Category Twitter

Hey, I use Twitter, you use Twitter right? Want to follow us on the Career Express and beyond on Twitter? me thinks you’ve come to the right place! Stay tuned for impromptu tweetups!

That’s right! You can come party with us as we begin our tour of Education and America!

Our first stop will be Atlanta!  So I encourage to come join us in whichever capacity you can!   Also feel free to follow the happenings on Twitter if you’d like! @cxi and @mslearning

Friday, May 1st: Atlanta, GA

• United States Army School of Information Technology, in Fort Gordon, GA, 8:30am – 11:00am
• Ask the Experts at New Horizons Atlanta 3:00pm – 6:00pm
• Book signing with Eric Griffin, author of the Microsoft Press book, “Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition Step by Step” at Barnes & Noble (Buckhead store), 7:00pm – 8:00pm

I look forward to seeing and meeting you guys!

This is a question I get asked often, and I always mean to write a post about it.. so here goes!

Which tools do you use?

That is an excellent question! I use the following tools: TweetDeck on my Mac and my PC (Primarily PC due to that being my primary machine), Tweetie on my iPhone, and the Web interface on my Windows Mobile Treo (Because WM5 does not have any good ceApps) Note: I am trying out Seesmic Desktop at the moment in Beta, though primarily using it for Searches due to the color scheme being almost unbearable for me!

Why do you use those tools?

Let me put it simply by saying: These are the best tools available for Twitter on a regular basis.   I agree there are a lot of other tools out there, but more tools does not mean better!  As an example, Tweetie is a far better client than TwitterFon which is by far the 2nd best client for the iPhone (And it’s free!) If you’re using Twinkle or Twitterific today, Upgrade to TwitterFon for free or Tweetie for the nominal fee, it will change your twitter experience on the whole!

How do you use those tools?

TweetDeck:

• I have a column called “Technology” where friends and others in the Tech field (Direct Technical, Marketing, Analysts, Bloggers, YouTube, Blogosphere, Storage, Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Etc) are all stored.  Basically if you’re in my “Technology” column, among all of the chatter on twitter, I guarantee I’ll read it when I’m in front of this computer :)
• I also have a column called “Chicago” where friends, folks, people I meet, etc from Chicago who are on twitter are ‘stored’.  And yes, some people are in both Technology *AND!* Chicago, which works out well :)
• On a similar note, I do have a column called NetApp, this is where I store NetApp employees, and only NetApp employees – It’s a smaller list with fewer updates, and thus I’m less likely to miss those as well
• One additional column is a “Search” column, searching for “netapp OR netapps OR ntap” whereby when there’s chatter about our company, a typo of our company or our stock, I can see it!  I’ve used this numerous times to help folks who ran into issues with our systems or equally for those inquiring about information.  I like to help, so this is a great vehicle for that helping!

Tweetie:

• Honestly, I use Tweetie almost the same way I use TweetDeck, except without the groups – so when I’m on the go, it is primarily to read @ responses and DM’s, and random chatter in the ‘all friends’ column, because I lack the grouping capabilities of TweetDeck!

Web:

• Web is truly the only way I can work on my WM5 Treo, so I’ll launch it if I need to/want to share something and my iPhone is dead or has no signal!  This is especially useful when we’re out as a family and we’re tweeting to eachother in a museum or something :)

Seesmic Desktop:

• Seesmic Desktop is interesting, it provides a number of features (more or less, the exact same features of TweetDeck) with the exception that Seesmic supports multiple accounts, and can expand beyond 10 columns.   It’s lack of color changing support makes it nearly unbearable for me, because as you can tell from this blog, I read text against a black background, and when it’ falls against a light background, I have a hard time reading it.  But I’m giving it some rigorous testing in its course! (Though, for what it’s worth… Seesmic is a memory hog, akin to the old TweetDeck Pre v0.25days) Oh and it just crashed on me when I noticed it took out my API limit for the hour ;)

So, hopefully this helps explain and helps you use these tools a bit yourself!  I’ll break it down a bit more over time, but this is just a high-level touch of how I do some of these things (and effectively, and enjoyably :))

Wow! New Version of TweetDeck! Lots of new Features! Lots to get used to, and some things to get annoyed by!

Firstly.. there is a new Icon! And to tell you the truth, I keep losing it in my application list! doh!  But once I get past that (Yes I keep trying to get past it) I am fine!

Many people are really intrigued by the “Facebook” integration, though that has been there since v0.22b, so I’m not really going to talk about it too much here! – Just to say you’ll end up seeing this:   which will show your friends status on Facebook below it! – You are limited to a single Facebook account (FYI :)) Oh, and part of that is the functionality to post to Twitter, Facebook or both!   Again, not a big deal to me – especially as I use the Facebook plugin app to auto-pull my tweets and update my status (To the semi-annoyance of my Facebook friends, but I use Twitter more formally anyway, so people need to get over that :))

On to Options! (re: Settings)

Look at some of these new settings!.. The big ones is really.. “Show preview information for short URLs” which looks something like this:

So, that is pretty cool, and yes I have that enabled so I can see what kind of content it will be! When you do click on the URL it will still launch via the ‘short’ URL meaning if it’s an Adjix, Bit.ly or other type of ‘tracking’ link, it’ll still get the tracking on it

Oh, and last but not least.. If you’ve ever heard me complain about the Resource Usage of TweetDeck, and how it will tend to eat up >1gb of ram on my system.  Well, it seems the memory leak is fixed (for the moment.. I’ll leave it on over night and see how much I rack up) but it’s been going pretty good to stay in the ~200mb range!

So, good luck out there on your upgrades – Upgrade now! I’ll continue to monitor my resources and more, and if I find out anything new that I’d really like to complain about.. I will :)

Don’t miss the bus! You have to enter by 9:00 am Pacific time on April 6th!

Get on the Bus is an 11-day learning odyssey across the United States aboard the Career Express bus. The Career Express will travel from Tampa to Los Angeles, ending at Tech·Ed 2009!

What exactly is this Bus?   It’s a contest of sorts, and yet it’s also an adventure all rolled up into one!    The Bus will be taking a tour of various locations, stopping to meet with individuals, organizations, user groups, authors and various meet-ups along the way before ending at TechEd 2009 (North America)

Get on the Bus winners join the Career Express in their city and accompany the Microsoft Learning crew as we stop to visit with the Microsoft Learning community along the way. We will blog, Twitter, video blog, and have a great time!

How to enter the contest

Step 1: Play the “Are You Certifiable?” online game and get a screen name. You’ll include this screen name in your entry. After you submit your entry, you can keep playing to try to get the highest score possible. You can play as many times as you’d like before 9 a.m. Pacific Time on April 6.

Play the online game: Are You Certifiable?

Step 2: Get creative and write an essay that strongly justifies why you should be selected to compete in Get on the Bus. Have a camera? In addition to your essay, you can submit a video to tell your story.

Step 3: Complete the entry form

Be sure to include your “Are You Certifiable?” screen name and the URL where we can review your essay (and video, if you have one). Remember, creativity counts! The deadline for entering is 9 a.m. Pacific Time, April 6, 2009.

Step 4: Get ready to pack your bags because you might Get On The Bus!

Enter today!

Learn more about Get on the Bus: Read the contest official rules

Here are the links you need to know in order to get everything you need from this!

In each Challenge, a panel of judges will review all eligible entries received and select up to five (5) finalists—based upon the following criteria:

35% Technical and certification knowledge as attested to by your “Are You Certifiable?” high score;

65% Passion and creativity as demonstrated in your essay

The judges, in their sole discretion, may award each entrant who submits an optional video up to ten (10) additional bonus points toward his or her overall score.

The decisions of these judges are final and binding. If we do not receive a sufficient number of entries meeting the entry requirements, we may, at our discretion, select fewer than five (5) finalists in each Challenge. In the event of a tie between any eligible entries, we will have an additional judge review each entrant’s Round 1 video, and break the tie based on the judging criteria set forth above.

Get On The Bus learning offer

THE MICROSOFT “GET ON THE BUS” CONTEST OFFICIAL RULES

How to Get on the Bus!

Get on the Bus!

Get on the Bus – YOU really can win!