Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
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Look Ma, No Hands! How to Tweet Via Voice
Feb 26th
Sometimes you don’t have a PC with you.
Sometimes you don’t want (or cannot because you’re driving for example) text your Twitter status update.
Sometimes you just want to shout it out to the Twitterverse.
What if there wasa voice transcription service that will take your call and transcribe your voice message into a Tweet via your Twitter account?
All you would have to do is register your phone number so that the service will recognize your caller ID and know which Twitter account to use to put out the voice-transcribed tweet.
And I’d set it up so that it is a toll-free number so that you can use ANY phone to call in your tweet.
Wouldn’t that be cool? Guess what. . . Read the rest of this entry »
How Mass Unfollow Your Following On Twitter
Feb 24th
This past week I’ve decided that some of my twitter accounts have gotten unwieldy with the auto-follow features set to “ON”.
At first, I took my Twitter following list and purged all the tweeters that are, well, not tweeters – since they haven’t sent a tweet in over 90 days. I was able to filter the twitter people I follow list based on date of last tweet and then do a mass unfollow via a service called untweeps.
But that wasn’t enough. What I really wanted was to “start over” as some other famous Twitteratti have done.
But tools like Twitter Karma have disabled the mass unfollow feature.
So I tweeted for help. And @xanpearson came to the rescue.
She had recently suggested a list of 30 different twitter friend management tools to check out. And there were plenty to poke around with.
So far, ReFollow.com has a decent interface and it does the bulk unfollow feature I have been searching for.
There’s a bunch of other neat features that this site does. It’s definitely worth checking out if you want to manage your follower/following lists in bulk.
How To Bulk Unfollow Twitter Snoozers From Your List
Feb 20th
Twittering is a way of life. Either you tweet or you don’t. There’s no half-way in between.
You can’t just log in once in a blue moon and expect others to think you’re part of the Twitterverse community. What other group would embrace you with open arms if you showed up just 3 times in 2010 for example?
Spring is around the corner and that got me thinking of Spring cleaning for my Twitter follow list. It’s time to pare down my follow list to those that I really have a real interest, connection or excuse to follow.
I found a great little web-app at http://www.untweeps.com that lets you identify who on your Twitter follow lists has NOT tweeted in __ days.
Just input the cutoff and you’re ready for a 1-click bulk unfollow.
I filtered my follow list to see who hasn’t showed up in 100 days.
Just like that, my Twitter follow list was pared down by over a 100 people for one of my Twitter accounts.
There’s other bulk unfollow tools that let you see who’s not reciprocating a follow, those that are spammy, etc. But this is the first place I think most people should go when trying to clean out their following list.
What other Twitter UNFOLLOW sites do you use to manage your lists? Please leave a comment below!
Quickest Way To Look Up Movie Listings
Feb 19th
School’s out!
Winter break is here for the kids!
A whole week or two off to fill the kids’ schedules with fun stuff to do if you’re not going away on vacation.
A trip to the movie theater is in order since there are a couple of blockbuster movies that just came out and they pass the litmus test for child-appropriate as well.
Here’s a tip to find out which movies are playing now in your area:
Google has a search built just for movie theaters and listings. You can search by zip code, but movie, or by theater. There are links to reviews as well as listings for future dates so you can plan your movie nights out this weekend.
Just go to http://www.google.com/movies and type in your zip code to start your search!
Twitter 201: What Can You Do With Twitter?
Feb 10th
Once you get past the initial learning curve required to really understand that Twitter is not just knowing what everyone eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you start to ask, what else can I do with Twitter?
There’s actually a TON of stuff for which Twitter is useful. That’s why there’s a social media revolution afterall. But the Twitterverse isn’t so easy for newbies to get on what seems like a speeding bullet train at times.
The best place to start for most is to understand that you can control what you get out of Twitter. It is not just a continuous moving feed of random tweets from all that you follow. Once you find Twitter Search, your imagination starts to open up for what you can do with Twitter.
Here’s a quick video that explains just a few practical things you can do with Twitter beyond monitoring your network’s latest moves and ponderings:
Comparing Apples to Apples in High Definition
Feb 6th
This is the big weekend. . . for Flat screen TV sales across the country. With the SuperBowl being held this Sunday, all the consumer electronics stores are pulling out all the stops in order to get a shiny new plasma or LCD (or even LED!) television in your living room in time for the big game.
If you are making the switch from an older 4:3 analog tv screen to the 16:9 format flatscreen TV, you may or may not know that you can’t just get the same “size” TV. Since TV screen sizes are measured diagonally, and the ratio of height and width are different on a 4:3 screen vs. 16:9 screen, you have to do some math if you want the same size tv image to look at (or larger).
So if you have a 32″ tv in your living room, you can’t just go out an buy a 32″ LCD HDTV. If you do, you’ll basically end up with a smaller tv, since your tv image will be shorter on the new 16:9 screen than it was on your current 32″ analog 4:3 ratio screen. You’re not comparing apples to apples if you’re comparing two different format screens.
Of course TV manufacturers and the guy at your local Best Buy don’t really help you out in this area and instead will probably just shrug their shoulders and try to upsell you on a tv that’s larger than you need.
So what do you do?
The internet to the rescue! www.ScreenMath.com has a handy dandy conversion table which lets you look up your analog tv screen size and it will tell you the dimensions you’ll need to get in a 16:9 format in order to match your current tv screen size.
Just as a FYI, the popular 42″ HDTV size that has largely become the “base model” for LCD, plasma and LED tv’s in the store today is equivalent to a 34″ analog 4:3 ratio television set.
So technically, the 32″ tv we have in one of the bedrooms only needs a 40″ HDTV to replace it at the current screen size. If we got a 42″ HDTV, it would actually be an upgrade in screen size for that room. That’s nice to know!
Once you know the facts, you’ll probably feel a little easier walking into the store to pick-up a new HDTV. It’s just one less factor to worry about as you’ll have to sort out all the other alphabet soup jargon as you compare all the different options on the table these days for TV’s.
Outsource Your Work With Freelancers
Dec 7th
Not enough time in the day? Too much to do, too little time?
It’s time to look at outsource some of your workload. Hiring freelance coders, designers, proof readers, presentation specialists or even plain old virtual assistants can help save the day.
Nowadays, there are online marketplaces where you can go to find the help you need. You are able to submit a job description for small jobs (I’ve done jobs as small as $15) to full blown long-term contractor jobs. You can look to outsourcing as a virtual workforce or like a place to get digital handymen to fix the small things that you just don’t have the time nor people to do it in house.
Three in particular worth a look are among the biggies:
oDesk
oDesk‘s angle is interesting – this service tries to ensure that every minute billed to your project is actual work. So you’re not getting billed for when they go to the bathroom, go outside to check their mail, fix a snack in the kitchen, etc. In fact, they offer per minute pricing via a proprietary remote desktop contractor interface that monitors keystrokes, provides periodic screenshots so you can actually see what your contractor is doing if you so wish to.
Rentacoder
I’ve been using rentacoder.com for smaller jobs. They have a lot of coders around the world that offer decent pricing. Like all of these marketplaces, you have to decide for yourself if you’re willing to open up your bidding to contractors where English is NOT their primary language, etc. Their communication interface keeps track of all discussion you have back and forth so that if there is a need to dispute in the end, a record of everything agreed to is available. They escrow your money for the job and won’t release it until the entire project is done and you approve the release.
eLance
This marketplace got bought out by eBay several years ago, and got a lot of attention – quickly making it one of the “big guys” in the outsourcing marketplace marketplace. The key to any job listing is that you have a lot of coders that are available so that you can get quality help – and also increase competition. Elance fits this picture. Although sometimes because of its prominence, sometimes the overall pricing might come out a little high (vs. if you listed the same project elsewhere). Worth testing to see if you like their platform for some jobs.
There are a bunch of other coder marketplaces too like scriptlance.com, guru.com, etc. All worth checking out. The key point is that you should identify a small job in front of you and test the waters to see if outsourcing is for you.
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!