Whatever happened to the quick post buttons and windows for Twitter and Facebook, just like what you see in the screenshots above?
Obviously, they were removed from the notification center when iOS 7 came. I missed it because right now in order to do a quick status update to Facebook, I need to open the SLOW Facebook app, which takes forever to load before I can proceed any further. And I don’t have Siri to do it for me. …
I am a big fan of Tweetbot for iPhone. There’s no denying I would recommend this app to any iPhone user who wants a more robust Twitter client for their smartphone. A price tag is attached to the app in the iTunes App Store, but the price is well worth it. This app is probably the best Twitter client-app out there available to any platform. Unfortunately, Tweetbot is an iOS-only app, which makes it one of the selling points why I choose the iPhone. …
Last month, August 26, 2012 to be exact, I uploaded a video at my Youtube channel (and posted at my Tumblr blog) comparing the experience of using the official Twitter apps for Android and iOS:
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Now, Who’s Playing Catch Up? — Twitter for Android!Read More »
‘Direct Messages’ in Twitter is as important as ‘Mentions’, yet it does not enjoy the same conspicuousness to facilitate quick access as the latter in the official iOS and Android apps.
In order to get to the Direct Messages section you need to go to Me >> and then Direct Messages. If you are new to the app, you might not be able to find it at all.
Good thing there are a lot of better alternative Twitter apps for iOS devices, case in point: Tweetbot, that give as much importance to Direct Messages.
As for Android users, well, good luck with finding a really good Twitter client alternative in the first place. Otherwise, you’re stuck with the official Twitter app.
In the beginning, people flocked to Twitter because of its one simple but great feature: to publish each thought or message in 140 characters. In some instances that feature proved to be a constraint, but that’s really where creativity comes into play. While sharing links, long URL’s[1. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is usually the permanent link you find in your browser’s address bar when browsing the web.] posed even more challenges. That’s when URL shorteners came into being, Tinyurl was one of the first (if not the first) of its kind.
Then on June 2011, Twitter rolled out its very own (and) automatic link shortening feature/service — t.co. The “root” domain name itself is limited to only 4 characters (including the dot) so it sure could produce shorter links. In its blog post, Twitter promised links as short as 19 total characters (including the ‘http://‘ prefix).
The good thing about t.co is that link shortening is automatic. There’s no need anymore to go to the website of the URL shortening service, convert the link to its shortened form and pasting the same to Twitter. Instead, just paste any URL, regardless of length, to your Twitter post, and that will only eventually cost you 19 or 20 characters from expressing the complete message. …
When Twitter’s ‘t.co’ Expands Rather Than Shortens LinksRead More »
Follow me on Twitter at @deuts.
We have to admit, Twitter is a great platform to publish our short notes and thoughts. Other than interacting with friends, both online and personal, I also use it to share links I find interesting as well as bookmark sites for future reference.
The problem, however, is you don’t really have a way to browse, manage, and search through your tweets in Twitter.com especially if you have accumulated a sizable number after some time — at least not for now.
That’s why there have been ways to archive your tweets like this Ozh’ Tweet Archiver WordPress plugin, which I used at my separate WordPress install. I installed it before my number of tweets reached 3,200, that’s why all my tweets are intact since the beginning. My only problem with this solution is that the posts do not link back to the original Twitter permalink. …
I admired Jim Paredes’ response to a question brought to him on Twitter using the hashtag #ASKaQuestion.
The question:
@Jimparedes did you ever regret ur role in edsa 2 dat installed a more corrupt president? #ASKaQUESTION
His response posted on his Tumblr:
No. It was better to act than not to act. We came with good intentions. We did not fail the Filipino nation. GMA did. We cannot take responsibilities for her actions. We did our share.
Honestly, I haven’t looked at it from that perspective — what the Filipino people had done in EDSA 2 (no, I haven’t done any active part in that revolution). I have always thought that EDSA 2 was a failure. And now I’m starting to realize that, indeed, what Jim Paredes was saying is true! Those who took part in EDSA 2 did not fail the whole Filipino people. GMA did!
Twitter limits you to express your thoughts in 140 characters or less. It actually encourages (if not teaches) you to be more creative in delivering your message by limiting the number of characters — thus, the limited number of words — in each tweet. This is in fact in congruence with the declining attention span of users/readers/followers, especially with the vast amount of information available in this digital age.
With services like Twitlonger, Deck.ly and the likes, users are allowed to override this 140-character limitation by cutting the message into 140 characters but allow the inclusion of a link that points to a page containing the full message (besides advertisements). These services are even integrated in apps like UberSocial and Tweetdeck. …
Twitter is about Delivering the Message in 140 CharactersRead More »
Tweetbot, according to the developers, is an iPhone Twitter client with a lot of personality. And personality, indeed, it is full of. From its first release, the Tweetbot app significantly defines what a quality app is — what is value for money in the mobile app world.
I don’t want to delve into much details on what this app can do or how can it be so different from the other Twitter iPhone clients. Instead, …
The problem with free services like Twitter is that they’re made available — without limitations — free to spammers as well. Spammers who have products to sell, paid to spam in order to promote a product, or are simply there to annoy the hell out of every legit users.
Marco explains Twitter can put in place a system that either can be aggressive or passive against these spammers and how they respond to spam reports by users. And he suggests, and I do believe, Twitter most likely is taking the latter approach.
We don’t know the algorithm used by Twitter in order to tag an account permanently as spam. But let’s say it’ll take 100 user reports before the team actually takes action. Not all users, SADLY, (and they can even amount to a lot!) are even proactive in reporting those spammers.
The result — the “Report for Spam” function doesn’t seem to exist as we, the active and legitimate users, are always bombarded by spam.
I quote Marco’s conclusion:
In the meantime, I’m never using the “Report Spam” feature again, because it just seems like I’m wasting my time.
In order for the many to enjoy a spam-free service, we all should cooperate in reporting those spammers. And Twitter could do some more intensive work against those useless scumbags.
As early as April this year, Twitter announced that it will drop third party applications’ authentication other than OAuth to connect to Twitter, and it happened in September 1, 2010. That means that authentication methods like keying in your username and password will not work anymore.
The OAuth method means that in order to use a desktop, mobile or online application to interface with Twitter, you will need to click a link that will bring you to the Twitter page (see sample screenshot below) to authorize the connection.
Examples of desktop applications are Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Twhirl, etc. Examples of online applications are Twitter on Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitpic, and even the various WordPress plugins. For Mobile phone, well, there are different applications for each operating system (e.g., iOS, Android, BlackBerry’s RIM, Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc.).
I have read or heard from various blogs about Twitter’s absolute use of OAuth authentication. But I ignored it, thinking that I don’t develop twitter applications and so that should really be least of my concerns.
Until now, when I found out that I couldn’t use my Twitter app for Windows Mobile, Twikini, anymore.
Twikini is a Windows Mobile client for Twitter. It’s actually one of my favorite WinMo Apps that I paid $4.95 for it to the developers, Trinket Software. It’s lean and fast, just as the developers describe:
FAST! Unlike other Twitter apps for Windows® Mobile, Twikini is written entirely in native C++ code for maximum performance and the fastest load time possible.
The software I paid for comes with free future upgrades, should there be any. Actually, without further upgrades, that latest version of Twikini I installed was already fully functional in its own right. There were a few bugs but ignorable, which usually only occur when there are connection issues.
However, starting September 1, I discovered I couldn’t open Twikini anymore, and it kept asking for my Twitter login credentials. I supplied the correct username and password –yes, but nothing is doing right. Then I read around and it has got to be because of Twitter’s new authentication policy.
And the worst thing about it is Trinket Software already stopped updating the software for my version (6.5) of Windows Mobile.
Now, ain’t that great? I paid for a software thinking it comes cheap for a fully functional Twitter application, when it was actually worthless to begin with. I felt like I was robbed by Twinket Software with a few dollars by selling me trash.
Yet, at the end of the day, Twikini stopped working to connect to Twitter in Windows Mobile. Who’s really to blame?
On one hand is Twinket Software, the developer of Twikini, for reasons discussed above. On the second is Twitter for dropping authentication methods other than Oauth. The third and the last, Windows Mobile, for being abandoned by users and application developers alike.
Here’s another great reason why you should love and totally switch (if you haven’t yet) to Gmail. They’ve recently rolled out their newest service, the Google Buzz. (By the way, Google is gradually rolling out Buzz to everyone, so if you don’t see it in your Gmail account yet, check back soon.)
It’s basically like Twitter, but actually better. It allows comments, likes, email. It resides right within your Gmail web interface. All you need is a Gmail account. Of course, your friends should be using Gmail the same in order for you to share thoughts, quotes, links, photos, and videos with each other.
Photos and videos are displayed inline, so you don’t have to open another window or tab. Sharing can be done publicly (and displayed to your Google profile page) or privately to a group of people or close friends only.
Comments get sent right to your inbox so it’s easy to keep up with the conversation. Of course, you can mute a certain thread in case you find your inbox full of non-sense.
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Gmail Rolls Out Google Buzz; Check Out What’s in Store For EveryoneRead More »