The CWUG Joins Twitter!

Hey everyone out there in the Chicago Windows Users Group world, Let’s welcome @CWUG to the world of Twitter!

What does this mean for those of us from the CWUG, as well as those of us on Twitter?

NOW! Every link we go to look for from the Facebook, or someone is looking for information about the Meetings, other Mini-Meetings, Nightly Conferences, etc! This will be a repository of that information so you don’t have to search in a million places in order to find it!

So, add @CWUG to your Twitter account and lets make CWUG work for you!

Thanks! @CXI

This is definitely the spirit of giving!

For those of you who saw this Tweet that I tweeted from @CXI, our good friend @chrispirillo has a little Contest going on for the holidays, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Chris Pirillo is participating in Receiving the Gift of Giving, under the Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish effort.

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So, I encourage you who are interested in winning or just helping out in this spirit of giving, to check out Chris Pirillos Receiving the Gift of Giving post!

Thanks everyone and have a happy Holidays! :)

The Spirit of Giving Vista Giveaway award winner!

Hey everyone who participated in this contest, I want to thank you and I appreciate your interest in getting some of the many things I have so you can use any benefit from them!

After tallying the responses when I closed the contest this Friday, and running it through my random ‘winner’ picker, we have a winner! Brian J. Greenberg is indeed our official winner!

Brian’s Blog found here will be the bearer of this, and special thanks to his tweet on twitter from @bjgreenberg.

So, the next contest will be announced on Monday, either for a Zune, a copy of Vista (32bit) or who knows… but that is my plan for kicking it off on Monday (hopefully, if life doesn’t happen!;))

Thanks, and the determination of how long to keep the contest open is derived based upon the number of entries divided by the number of hits/interest, so I look forward to the next one!

Thanks everyone!

Christopher – @cxi

Upgrading Tweetdeck, and Tweetdeck features

If you’re one of those folks who likes to bleed themselves, or just stay on the bleeding edge.  You ought to check out TweetDeck v0.20.6b But this more than just this specific update, it is about TweetDeck in general, a guide of its use and also where to pull regular Releases as well as Beta Interim Updates.

For the unfamiliar, TweetDeck is a GUI Interface to manage your Twitter “tweets”.

There are a number of benefits that the client provides over using the web to access Twitter.

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This little icon brings up your Tweet window, to allow you to tweet messages.

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This little drop down under “Shorten” allows you to choose your favorite web shortener in order to shrink your URL’s.   If you happen to tweet a lot of content in your 140 characters, you may wan to choose something smaller, such as “zi.ma” or “is.gd” as opposed to “tinyurl” which tends to eat up a majority of your characters!

 

 

 

 

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Also this little gem lets you post/upload a picture to TwitPic and have it tweet it for you right there!

This next little item image helps you manage your conversations as you see them on Twitter!

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What you can do then is click on the “+” on a user and add them to one of your groups!

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In all, it’s really that simple to manage out your users, groups and beyond!

Though if it starts to get unbearable in your groups, you can filter with

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And that  covers the bulk of it! Enough to get you started and rolling with TweetDeck, Twitter and managing your users and self so you can have a reasonable experience as you grow!

Feel free to follow me if you’re not already on twitter @CXI

Terror in Mumbai – Twitter and the Media

This is a terror event like no other, one which has been prolonged by the use of technology, adhoc and otherwise.    A call out from the users of the service Twitter requested on #mumbai that the Live Media Coverage being broadcast by news networks such as NDTV and CNN-IBN may have made the situation ‘worse’ than ‘better’ by not only letting those “on the street” know what is going on, but also informing those on the inside in the form of Terrorists.

So this situation almost on the flipside.   The Broadcast media apparently making the situation worse (Not to be outdone by a major network broadcasting on-air the room number of a hostage) and the AdHoc (Twittersphere) using this opportunity to spread information that is beneficial to all of those involved.

Such notable ones as:

  • The number of tweets about people heading to hospitals to donate blood is astonishing!
  • @aadisht: #mumbai Holy Family Hospital has enough blood; please donate elsewhere if you do.
  • rockzapper: #mumbai NDTV still showing commando movements. Doesn’t it get it? This can cause a grim situation for police.
  • @blogdiva: more numbers to call re Mumbai crisis : US helpline 888-407-4747 Brazilian help line 9820686143 (C) CNN IBN FA 1-613-996-8885
  • blogdiva: if you are in Mumbai and want to donate blood, call 922 222 1947 and tell them you want to donate. They’ll get back to you when someone
  • CXI Our hearts go out to those suffering in Mumbai, as well as my friends and associations out there being personally impacted.

Never before in history have people had access to so much information, so real time, and so fast and available.  Some may feel that Twitter may be a hindrance to situations going on, however the spread of information by good people wanting to help has never been so prevalent as their ability to reach out and help, especially when times called for it most.

This is hard on everyone, and no one feels it so much as those in Mumbai and with friends and family who live there.  Our hearts are out to you, and may this catastrophe be resolved with no more innocent deaths or bloodshed.

Tomorrow won’t be known as Thanksgiving, but Thanksliving for those who can survive this horrific time and be stronger for it, in light of desperate and terrible situations.

Be safe, and be well.