a lot of money for the contractor but not for the programmer/developer/technician. There is also the I.T. brain drain out to Singapore, which has claimed a number of our better developers and technical support engineers.

4. The hours are long and irregular - I.T. has always been synonymous with long working hours, this is not something new, however it is always bewailed and belabored, like the habit of beating a dead horse.

3. You have to continually re-train, on your own dime – This may be true in a lot of offices, but not where I work. The company I work for pays for our training and certification exams and gives us an increase in pay (increase, not bonus) when we pass. Workers in other companies are not as fortunate.

2. People assume you’re an expert in all things tech – This is probably the most misunderstood aspect of I.T.  totally incomprehensible to non-I.T. beings. Everyone assumes that just because I can make a website I can also fix their motherboards and its popped ic’s and their hard disks that have crashed without any backups, and even fix their kitchen sinks as well.  I can’t. They think a programmer knows the same thing as a technical support engineer and are interchangeable. They’re not. There are times when I really feel like wearing one of the classic ThinkGeek shirts that say “No, I will not fix your computer.” (I can, actually, but I don’t wanna.)

1. You get a lot of fingers pointed at you – Yeah, but when something goes wrong with the machine all fingers are pointed at the I.T. guy. Case in point: ISP decides to change the IP address assigned to a company’s server “just for the heck of it” without telling anyone. As a result, no mail comes in or goes out. We come in and reconfigure the firewall to accommodate the new IP address, and the general manager (who in our case 9 out of 10 is an expat) is screaming expletives at us when he actually should have been screaming at the ISP. He doesn’t know or care about the difference. Tough, but hey, we get a lot of that, and it has made us stronger.

Add-ons enhance the power of Firefox and provides you with tools that allow you to browse the internet, save important bits of data and save you time while you do what you do on the ‘net. The following is a list of my favorite Firefox Add-ons (in random order) and why they continuously make me say “wow, there can’t be a faster way of doing that”.

1. Colorful Tabs – This is an indispensable plugin for me as it makes tab identification easier, adding a different color to each tab. It looks cute on multiple tabs too.

2. Password Exporter – essential if you maintain two (or more) computers and would like your saved passwords present on all of them.

3. Split browser – pretty nifty for keeping everything in sight without having to switch tabs or open another instance of Firefox. It can be a little confusing to use at first, but once you get the hang of it it’s almost indispensable.

4. Abduction! – screenshots have never been made easier. Extremely useful for making documentation that require snaps of entire web pages or a selection thereof. I used to hit PrtSc or Alt-PrtSc and then load up the clipboard into Photoshop or even MS Paint, but Abduction lets me bypass the photo editing and allows me to save either entire web pages or snippets directly into a file.

5. Entrecard Toolbar – If you are an avid Entrecarder you definitely will need this. Simplifies card dropping, switching from one linked account to another, enables you to purchase card advertising on the site you are currently on.

Those are my top 5 favorites. I have used quite a few more since I started using Firefox but some of them haven’t quite caught up with version 3.0.1. When they do, they will find their way back to my add-on’s list.

I’m sure there are a few Firefox add-ons for you and the way you browse the Interwebs. Head on over to the Firefox Add-ons page and see how it can make browsing with Firefox a breeze.