Twitter for Absolute Newbies

UPDATE: I’ve added a new section on how to text Twitter updates on the bottom of the page. Thanks!

Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. You’ve heard of these things and this website called Twitter. It’s suppost to be bringing down Facebook, Myspace, Google, and Yahoo with these little message things called Tweets. You are skeptical, and so was I, until I tried out Twitter, one of the most awesome websites I regularly go on. Unfortunately, I had to learn Twitter by myself when it was still in its early stages. For you people out there looking to try out Twitter, this article is for you.

What is Twitter? Twitter is a social networking platform in which you display little messages (<=140 Characters) on your public ‘profile’, called ‘tweets’↑. These are called ‘updates’, and you are able to ‘follow’ other ‘tweets’ from friends and family on Twitter.

Note: Key Vocabulary is in Single Quotes ['']

What’s the difference between… Facebook statuses and Twitter tweets? When you look at this question from one side, you say that they are exactly the same thing. Although they seem the same, they actuallly aren’t. In Twitter, you can have a ‘conversation’ with other people, just using these little ‘tweets’. Facebook statuses tend to be about you, like ‘Alex is taking a shower’. With Twitter, you can communicate to the whole WORLD what you are thinking, like ‘just watched American Idol. Adam Lambert KILLED IT!!!’. I know this probably doesn’t make much sense, but you’ll see how great Twitter is later.

Let’s get started, then!:

Create a new account at twitter.com/signup.

Twitter now makes it easy for you to find followers quickly, using email contacts and real-world people that are on Twitter. Enter your username and passwords for all your services to find if you have any contacts using Twitter. [don't worry, they won't store your password].

After that, there are a TON of celebrities/famous people, websites, and even newspapers on Twitter that you might be interested in following, like CNN, Ashton Kutcher, Lance Armstrong, and even, the one and only, The Tech Advisors!

To follow anybody, click the ‘follow’ button under the picture on the top-left corner on their twitter page.

Tweeting

The main point of twitter is to inform your followers, or friends and family, about what you’re doing. To tweet something, click ‘Home’ on the top-right navigation bar. Type your tweet into the box that asks you ‘What are you doing?”

Messages

There are two ways for people to message you in Twitter. They can reply to you, in which everyone [in the WORLD] can see the message, or they can direct message you, so only you two get to see it.

Replying

To message someone publicly, put in your tweet

@someonetomessage this is a message.

So, if I wanted to tell Lance Armstrong to bike harder, I would tweet:

@lancearmstrong why can't you bike faster?!?

Not that it’s true, of course.

Note that using @, you can message anybody, you don’t have to be following them or vice versa.

Direct Messaging

To privately direct message someone, click on ‘Home’ on the Navigation bar at the top. Then, click ‘Direct Messages’ on the right-hand sidebar.

Notice that you can only send Direct Messages to people following you.

Trending Topics

A very cool part of Twitter is that you get to see real-time news in the form of Twitter tweets. Go to ‘Home’ and look at ‘Trending Topics’ on the right-hand sidebar. Those are what the Twitter bot sees as the most popular things being tweeted about. For example, two weeks ago, swine flu was at the top of the list.

Search

One of the most talked about features of Twitter is its search function. It is really very cool, you can search all the real-time tweets that people and news have tweeted. It connects to the trending topics I talked about above. For example, if I wanted to see what Obama has been doing lately, I would just search [again, on the right-hand sidebar] for ‘Obama’.

Change your theme

My theme, as you can see, is a very sleek black one. To change your theme from the regular blue one, click on ‘Settings’ in the Top-right corner and click on the ‘Design’ tab.

Update Twitter on the Go

Another huge feature of Twitter is the ability to update it from your mobile phone. You can even create your own blog – a ‘micro-blog’ that is, and embed it on your website, Facebook Profile, or Myspace page. Sadly, I can’t text from my phone, thanks to my parents [comment if you petition against that decision , maybe I'll be able to text], anyway, let’s get started to setting up your phone.

1) Put in your phone number

• Click on ‘Settings’ on the top-right navi bar. Then, click on the ‘Devices’ tab.
• Put your phone number in the box, prepending it with a ‘+’.
  • If my phone number was ‘555-5555′, and I lived in a city with an area code of ‘555′, I would put this in:
  • 15555555555 [That's 11 5s after the 1]
• Check the box that says
  • It’s okay for Twitter to send txt messages to my phone. Standard rates apply.

2) Hit Save and you will be given a code to text to a number on the Twitter network. That number is 40404. Once Twitter receives that text, you can start texting on your phone!

Twitter will send you notifications and updates from people you follow. To change your status, just text Twitter your status. For example, texting reading the tech advisors to the designated number, your status would be ‘reading the tech advisors’.

There are many commands to control twitter from your phone.

Some important ones:

ON: Turns ON Twitter text messaging you

OFF: Turns OFF Twitter text messaging you

ON username: Turns ON Twitter text messaging updates from username

OFF username: Turns OFF Twitter text messaging updates from username

FOLLOW username: Follows username

LEAVE username: Un-follows username

Find all the commands at Twitter Support.

There’s my how-to on Twitter for newbies. Thank you for viewing this! I hope it helped you get introduced to Twitter better.

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Greasemonkey: Huge Customization for the Firefox Browser

Customization is a big part of user experience. If you want to customize your user experience on the Firefox web browser, I suggest you read this article to give your web browsing more depth and handling for your everyday browsing.

Sometimes, even the thousands of extensions that are available for Firefox aren’t enough to satisfy customization-savvy computer users. I happen to be one of them, and for that reason I LOVE the Firefox browser. But, when it’s not enough, I use Greasemonkey, an extension for Firefox that allows you to customize pretty much any part of the browser, with these little free things called UserScripts.

What is Greasemonkey?

Greasemonkey is a simple extension for Firefox that let’s you install custom javascript files, or Userscripts to your browser. These enhance your browsing experience, by modifying the source of little things in different web sites. For example, there might be a userscript to download a youtube video as an mp3, or another userscript to put Twitter search results in Google.

Where can I find these Userscripts?

A great site to look is userscripts.org.

Can we just get started already?

HECK YEA, let’s do this!

1. First, we need to install the Greasemonkey extension. It only works on Firefox, but userscripts can work on other browsers, like Google Chrome’s dev channel version, Safari with Greasekit plugin, with Opera’s user JavaScript tools, or apps like Trixie for Internet Explorer.
2. Once you have it installed, go to userscripts.org to find yourself a userscript. For the purposes of this walk-through, we’ll get this download youtube video as mp3 userscript. [UserScripts is down right now, so I can't give you the link. Try going to userscripts.org and searching for 'youtube mp3' once you read this article. If someone could tell me in the comments, that would be great!]
3. Restart Firefox by quitting it and opening it again.
4. Go to youtube.com and find a video. There should be an icon in the lower-right hand corner of your browser, saying ‘Download Mp3′. If you want to try to download it, it should work.
5. You have used a userscript!

Now that you have installed a userscript, you may want to get rid of it if it’s not to your needs. Go to Tools >> Greasemonkey >> Manage User Scripts in Firefox. Click on your User Script. Click ‘Uninstall’ at the bottom of the screen.

If you’re interested in getting more userscript, there are some great lists of them. Lifehacker’s First and Second Top 10 User Scripts are really well done, I think. Some of my favorites include Google Docs Multi-Download, a life saver. Also, there’s Invisibility Cloak, a huge time-saver when I waste my time doing ‘homework’ on Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail; Text Box Re-size is also really helpful.

So, I have set you all into the world of Greasemonkey and User Scripts. Be careful, there can be some harmful scripts out there, so be sure to read the comments always. Happy User Scripting!

Personas: Awesome Firefox Extension for Super-Easy Theming [firefox]

I just downloaded Personas, one of the coolest Firefox extensions I’ve seen so far. Basically all it is is a little menu in the bottom-left portion of your screen, but the features of it is amazing.

“

Personas are free, easy-to-install “skins” for Firefox that make changing the look of the browser as easy as changing your shirt. With Personas, you can individualize your browser with hundreds of artist-created designs or create your own design to share with a worldwide audience of millions.

With the support and creativity of the Mozilla community, the project continues to evolve and is focused on three key concepts:

1. It Shouldn’t be Hard to Make Your Browser a Little More Fun and Personal

2. You Should be able to Personalize Your Entire Web Experience with Lots of Great Designs

3. The Artist in You Should Be Able to Treat the Browser as Your Canvas
“

To theme your browser, all you have to do is click on the menu and hover your mouse over a theme name, and the changes are reflected in the browser. It’s that simple. No restarting, downloading file, or anything else. Just a click. It doesn’t hamper the performance of Firefox at all, this tiny utility.

There is also a gallery with a huge number of these themes.

10 Tips for using Mac like a Pro — Revised from [macosxtips.co.uk]

I read this article this morning, and I saw a lot of good things, and some bad things.

Here’s how the list goes:

1) Quicksilver
2) Keyboard shortcuts
3) Drag ‘n Drop
4) Change hidden settings with Terminal
5) VLC
6) Understand Application Packages
7) Force Quit
Rectangular Selections
9) Learn Applescript
10) Use Terminal

Great list!

I don’t really think you can fit every powerful thing about MacOSX into 10 entries. So instead of revising this article, I’ll add some things.

11) Customize the look.

• It is so easy now to customize the look of Mac. If you’re using Tiger, you can easily theme it using Shapeshifter. Find great themes here. If you’re using Leopard, there has been a recent breakthrough in theming; you can use Magnifique for super-easy theming. Also for leopard, check out my article on themeing the dock. You can also pair LiteIcon and IconFactory’s icons to skin your icons in the Finder.

12) Use Geektool

• Geektool is an amazing application that embeds shell data, files, and pictures into your mac’s desktop. System Stats, iTunes Artwork, Twitter Updates, The Tech Advisors’ RSS Feed, Todo.txt, you name it! Geektool can put it on your desktop. Check out my article about Geektool. [it has the most pageviews on the whole blog ]

13) Use Firefox

• Firefox is an open-source browser that the community loves. It has advanced extensibility, theming, and it runs faster than the competition. If you want to go even more pro, download the Firefox beta.

14) Backup

• Every pro that uses Mac in the world knows this one. Well, every pro for every operating system in the world. Always backup your data! Lucky for us Mac users, Apple provides an easy interface for doing it, Time Machine. MAKE USE OF IT!

Those are some of the additions to the list I could think of this moment. Have any more suggestions? Write up in the comments!

CoolIris

CoolIris is an awesome Firefox add-on that lets you quickly browse through hundreds of pictures extremely fast. Not only that, but you can also watch videos, or play games straight out one of the many windows on the 3-D wall by just stopping at that particular window. The pictures and games get refreshed, so there will always be something new to see. There are many customizable features on it, such choosing how many rows that there are (I’ve set mine 7 even though the default is seven) There’s even CoolIris for the all of you IPhone users out there! It also downloads very quickly, so go try it out now!

How to Post to your blog much easier!. [mac and windows]

Sometimes posting to your blog can be a pain, but there are different applications to make it much easier. Here’s two different ways for mac and windows to post to virtually any blog for free.

Mac: ScribeFire [Firefox Extension]:

ScribeFire is a free Firefox extension that allows you to make drafts and publish posts. Scribefire support for del.icio.us, Technorati, pingbacks/trackbacks and FTP.

ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.

~[scribefire.com]

Download the Extension here at Mozilla Addons.

Windows: Blogdesk [Desktop Application]:

Blogdesk is a free desktop application for Windows XP and Vista. It has support for WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity, and others. It’s fast and it allows management of multiple blogs. Here is a great tutorial on how to use it.

Choose a browser!

For all the people that are confused about whether to choose Firefox or Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari, Chrome or Internet Explorer, or whatever combination, the great tech blog Lifehacker has just posted a poll for the best browser. Firefox won, but I think the original article has great information of the differences between the five browsers.

You can find the article here:
You can also see the sped tests for Safari, Chrome, and Firefox [here]:
Here’s my quick review of the browsers:

Google Chrome: A new browser from Google that uses Safari’s speedy Webkit engine to parse webpages extremely quickly. It has a stripped-down interface to see more of the webpage and less unnecessary stuff. It also makes every tab its own process, so a crash in another webpage won’t mess up the loading of the other webpages. The speedy Javascript parser and security standards have gotten Chrome a lot of attention. For now it’s Windows only, but Mac and Linux versions should be coming out soon.

Update: Dinu below has a site for all you Chrome lovers out there! Please go to http://chromestory.com to see it!

Firefox: A browser that has its roots from Netscape, a browser from a while back. Firefox 3 is now amazing. It has gotten a lot of praise for the fact that it is highly extensible with over 6,000 extentions to make the browser experience better. The down side of this is that it sometimes makes it slow down in comparison to the other browsers, but the new release, Firefox 3.1 is said to have updated its Tracemonkey Javascript engine to make it extremely fast. In benchmarks, it has even beat Chrome’s V8 Javascript engine. It is also known for its security standards, they are very good. Firefox is open-source ported in like 30 different languages or more. It’s Windows, Mac, and Linux compatible.

Safari: Apple’s browser that comes with every Mac computer. Since its first 1.0 release, it has gotten tremendously snappy and the user interface is very appealing. It uses the WebKit engine, which parses web pages very fast and the new beta release, Safari 4 beta is said to be even faster. Apple has now developed it for Windows.

Internet Explorer: The most popular browser on the internet, mainly because it is ported with the most popular operating system in the world. Internet Explorer’s releases have been pretty disappointing in comparison to the Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera. IE is famous for its sluggishness, bugs, and lack of extensibility and features. IE 8 is said to be much better though, with a focus on rendering web pages faster and more stability with less bugs. IE is Windows Only.

Opera: Opera is another speedy browser like Chrome and Safari that has a whole lot of features packed into it, like its mouse gestures, rss reader, and bittorent client. It beats Firefox and Chrome in speed tests done by the Opera team. It also has a great mobile browser. Opera is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.