JC - Technology and Stuff

I have got a little annoyed recently by all the automatic Direct Messages (DMs) I am getting when I add followers to Twitter that promise me untold wealth and happiness. Actually, it’s not so much the untold wealth and happiness, it’s more like the ‘add 16,000 followers in 90 days’. Sending me to some URL that promises me 1,000s of unknown people to add to my Twitter followers count and also puts money in someone’s pocket is totally against the principles of Twitter.

My stats for ’spam’ Twitterers are really quite alarming. I thought I’d share with you some of the numbers I’ve experienced (The following numbers were correct as of 4/12/2009):

Number of Followers: 1590
Number of automated DMs: 325 (20% of follows)
Number of Spam ‘16000′ DMs: 40 (12.5% of autos)

Of course I have lots of other spam DMs, but these are not the subject of this blog post. Following is my list of the ‘16000 members’ as I like to call them. What I’d really like to do is put them all together in one room and let them add each other. Then they’d all be happy! Anyway, here’s the list:

Direct Messages Sent Only to You
1. dazmolybiz Thanks for the Follow! Learn how to get 16000 Followers in days on Autopilot http://bit.ly/17kNolabout 10 hours ago
2. WeCreateWealth Thanks for the follow! Would you like to know How to Get 16,000 Followers in 90 & Make Money doing it? http://bit.ly/U0Qseabout 10 hours ago
3. scvanderver Thanks for the Follow! Would you like to know how to Get 16,000 Followers in 90 days & Make Money doing it? http://bit.ly/TgZabout 12 hours ago
4. SwiftTweet Thanks for the follow! Like to know how to get 1000s more targeted Twitter followers and make money at the same time? http://bit.ly/uUghabout 12 hours ago
5. NEOTraining Thanks for the follow. I’m adding 100 new follows per day for FREE. See How http://bit.ly/ng3labout 13 hours ago
6. Vittoriagallowd Thanks for the follow Would like to know How to Get 16000 Followers in 90 Days & Make Money Doing It http://bit.ly/87Foxabout 13 hours ago
7. Andrew_Perry Question, Are You 100% Happy With Your Twitter Education? Look… http://bit.ly/19GW71about 14 hours ago
8. JacquelynBurns I am grateful that you are flwg me.I appreciate the chance to connect w/you.about 14 hours ago
9. 1CarLight Thanks for the following! Interested in growing your Twitter following, on auto pilot? Click here: http://bit.ly/3l0zqvabout 16 hours ago
10. CurtisLilly Thanks for the following! Like to have hundreds more followers every morning when you get up? Then click here: http://bit.ly/130goYabout 16 hours ago
11. forextrading4 Thanks for the follow! All’s well that ends well http://tinyurl.com/dkcfd8about 17 hours ago
12. clubuwin Welcome, If you love Poker try our FREE online games at ClubUwin.com. http://www.clubuwin.comabout 17 hours ago
13. MailingStuff Your £200 a day system http://tinyurl.com/3system free gift for following, increase your follows offer this ;)about 17 hours ago
14. automatetraffic Thanks for the follow How Do You Get 16,000 Followers in 90 Days and make money doing it: http://bit.ly/UF6p9about 19 hours ago
15. webfusion5 Thanks for the follow! Need more followers? Learn how to get more the easy way –> http://bit.ly/yWUiqabout 19 hours ago
16. bookwormgeek Thanks for the follow! Should you need more followers, please visit the link. http://bit.ly/dXuUV http://bit.ly/dXuUVabout 18 hours ago
17. Josephcanhelp Thanks for the follow! Would you like to know how to get 16,000 Followers & make money doing it? http://bitly.com/2Eweabout 18 hours ago
18. automatetraffic Thanks for the follow How Do You Get 16,000 Followers in 90 Days and make money doing it: http://bit.ly/UF6p9about 19 hours ago
19. webfusion5 Thanks for the follow! Need more followers? Learn how to get more the easy way –> http://bit.ly/yWUiqabout 19 hours ago
20. globalman37 Thanks for the Follow! Would you like to know how to Get 16,000 Followers in 90 days & Make Money doing it? http://bit.ly/Pzfp1about 22 hours ago
21. thenewdigital Thanks for follow me. I can help you to Grow your Twitter Group to 16,000 in 90 day http://bitly.com/9LLNZ5:00 PM Apr 10th
22. AmandaHopk Thank You Do you Like to Know How To Get 16k Fallowers in 90 days & Make Money doing it ? http://bit.ly/k2jt85:41 PM Apr 9th
23. _santaclaus Thanks for the follow!Would U like 2know how 2get 16000 followers in 90 days & Make Money Doing it? http://bit.ly/4AWMFS5:21 AM Apr 9th
24. rdille Thanks for the follow!Would you liketo know how toget 16,000 follows in 90days & make money doing it?http://bit.ly/u1bYm4:19 AM Apr 9th
25. ReferralSuccess Want to know how to get 16,000 followers in 90 days and make money doing it? http://bit.ly/CRTCH1:39 AM Apr 9th
26. weblantis Thanks for following me! Get your free Twitter Pack here: http://wednesdaygift.com/tw… - Stay Tuned! Reimund12:43 AM Apr 9th
27. david_morris John, thanks for following me. Looking for more “followers”? You will love my FREE gift! http://www.twitteringfortra…2:31 AM Apr 8th
28. wellnessgeek Thanks for the follow! I got sucked into paying $27 for this, but it was worth the education. http://bit.ly/xhMZm10:15 PM Apr 7th
29. celebritygosser thanks 4 following me do you want to make money with your links? http://linkbee.com/297275:53 PM Apr 7th
30. brazilnut2009 “Thanks for the follow! Like to know how to get 16,000 followers in 90 & Make Money doing it? http://bit.ly/184LK2:52 PM Apr 5th
31. oneDivineSPIRIT Thx 4 the follow! Would U like to know How to Get 16,000 Followers in 90 days & Make Money doing it? http://bit.ly/4YXIP1:56 PM Apr 5th
32. Thesportsgeek Thanks for the follow! Want to know How to Get 16,000 Followers in 90 days & Make Money doing it?http://bit.ly/lMktF8:00 AM Apr 5th
33. fjmusic09 Thanks for the follow! Like to know how to get 16,000 followers in 90 & Make Money? http://bit.ly/10Bs542:12 AM Apr 5th
34. euneakme Thank you for following would you like 16000 followers in 90 days and make money doing it http://bit.ly/d6HE rs in 902:13 PM Apr 4th
35. ArfanChaudhry Add me on FB as well http://itwit.in/RBV/ + Learn how to increase Twitter Followers http://itwit.in/AAX/3:52 AM Apr 3rd
36. ezfreedom Thanks for the follow! Please RT this link.. http://tinyurl.com/cskj4b your followers will Thank You!5:35 PM Mar 31st
37. robertbland Thanks 4 Follow!Would You Like To Know How To Get 16,000Followers In 90 days&Make Money Doing It?http://bit.ly/17Zb712:27 AM Mar 26th
38. dsmpublishing Thx 4 the follow! FREE EBook find out how I gained 17,000+ followers in 10wks http://tinyurl.com/caxzr9 +much more!3:51 PM Mar 16th
39. CLdominator thx 4 Following me ive sum cool things that will help U on yr marketing journey, stay tuned http://bit.ly/hIuxl9:40 AM Feb 22nd
40. BizProfitsUSA Awesome! Thanks for the follow. Looking for multiple streams of income in time of recession? http://tinyurl.com/5pvesg11:39 AM Feb 20th

Please feel free to follow any of these Twitterers that will guide you to untold and easy access to 16000 followers (or not)! And of course I say ‘or not’ because these are also the people that only have a few followers on Twitter but promise a lot. Hmmmm. Something for nothing, now where have I heard that before?

Anyway, I dislike these people so much that I am willing to recommend ANYONE who also ‘doesn’t want 16000 followers in 90 days’ to @MrTweet. Just send me an @reply to my twitter account at @jcx27. Together we can try and clear Twitter of the spammers and keep it the communication tool it was meant to be…

What with one thing and another I’ve had a bit of time to get to know both Facebook and Twitter extremely well over the past few weeks. I think it’s about time I wrote an unbiased opinion on the two, purely from the point of view of how I use them.

I’ve come to the opinion that Facebook is more about games and photos and scattered status updates. Sure it has groups and fan pages and you can use it to contact other friends, but it’s mostly a one-way pleasure / communication vehicle. That is not to say I want to give up my Facebook. No, I like my Facebook. I like my Facebook friends. It’s just that I don’t get most of my social interactions via Facebook (except maybe the odd argument conversation with someone).

Twitter, on the other hand, is purely about social interaction and conversation. I hardly ever see a photo of someone’s kids, or a note that they are just like Arnie from Terminator. I don’t even get sea creatures or good karma from fellow tweeps. No, what I get is the thoughts and discoveries of these people, 140 characters at a time. When I watch all the conversations flash past on Tweetdeck, I try and keep up with those that interest me. I send a few notes to ‘Joe in Australia’ or ‘Connie in Cleveland’ and they return the favor and we laugh together. If I need information on a good coffee shop in Seattle (yeah, right!), hundreds of fellow tweeps will give me their opinion. What’s more, everyone is posting links to the Internet; constantly. There is a plethora of wonderful information for my consumption on an hourly basis. How did I ever get work done before Twitter?

Twitter is HOT, very HOT. If you want to connect with like-minded people and you have 57 hours a day to spare then Twitter is for you. It’s addictive. It’s informative. It’s fun. And, you know what, it’s actually really frickin’ useful. I have improved myself and learned so many things during my brief sojourn with Twitter.

Twitter is better than email. Want to know something? Just ask a question. People will respond. Want to ask a celebrity something? Just do it. Sometimes even they respond. That’s something you can’t do with email. Most celebrities are human too. And, let’s face it, if they only have to write 140 characters to you, it’s no big deal. They can manage that. Twitter is bringing the world together, 140 characters at a time. I know, that’s a bold statement, but I really think it can do it. For once there’s something that has no boundaries. Use a PC, use a phone, just send your tweet out.

Another thing I’ve found is that if you’re an interesting kind of person then people will follow you. Slowly, one by one, you’ll grow your network. I’ve been growing my network organically and it’s really starting to snowball a little now. My followers are growing by over 100 a day and increasing exponentially. Yes, there are some people that have created artificial numbers, and some that abuse the system, but others use it like it’s supposed to be used. I hope I am one of those people.

One of the side effects of growing your followers is that as you gain more and keep on twittering, more and more people take notice of what you’re writing and more and more people start to follow you. So it goes on. It sounds a little like Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), but you’re not selling anything. Of course there are some people out there who do use Twitter for MLM, and that’s up to them.

So, is Twitter hotter than Facebook? A resounding ‘YES’ on that one. Some people argue the two services are growing more and more similar every day, but I don’t see it that way at all. Facebook cannot emulate what Twitter does and Twitter deosn’t need all those photos and games. I love Twitter just the way it is.

I knew I’d hit the big time recently when I noticed Paris Hilton sporting a photo of me at one of the national award ceremonies! No, seriously… What do you mean, you didn’t see it? Okay, so maybe even I was a little surprised, but here it is, in all its glory. As you can see, it’s my latest CD that I’ve just released and so far the publicity has just been amazing. They told me not to give up my day job, but what the heck, I guess maybe that’s not so important anymore.

I’ve had a lot of detractors over the years who said I couldn’t sing. Well, what do they know? Ever since I did karaoke in Taiwan in 1989 I knew I had a very different voice than most folks. Who could have foretold then though, how those few Chinese songs would make it so big?

I think it was during 1992 at an old pub in Bournemouth that I really hit my stride. I remember the strained look on several of the customers’ faces as I belted out my rendition of “Don’t let the sun go down on me” on that cold winter evening. I’ve never seen the pub as crowded as it was that night, people jammed up against the door, not daring to leave and experience the 20 degree weather outside. Oh, I was glad the tele-prompter was working that evening.

Things came to a head in late 2000 during a visit to a nightclub in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, after a local bouncer made off the cuff comments to me that my hair looked a little gray to be gracing the establishment. I informed him I was actually a circuit karaoke star back in England and that impressed him greatly. Unfortunately the decision to put me up on stage probably wasn’t a good career move on his part as I later heard he had returned to a farm outside Rio and was milking cows with his sister. It did however, seal my place in Brazilian folklore and almost certainly led to the recording deal in late 2008.

So, there we have it. You can go out to the stores now and experience my unique growling sounds in glorious Dolby stereophonic whateverness. The album has limited availability in America from what I have heard, but is stacked five deep on the shelves of Moldovia.

One of the interesting side-effects of my rise to fame has been the unexpected celebrity fan base. Just last week during a photo-call at Selfridges in London, Victoria Beckham showed off my photograph to an unsuspecting press group. Apparently they had asked who she listens to in the car when taking the boys to soccer practice and she mentioned that “the music of John Cox gets them especially psyched up to play.” I guess that’s a good thing!

On other fronts, the launch of my music career has unexpectedly collided with the launch of my guru lifestyle book release. Entitled “How to stay happy, Even when your life sucks”, the book has led to a number of unexpected outpourings of love. At an apartment complex in Florida several people have even set up a makeshift shrine where devotees of the teaching can come and pay homage on a daily basis (see below).

I am hoping that I can cross-pollinate the music CD and the book, for even greater public awareness. Who knows, the teachings of my book may well become something that every down and out can use to lift themselves to greater glory. I have already been contacted by a number of social-marketing executives (why do they all call themselves CEOs?) who have recommended that for “just $19.99 and a sign-up to their latest MLM course” (whatever that means) I can experience 16,000 extra followers in 30 days. Amazing! They even mentioned merchandising too. At first I didn’t understand what they were talking about but they had a couple of t-shirts printed up and I can understand the attraction a little better now.

Actually, just around the corner from that apartment complex in Florida, right in the middle of a parking lot, there is a guy who is hoping to cash in on things on an even bigger scale. He is convinced that by making a graffiti drawing of me he can attract worshipers to his own “patch of space” and sell books and CDs on commission. I told him “to go for it”; he seemed a nice guy.

So the tour of suburbia is now complete. It’s been a hectic few days. Quite honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I’m just a normal kind of guy after all. So maybe the book is kinda interesting, but the CD is certainly not up to Madonna’s standards (even though I’m sure I saw someone just like her wearing my t-shirt somewhere!). A little old Jewish lady told me that was a good thing and she rubbed my nearly bald head. I’m still trying to work out if that had some kind of significance. Pete from the pub told me she just liked touching short hair, but I’m not so sure. I made a note to send her a copy of the book anyway.

This morning I got the video in from my agent. Well I say agent, actually he’s just some guy that insists on taking 10% of everything in return for sending me things. Anyway, the video he sent me was pretty cute. Apparently they had some billboard thing of me running in a couple of big cities, promoting my book.

Actually it was quite funny. Far more people had seen the photo of me and Paris and wanted to know where the CD was. You just can’t please everyone can you?

On a more disturbing note, I hadn’t realized that fame brings with it its own share of psychos. Some woman from Bethlehem, PA had bought up every piece of memorabilia from my 1998 tour of Taiwan (I hadn’t even realized there was any) and made some huge scrapbook devoted to idol worship. Her next door neighbor told police she chanted loudly and played some kind of growling music every night, right up until the early hours. Eventually she flipped out when she heard there wasn’t going to be a follow-up CD and the neighbor had to call police. They found her surrounded by posters and photos of me, mostly arranged in some kind of ’stalking collage’. The officer that contacted me told me “I had had a lucky escape.” I told him “thank you” and put the phone down. I didn’t really understand what he was talking about. Still, I think it’s always nice when the police are looking out for you.

Anyway, that’s about all the major news I have today. As I mentioned earlier, the last few days have been a little hectic and out of control. I’m looking forward to being able to return to normality and get out of the spotlight a little.

Well, wouldn’t you know it. Just as I was putting the finishing touches to this article I got a call from that guy who says he’s my agent. Apparently some dude in Piddletrenthide, England found a picture of me dating back a hundred and twenty years. I don’t know how it can be me though; I told the guy I wasn’t even 50 yet.

He emailed me a photo he’d taken from the book (see below) and I have to say, it does actually look fairly convincing.

It wouldn’t be so bad, but the book is actually about convicts that were deported to Australia in the nineteenth century. Maybe that explains my love for Marmite and Vegemite. Then, to make matters worse, this guy from Piddletrenthide finds yet another book with a picture of me in it, but this time he’s accusing me of being a wizard.

Just what is going on? I have never even done any magic. Well, apart from the time I got out of my homework by pretending I had the measles, but that was a very long time ago.

Anyway, most of the media coverage has died down a little now, thank goodness, although I did just get a call from some woman asking about doing an ‘author signing’ at a Barnes & Noble in Lexington, Missouri. I told her “I didn’t think so,” and hung up the phone. Heck, I don’t even know where Lexington, Missouri is. The price of fame…

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Things I have to write, just because:

Disclaimer: The blog post above is a complete work of fiction and is not meant to imply anything otherwise
Pictures: Photos were produced on the PhotoFunia website. Stop by and try it. It’s a lot of fun.

Thanks for indulging me…

Back in September last year I blogged about a Firefox add-on called ‘Read It Later‘. Since that time I’ve come to rely on it and it’s proved itself one of the most valuable Firefox add-ons on the market.

As is my wont, I have surfed the Internet and saved lots of pages I have come across, to process later. My current list is about 70 bookmarks long and the oldest one dates back 200 days. I have made several of them permanent and have deleted countless others along the way as I’ve finished with them. Overall I have to say I really like the service and because I also use FoxMarks (which synchronizes bookmarks across PCs), if I switch to my laptop for the evening I still have all my ‘Read It Later’ bookmarks for use.

However, recently my bookmarks have gotten a little out of control. I used to have only about 30 ‘Read It Later’ bookmarks, and they were always processed quite quickly. Like I said, it’s now 70 and I also have 143 ’starred’ RSS articles that I need to do something with. Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh! It’s time to do a spring clean on my bookmarks and saved RSS articles. I think I’m going to create a Microsoft Notes notebook and cut out the interesting pieces of the articles and ’stick’ them into it. At least that way I can then get rid of all the non-ordered bookmarks that contain something I know I want to make a note of or remember for later. Then, you never know, I may even Evernote it all for later lookup (Note to self: write article on Evernote at some later date!). It’s going to be a long couple of weeks. I’ll report back on progress and any hint and tips for others.

Well it’s been just about 3 weeks since I wrote my ‘controversial’ blog post about whether you should complain about your local pub or restaurant. I have had a lot of feedback, both public, private, wanted and unwanted. It’s been a very interesting experience and something I felt I needed to follow up on.

The good news (for me) is that I am still alive! No one took out a contract on me (although I think a couple of people were close to it!). The other piece of good news is that some actions have been taken in the pub in question and little by little, improvements are showing up. So, credit where credit is due. I’m going to run over some of the differences that have been observed in the last couple of weeks and you can judge for yourself how ‘complaining about your local pub or restaurant‘ actually can make a difference.

So, what have been the ‘big’ changes? Here is a list of some of the observed differences during the past 3 weeks:

• Kitchen is now open an extra hour in the evenings on Friday and Saturday (let’s hope that gets extended to the whole week)
• New ‘buzzer’ system installed so that servers know when their food order is ready
• Full-time food expediter/runner employed to help with service
• Extra person added to busy shifts (I think this one is still a work in progress and being monitored)
• More attention paid to restroom and table cleanliness
• Better restraint shown with regard to taking breaks and personal calls
• I think a new system of allocating tables to servers is being / has been introduced to better handle customer load and service (but I can’t be absolutely certain on this one)
• Website updated to match ‘happy hour’ and main menu in pub
• Slightly better presence from management during busy shifts to observe pub ‘workings’

There are still some gaps, but I am confident that those, too, will be closed as time moves forward.

So, was it worth me writing the original article? Was it worth encouraging the wrath of all that work in a place I enjoy going to? I have to emphatically say ‘yes’. I believe my words have benefited the experience of others and ultimately benefited the long term reputation of my local pub.

To quote a part of my original article:

“So, should you ever complain about your local pub or restaurant? YES - You have an investment in it, whether you realize it or not. Your investment is not in shares, but in time and a contribution to the atmosphere and ambiance and clientele. You as a regular customer often see more of the workings of the place than the management. I urge you for the sake of the business and your relationship to let them know.”

Don’t let life pass you by. Don’t put up with things you are not happy with. Make your thoughts and feelings known. No one is a mind reader. No one can change something they know nothing about. You are ultimately responsible for the experiences in your life.

“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” - R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)

Is your PC suffering from slowness Problems? Does your PC take two minutes to wake up from screensaver? Are you running Windows Vista? Do you have SQL Server loaded?

If you answered ‘yes’ to all of these questions then SQL server is your problem. Deleting it off the face of the earth is your solution.

For the past few months my PC has taken ridiculous amounts of time to come back from screensaver to a normal window where I can actually do something. All I could hear was disk thrashing, but there didn’t seem to be excessive CPU usage. I thought at first I had some kind of virus, so I checked everything - at least three times. But I found nothing. It has really bugged me over the past few months. I even considered turning off the screensaver. In the end I started monitoring my processes really closely and I noticed from time to time that my hard drive thrashed around a lot and a SQL Server process seemed to be active. Now, I admit I have SQL Server loaded, but I have never used the thing. It came with a version of Visual Basic I downloaded from the Microsoft site and has been hanging out on my hard drive for a while.

Anyway in the end I decided to nuke SQL Server (a long winded process in itself) and that has cured my problem. Now my PC zaps back into life when I come out of screensaver mode. All is well in the plastic box.

So, if you are suffering similar problems to me and you have SQL Server loaded - nuke it for your own peace of mind!

Links:
MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-432): Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Implementation and Maintenance (PRO-Certification)
Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition 2005 CD/DVD

In a change from the normal technology things I write about, I decided to post one of my poems today. I hope you enjoy it:

The New Baby

We’re having a baby, my mummy and me
It’s something to do with our eggs.
Not the sort that you have for breakfast with toast,
But the sort that grows long arms and legs.

We’re having a baby, my mummy and me
Just before Christmas, I’m told.
It’s so long to wait, it seems such a shame,
By then I’ll be ever so old.

We’re having a baby, my mummy and me
We’ve got to eat masses of food.
Our tummies are growing ever so big,
And it’s looking a little bit rude.

We’re having a baby, my mummy and me
We went to the clinic today.
My mummy’s baby kicked ever so hard
But mine had got nothing to say.

We’re having a baby, my mummy and me
Daddy’s taken my mum for a test.
He said they wouldn’t be gone very long
And he’s sent me to Granny’s to rest.

We’re having a baby, my mummy and me
Mum’s bought back a new baby boy.
I prodded and poked it, he started to scream;
Daddy told me it wasn’t a toy.

We’re having a baby, my mummy and me
He screams and he shouts every day.
He feeds and he burps, then changed, falls asleep
And he never comes outside to play.

We’re having a baby, my mummy and me
It’s such a big burden I’ve carried.
But I don’t think I’m ready to have one just now
I think that I’ll wait ’til I’m married.

(C) John Cox - Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without permission.

One of the lesser known facts about Twitter, from a user’s perspective, is that there is a limit on how many times you can request updates on people’s tweets every hour. The official Twitter documentation states “Clients are allowed 100 requests per 60 sixty minute time period, starting from their first request”. This covers all Twitter clients (phone, desktop, etc.) except for the client on the actual Twitter website.

What does this mean? Well, put quite simply if you are using a Twitter client like Tweetdeck, or Digsby, or Twirl, or an iPhone equivalent, then the total number of requests that these clients make in any one hour cannot exceed 100. If you have a Twitter client on your iPhone or G1 and you are running a desktop client, then think very carefully how often you have update requests set for. If your phone updates every 5 minutes and your desktop app updates every 2 minutes, then that’s a total of 12 + 30 requests an hour, 42 in total (but see Gotchas later). But let’s say that you reset those updates periods to 1 minute on both devices, now you have 60 + 60 requests, or 120 per hour. After the first 100 requests are sent in an hour, Twitter will reply with a message saying you cannot have any more updates until your hour is up. Please note that every action you take on the official Twitter site does not have this limitation. You can tweet away there to your heart’s content.

What does this all mean in reality? Well, it really means that when you first start using Twitter, everything will work great and you’ll never notice a problem. But as you become a power Twitter user you’ll probably download a few clients and really start to follow updates more closely. No doubt you’ll have 2 or 3 clients open and be doing all sorts of things at any one time. This is where you are likely to fall foul of the Twitter api limit.

Other gotchas? Any time that any client makes a request to your Twitter account (think of some Twitter sites that ask for your username and password so they can get information for you) it counts as a request. Keep using these and you will quickly run out of api calls. Similarly on Tweetdeck for example if you ask for the profile of several of your followers, each one of these requests uses one of your 100 calls. Lastly, the most unknown gotcha is that each call for your ‘replies’ and ‘directs’ also uses one of the 100 allowed calls per hour. So, if you can limit how often your client checks for replies and directs in an hour that will really help. Otherwise you may be actually using 3 times the amount of calls to the api than you think. For example, one client checking for updates and replies and directs every two minutes is 30 x 3 requests, or 90 per hour. And that’s without any extras. Hmmm.

So, there you have it, a simple guide to how to abide to Twitters rules. A detailed explanation of the Twitter api can be found here: http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Documentation

Have fun tweeps… Follow me on Twitter

Links:
Twitter For Dummies
Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time
Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online

Back at the end of August 2008 I blogged about my experiences with many social networking sites. Namely, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook, Twitter, Hi5, FriendsReunited. It’s about time I updated some numbers…

My new numbers for each site are as follows, with the old numbers in parentheses:

• Address Book - 626 (550) - 14% increase
• LinkedIn - 212 (184) - 15% increase
• Plaxo - 86 (53) - 62% increase
• Facebook  - 150 (39) - 285% increase
• Twitter Followers - 340 (9) - 3678% increase

I’ve stopped using Hi5 now and hardly ever log onto FriendsReunited any more either.

So, the numbers are quite interesting some seven months after I last measured them. My Address Book and LinkedIn have shown ‘organic’ growth (that is new members that either I have found or they have found me). Plaxo has obviously attracted more followers over recent months, and so too has Facebook. Seven months ago, 90% of all my contacts were not on Facebook. That number is changing rapidly and daily. Lastly, Twitter is a different kind of animal altogether. The people who I follow on Twitter and those who follow me, are not necessarily in my Address Book. In fact it’s true to say that 90% of them are not.

I find myself spending a lot more time on Facebook and Twitter now than I ever did before. That will probably change over time as new trends come and go, but for now Social Networking is a big part of my day to day routine.

Business methods are changing too. Emails are going away. SMS messages are more popular. Virtual chatter is here to stay. I can see the day when we don’t need email any more. Is that scary or what?

I’ll report back in another couple of months.

Links:
Facebook For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
Twitter For Dummies
LinkedIn For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

It’s been a little while since I’ve blogged about the T-Mobile G1 Google phone so I thought I’d give my user perspective after having the phone for about 5 months now (Read previous article on G1 Hints & Tips).

Overall I have to say I’m pleased with it - very. My only remaining gripes are the shortish battery life and the back light on my keyboard (and I say my keyboard because I have the bronze version and that one is known for the problem - the black and white versions have different colored keys and don’t exhibit the same problem). Apart from that it’s amazingly good, and has been very resilient to my day by day use.

What have I done with it? - Well the main use I have for it is email I have to say. Far and above the most common use. Second is texting probably and third is actual phone calls. I don’t know, I’m just not a big talker on the phone! Then there’s Youtube - I use that quite a bit. Oh, and the Internet - a lot of Wikipedia and sites like that. Lastly, from time to time I use some of the applications to follow sports scores, to look up barcodes or to just show off its capabilities.

So, if you’re looking to buy a new phone I would wholeheartedly recommend the T-Mobile G1 Phone with Google, Black (T-Mobile)