Technical Tidbits

Just read an InformationWeek article by that name that is just too good not to share!

I’m becoming a social networking maniac and use twitter all the time! This article taught me a few things I didn’t know about twitter tools!

In case you don’t want to click off my wonderful blog and visit their page, here’s the low down.

The first tool they reference is TweetDeck, which I already told you about when I complained about their incompatibility with Shortkeys and WS_FTP software in a recent blog post.

TweetDeck allows you to post tweets and read all your tweets right from your desktop! It also allows you to look up a profile and follow, along with automatically updating your tweets on a regular basis so you get real time tweets.

The next tool they discuss is twhirl and it’s another software like TweetDeck.  Built also on Adobe Air platform, this one allows you to connect to multiple accounts including: twitter, friendfeed, Laconica, and seesmic.

The next two tools are related to Firefox and twittering (or is that tweeting?). Twitbin and TwitterFox. I personally had issues with Twitbin and never tried TwitterFox. But since I’m using TweetDeck, I really don’t see a purpose for using my Firefox with twitter any longer. But these may work for you!

The next tool they mention is Twitter for Facebook App. Now I jumped on that one! It’s just so hard to keep everything updated! This does make it so much easier.

Twittelator is a mobile type twitter application for ipod touch and iphone. There’s a regular version and pro version. The pro version is supposed to be available through the itunes store.

Now, as if all these are not enough, if you got a Blackberry, try to stay calm! Twitterberry lets you send and receive tweets off your Blackberry!

The next two tools allow you to automate twitter with twitterfeed and tweetlater. I use Tweetlater to automate my follows. When someone follows me, it sends them a private message inviting them to subscribe to our newsletters. (Good marketing, isn’t it?)  I’m not sure what twitterfeed does exactly, but you can rest assured I’m checking it out!

Friendfeed is further automation and allows you to connect multiple social networking feeds. I just set mine up but I’m still not comfortable with what it’s supposed to do. Anyone who uses it care to enlighten me?

Next up in their list is TwitPic. With TwitPic you can post images to twitter. (I definitely need a new cell phone!)

According to the InformationWeek article:

You can post from the TwitPic Web site, but most of the time you’ll use a Twitter client on a cameraphone, such as TweetDeck, Twhirl, Twittelator or TwitterBerry…

The last tool listed in the Information Week article is FriendorFollow. This allows you to find out who you’re following but they are not following you. Who’s following you that you’re not following, and people you’re following and are following you back.

The only time I usually get rid of a follow is if they are promoting so much that there’s no real conversation going on. Or of course, if someone offends me which only happened once. I don’t follow him any more.

Now, as if all this fun stuff isn’t enough, there’s a section in the article called, Twitter Tools to lower your self esteem. Qwitter and Twitterholic.  Qwitter, once set up, will send you an e-mail with the twitter post that caused the person to unfollow you. Too bad the guy that offended me didn’t have that!! Or did he?

I don’t understand why twitterholic was filed under “lowering your self esteem”. I would think it’s a good thing that I’m not in the top 100 twitterers? How does anyone get any work done?

So there you have those. I’ve got another post I’m reading now that has 27 cool tools and resources for twitter addicts! What? You want the link? Okay, from one addict to another, here it is: http://speckyboy.com/2008/11/12/27-cool-tools-and-resources-for-the-twitter-addict/

See you at the next 12-step meeting of Twitterholics Anonymous!

BTW*, to view the full InformationWorld article, click here!

*BTW=By the way for those who are newbie (new users) to this kind of talk! Just teaching folks! It’s what I do! Never assume that everyone knows what you’re talking about!  Oh crackers! I guess I need to explain twitter?  Next post! Sorry about that!

written by Admin \\ tags: blog, blogging, blogs, friendfeed, friendorfollow, Qwitter, tools, tweetbin, tweetdeck, twhirl, twitpic, twittelator, twitter, twitter tools, twitterberry, twitterfox, twitterholic

A brief note: Russell Brunson’s going to personally train you (and me!) to make money online, and he wants everyone to make a collective $100 Million Dollars! Best part? Proceeds from the contest go to World Teacher Aid! I joined and donated! You should join me! Click Here To Get The Details! (Hey, what have you got to lose? It costs nothing! Contributing is purely voluntary!)

written by Admin \\ tags: challenge, contest, Make money online, World Teacher Aid

In planning the new website, I decided there were certain things we needed. One of those was a knowledgebase management system. I wanted users to be able to search for answers to their questions in a much more user friendly manner than Microsoft offers. So, I went on a search.

I tried many systems. Lost some money purchasing systems that never kept their promises. But then, I came across WebWork KB Manager developed by Dean Greasley in the UK. His site gave me a very awesome offer. Try before you buy for 14 days!

Most of the systems I tried failed to install properly so I figured that would be my first test. And low and behold! It installed on first try as easily as it said it would! After playing around with the script for a bit to see how it worked, I bought it within a few hours of trying the trial.

Then with Dean’s helpful assistance, I customized it to fit our site.  If you’d like to see how it looks and works, feel free to check it out here: http://mice.org/kb/

I’m the first to rant and complain when software vendors screw things up and companies treat us poorly, but this is something I need to rave about.

First of all, the customer service that Dean provides is EXEMPLARY! He’s friendly, helpful, and answers the support forum frequently despite the difference in our hours.

He explains things in a clear, concise manner that anyone can understand. Although I’m learning PHP the hard way - by having to use it - I was able to easily manipulate the script to customize it with little knowledge and under the careful tutelage of Dean.  Who’s patience with students matches my own!

Every company should provide such prompt friendly service as Dean and WebWork does! He is a model of how companies should do customer service! And his script is outstanding! I’m anxiously awaiting version 3!

Kudo’s to Dean, his company WebWork, and his KBManager Script.  When others have failed me in delivering on their promises, the script came through. Where others failed me in their customer service, Dean met and exceeded my expectations.

If you are in need of a knowledgebase script, check out his site: http://www.webbwork.co.uk/products.html

And this is an UNPAID endorsement and we are not affiliates!

Dean Greasley and KBManager rocks!

Thanks Dean!

written by Admin \\ tags: Dean Greasley, kb management, KB Manager, kb script, KBManager, knowledge base, knowledge base management, knowledgebase, knowledgebase script, Webwork

As we move closer to our 10th Anniversary celebration and the relaunch of our website, we’ve encountered obstacle upon obstacle. Along the way however, there are some people, software, and services that we’ve also encountered that deserve recognition.

If you’ve seen our main website then you are familiar with the pure CSS dropdown menus.

Our first obstacle happened when I went to my daughter’s house for a visit and pulled up the website to show her what we’ve been doing. I was horrified! She was using IE 6 and the menu’s were all justified left in a column! I thought I’d checked that????

I didn’t have time to track down the problem and fix it. So, I went back to Steve Gibson’s site (GRC.com) to see if I could find what I did wrong. While there I re-read the information on the menu and the credits to others who’ve helped contribute to the GRC menu. For some reason, I got stuck on the Stu Nicholls CSSplay website link so I clicked it!

Imagine my delight when I saw a link at the very top of his page that offered assistance!

Stu did an OUTSTANDING job on fixing our menu, did so within less than 24-hours, and at a reasonable cost!

Considering the time difference (Stu is in the UK) I could not have asked for a more helpful, knowledgeable person! Once we finally get this Anniversary celebration and relaunch up and running, Stu will be doing some more work on our site to remove the mouse-over Javascripts and replace them with pure CSS.

If you need any help with pure CSS coding, I highly recommend Stu Nicholls!

I cannot say enough kind things about him. He’s eager to help, priced well within range of someone with his coding knowledge, efficient, friendly, approachable, and just an all round great guy!

I am extremely grateful for his work on our menus! They now look good in every version of IE from 4 to 7 and still look great in Firefox!

Thank you again STU!

And if you haven’t seen our drop-down menus on the main site, you can check them out here: mice.org

And if you need a FANTASTIC CSS coder, please contact Stu Nicholls at CSSPlay and tell him MICE sent you!

written by Admin \\ tags: css, css drop-down menu, css dropdown, css dropdown menu, css play, cssplay, gibson research, grc.com, stu nicholls

This event is too big to put on a blog post so I made a special page for it!

Are you in the Chicagoland area?

Are you close to either Hoffman Estates, Naperville, or Orland Park?

Would you get to either one of those suburbs if you knew your old, sluggish PC could be good as new?

Would you drag yourself there to get all the newest patches and service packs installed by professionals?

If so, then don’t miss this FREE PC Tune-up event!

SEE THE DETAILS AND DOWNLOAD YOUR PRINTABLE COUPON HERE!

HURRY! Offer ends June 15th!

P.S. MICE makes no money on this offer! We are sharing it with you because it’s an AWESOME deal and TigerDirect is one of our affiliates as well as where we get all our PC parts and equipment from!

written by Admin \\ tags: adware, chicago, free, free pc tune-up, free tuneup, hoffman estates, Illinois, naperville, orland park, patches, pc tune-up, pc tuneup, service packs, speed up your PC, spyware, tiger, tiger direct, tigerdirect