TwitterDeck, Twitterfon and Facebook Tweeting

So by now you’ll know that I use Twitter. It’s part of this blog (see the left hand column) and fast becoming the best way to communicate bullet points and sound bites of information by mobile phone and computer.

It is primarily a web based micro-blog texting system, but as with a lot of things today, you don’t even have to go near the actual Twitter web pages to participate (once you have your membership – which is free).

If you want help on Twittering, then sign up and follow me  at LucasBlack, or follow one of the Twitter Gurus I have bumped into: DaivRawks.

Twitter as seen on its web page

It is the great leveller of people. There is no special treatment (tweetment?) between users. I rub tweet-shoulders with people all over the World in all sorts of lines of work. Recently I have been tweeting with Robert Llewellyn (Scrap Heap Challenge,  Red Dwarf – Kryten etc) – and the beauty of Twitter is that he is on the same level as me – We have the same 140 characters to play with, where age, social standing, profession etc just don’t come into play.

I like this levelling idea, as Robert Llewellyn is quite simply a great guy regardless of what he does, and I think “celebrity stalkers” tend to ruin things for people who just want to chat as equals and not simper to these well known people. I’m sure these public figures feel the same way sometimes – Why can’t people just chat without going all gushy and doe eyed at what they do? Thank goodness for Twitter then – It’s all very calming.

On to the various choices of applications you can use to operate within Twitter. There are flipping hundreds of choices, but the ones I use are generally the ones that are heartily recommended by other users. I have tried many types now, and the following ones are the applications that I have found most user friendly and satisfying to use. All are free, although you can make donations.

For a quick simple Tweet system on my PC I sometimes use “Twitterfox” for the Firefox web browser. It appears as a small pop up window in the bottom right of my screen (much like a messenger chat window). Very simple and easy to use for general tweet following.

The trouble is that you can end up with a cacophony of tweet messages that you are trying to keep up with. By far the best computer application is TweetDeck, as this sorts Tweets out into various categories and is very “tuneable” for each users preferences. When following tweets you will see the application that people have used to post messages – and TweetDeck is one of the most popular systems I have seen being used – and for a good reason.

TwitterDeck as I use it

Now a lot of people use Facebook and don’t want the fuss of having separate applications all over the place -but worry not, as Facebook has a Twitter application on it. I don’t really use it, but it’s a useful little tool to have at hand.

Facebook Twitters

The final application I use is “Twitterfon” – an application for the iPhone. There are lots of iPhone Twitter applications, and I have tried many of them. Twitterfon is the one application for tweeting that I just keep returning to as it is simple, clear and very, very functional.  For me, the top two applications are Twitterfon and TweetDeck – they do everything I need from them (at the moment). I am sure many more applications will come about, but for now I am pretty happy in the Twitter world.

Twitterfon on the iPhone

Colour me blogged

My blog has slowly turned into something other than what it was when it started. Does this mean I am finding my blog feet, or simply moving away from what it was intended to be in the first place?

A bit of both is the answer. Back when it was just close friends and family it was a small focused thing – although not that well polished. Time has moved on and although some may say it still isn’t that well polished, I think it has grown (No one has said that yet – but hey, I’m given you the benefit of the doubt!).

The number of hits has grown beyond anything I would have expected for what is really the scribbles of an unknown guy. Originally intended as a journal about things affecting me and the family for my son to look back on when he is older, it has expanded into my views on situations and events – things I like and dislike – rants and raves. This still hits the originally intention on the head though, because the blog is still very much me – and I want him to look back and see what I was like.

The thing that has changed is that I have either started writing in a way that total strangers find readable and entertaining – OR the things I write about are meeting with a relevance that people are looking for….. or once again, a mixture of both.

This has caused me to think about the way I write though. I enjoy it, and as others are enjoying it I want to try and give that little bit extra – to tailor it to a broader reader range but still keep it real and “Me”.

Yes – I’m really enjoying this blogging thing now – and all that goes with it. I’m meeting people I would never have met, trying things I would never have tried – and I want to share that….I want to pay it forward!

Web media is a continually growing thing. Twitter for instance is one of the newer tools of social micro bloggery – a simple 140 character blog entry that is followed directly by your Twitter friends. The number of people I am following – and those that follow me – is increasing. I’m not one of these people that add loads of names just so I look popular – not in a long shot – I add people who genuinely interest me, or who I think I would be happy to talk to in real physical life (remember that?).

Due to the 140 character limit Twitter does seem to miss the abuse and arguments that you get on a lot of forums. I think it is due to the intellect needed to get your comment across in so few words – and also the fact that tweets (the actual mini-blog-tect-message things you type on Twitter) are so fast moving conversationally that by the time you want to argue with someone the whole conversation has been left behind already! This is a good thing!

I feel lucky to have joined up with the people I follow, and who follow me. Lots of knowledge, views and friendship in sound bites and bullet points – just right for an active mind!

You can tweet me: @Lucas_Black (http://twitter.com/Lucas_Black)

Mr Tweet & Minesweeper – The Movie

Every now and then something on YouTube turns out to be genuinely funny – and not just some junk that some dope has mashed up with a low resolution camera phone.

Minesweeper – The Movie is one of those clips.

It was an odd stumbling that lead me to find the clip – one of those link to a link to a link to a link….

It started when Twitters directory went down, which left me unable to search for people to follow. This lead to me looking on Google for a secondary Twitter based directory.

Google pointed me to MrTweet – a Twitter feed that looks at your own Twitter feed and suggests other feed that you might be interested in (among other things – but this isn’t about the great MrTweet, so I won’t go into that in this blog entry).

The MrTweet information gave me a whole list of names based on people I follow and the people who are followed by the people I follow (and maybe the people who are followed by the people that are followed by the people I follow… and maybe even……..ad lib and fade). MrTweet was a good find though – so take a look.

One of the names it suggested was “hexadus” (apparently currently making millions in the philosophy industry).

I started to follow hexadus and soon saw a re-posted post (re-tweeted or just rt) that one of his followers had posted. This other Tweeter was “Jimbo724” and the original tweet he had posted that hexadus had then re-tweeted was a spoof based on the “wrong side of the tracks boy who the posh girl falls for” type movies… it was about CHESS.

So…. I take a look at the chess YouTube clip that hexodus had re-tweeted from Jimbo724’s tweet, and after watching it (and physically laughing out loud) I saw a “related video” listed in the YouTube menu…. which was Minesweeper – The Movie – and there we are.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that at not one point in this blog post did I say this was going to be interesting, so I apologise for nothing!

The Government is following me. They told me.

I use Twitter a bit to keep blogs and social sites up to date with my latest  “share news”. I also use my Twitter to follow bullet point updates on other people or events (such as John Cleese, Stephen Fry).

Today I opted to follow “Downing Street” – the official Tweet for No.10 Downing Street. It is a constant(ish) update and forum for what is going on with the PM (Out eating pies, wrecking economy, faffing around blindly etc).

When you start to follow someone they get notified, which can also give them an option to then follow you.

After selecting to follow “DowningStreet” (as the name appears on Twitter) I received this email:

So there you go… it isn’t paranoia if they really are following me…..

Anyway….. if you want to know why you should use Twitter, then check out THIS LINK. A great little blog entry that makes a lot of sense. Go on…. what are you waiting for?

Twitter, Tweet, iPhones and the interconnectedness of things

Twitter- this is an application that can be used on mobile phones, laptops, desktops, pretty much anything that can somehow connect, or at least send messages (eg: SMS) to the web.

It is a micro-blog, if you like. A 140 character maximum write up. It can be likened in a way to the status on Facebook or such like, but much more to it – or less, depending on what you use it for.

Where as a Blog is the type of beast that you would update now and then, once something interesting or noteworthy has occurred, a tweet is more of an “instant report” of what you are doing, feeling, wanting at that moment in time. Probably better to call it an “instance report” as it generally refers to the present thing you are doing.

To get a better idea, take a look at the left hand blog column and see my Twitter readouts. Mini bits of me.

As you can see from this posts picture, I can follow other peoples twitterings – or Tweets as they are actually called. People can also chose to follow mine – but it takes all sorts!

I discovered it mainly through Stephen Fry via his website and podgrams. I also heard it mentioned in passing by the scholarly Jon Kane… So twice mentioned it deserved investigation!

I’m quite impressed by the way it works, and how totally integrated it can be. That is part of the purpose of this blog entry – to see if/and or how twitterfeed.com deals with taking information from this very blog and turns it into a 140 character tweet..which in turn will feed Twitter and update my Facebook status…and in a round about fashion, turn up back at this blog in left hand column!

In the same vain of this thread I actually selected to follow Stephen Fry’s tweets, as I think the chap is fantastic. True, he is known as a wit and comic, but I like him so much more for his normality and angst that he demonstrates in his podgrams. Out of all the people that I have ever wished to chat with over a drink, he is one of the few that are within a time zone where that would be possible… That is to say, the others are mostly long gone historical figures.

This brings me to a warming surprise as I lay staring at the ceiling last night, listening to his latest podgram. I had sent a tweet to him, but as he is a busy man with a lot of fans, I didn’t expect a reply. After listening to his talk about his new and improved web site, along with his views on open source software etc, I checked my Twitted reader to find that he had selected to follow my tweets! Now I am sure he has a lot of tweet feeds that he follows, but still, it made me smile. At the same time I was listening to him on my iPhone, he was clicking on my tweet feed. Well, I thought it was a strange yet amusing thing!

If you drop in here Stephen (if I may be as bold to use your first name), then I hope you find it to your liking – but more so, I hope you find on your current trip, that “The last chance to see…” wasn’t quite the last chance, and things have improved. I truly hope that is the case.

Stephen Fry and his various web projects, can be found at his web space http://stephenfry.com.