[ALUG] Anybody else ever tried fast-user-switching as context-switching?

[Ruth Bygrave]

On both Mac and Windows, Fast User Switching is implemented and used  
as 'Mum Dad and all the kiddies can now get to their stuff quickly'.  
Am fairly sure that this is a 'Unix-y thing', though cannot remember  
if I used to play with it in Linux in my abortive crash-and-burn  
attempt to switch to Linux in 1999.

I started out on the Mac trying to use this as context-switching  
(it's entirely my machine, I can use it in whatever demented geeky  
way I like). I found that the 2-3 seconds it took to switch between  
my main user acct and my creative writing acct effectively put me off  
using it.

The other day, when setting up a blog for my 'Dumb Script Kiddy tries  
to grow up hobbyist-programmer' stuff, I suddenly realised that the  
reason it took me 2 or 3 seconds to switch to my creative writing  
acct was probably because Skype was in the startup items and Skype is  
a resource hog. Because context-switching between my main user acct  
and my blog acct (with nothing but mail and news loaded) fairly *flew!*

This actually started me thinking of going back to the idea with  
minimal programs loaded. I asked Adrian if he's ever thought of using  
FUS as context-switching. "No," he said. He has different contexts:  
work, social, climbing, &c, but the immediacy of having e-mail  
immediately available pulling everything together and the fact that  
you don't see the e-mail coming in from the other acct means that  
trying to organise it the way I was thinking of, wouldn't work.

Have been trying it as 'geek fun', but actually fear Adrian may be  
right, because the 'oops, in wrong context, e-mail this to the other  
acct' thing is all too easy to achieve.

Would you advise me to keep trying it as a playful geeky thing or get  
in the habit of having everything on my main acct because of this  
real-world 'notification' issue that Adrian pointed out?

Regards, Ruth