Twitter is a social networking service that can be useful to just about anyone if it is used properly.  Even if you don’t want to interact with anyone (which is a major aspect), you can utilize Twitter in other ways. There are several services or bots that you can follow that perform all kinds of functions.  I have listed some of the services that I have used, currently use and would like to use.

News Services

BreakingNewsOn – Good breaking news service
breakingtweets – Good breaking news service
Twitter_Tips – Great tips and tricks for using Twitter
evernote – News, tips and tricks for my favorite note-taking software
googlemaps – News, tips and tricks for Google Maps
google – News, tips and tricks for Google
wordpressdotcom – News, tips and tricks for the WordPress blog platform
echoalert – News and podcast for fans of the series Dollhouse
heroespodcast – News and podcast for fans of the series Heroes

Bots and Tools

trackthis – Very cool service in which you can Direct Message a tracking number.  It will DM you back each time the tracking timeline is updated. I tested this with a UPS package and it worked flawlessly
stackalert – Great service for developers. Interacts with Stackoverflow.com
myen – I like this service so much that I wrote a blog post on it recently. Interacts with Evernote.
timer – Reminder service. Direct message with “45 Call Bob”  and in 45 min you will get a reminder to call Bob. (This service works ok, not quite as well as I had hoped)

Note: Have not tried the following as they have not followed me back, which is required to make the service work. They sound interesting.

gCal – Enables you to add events to your Google Calendar via Twitter
Tipr – Allows you to Direct Message an amount and the percentage you want to tip and it replies to you with the tip amount.
forecast – Allows you to Direct Message a zip code and it replies back with the forecast for that area.

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Related Posts

• 10 Most Useful Twitter Bots List
• Twitter Fan Wiki – Bots
• 10 Bots to Help You Get the Most From Twitter

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Until later….

I have been using Twitter for about a year now and have found it invaluable for learning, keeping up with current events and connecting with like-minded people.  I follow a combination of Application Developers, Technologists, Sci-Fi/Horror fans and Houston-area people.  Being a programmer, it has been a great source of information for my profession. One day I posted a question asking what are some good books on WPF and received several replies from other programmers. In return, I try to post links to blogs and articles that I find interesting in the hopes that it will help or amuse someone else.

Below are some of the best articles on Twitter I have run across lately:

• Why Twitter Is More Than Just Tweeting – Jeff Blankenburg
• A Minimalist’s Guide to Using Twitter Simply, Productively, and Funly – Leo Babauta (Zen Habits)
• How to Get Things Done with Twitter – Leo Babauta (Zen Habits)
• SQLServerPedia Twitter Page
• Top 50 Twitterers to Follow for Developers – Jurgen Appelo
• FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter – Atherton Bartelby
• Adding More Info to Your Twitter Profile – Brent Ozar
• Kevin Rose: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers – Tech Crunch

My Twitter Profile

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Happy Tweeting!

One of the best things to do to set a goal is to tell people about it and what better place to do that than a blog or Social Network.  I am still thinking about my goals, but below are a few examples of  people who have posted their goals for the world to see.

• Using Outlook to Help Achieve Your Personal & Business Goals Part I – Misty Khan
• Using Outlook to Help Achieve Your Personal & Business Goals Part II – Misty Khan
• How I am becoming a better developer, part 1 of infinity – Justice Gray
• Being a Better Developer… in 6 months – Bil Simser
• What I’m doing to become a better programmer – IglooCoder

As I said above, I am still thinking about my goals, but I do use Twitter to post when I go to the gym…it a makes me feel accountable, so hopefully, I will do it more.
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Another benefit of blogs and Social Networks is the learning aspect.  I follow people on Twitter that I think I will learn from.  It is my main reason for using it.

The other day I posted an article showing how to transfer the column headings from a SQL Server query result to Excel.  Someone had just shown me how to do it that day, so I thought I would share what I had learned.  I had a comment on that blog entry that gave me a much easier way to do the same thing.  This is what I mean by learning.  I took that knowledge back to the person in which I learned the original way.  I also posted another article with the easier way and gave credit where credit was due.

In closing, Blogging and Social Networks allow normal everyday people to learn and achieve goals.  I truly believe you do not have to be a professional blogger to reap the benefits.

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Happy learning and goal setting!!!

I attended the Pearland/Friendswood/Clear Lake Twitter Meetup yesterday at Gringo’s in Pearland.  This is the first time I have ever gone somewhere to meet a bunch of people I do not know.  Yes I knew them from Twitter, but face to face meetings are different being the shy person that I am.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I met people who have a lot of the same interests as myself.  After all we are all just geeks in the end. Right?

Here are the people I met and their Twitter pages/Blogs:

Jim Thomson – Twitter :: Blog
Matthew Eernisse – Twitter :: Blog
Gini Reed – Twitter :: Flickr
Imelda Bettinger – Twitter :: Blog

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Here are the people that we missed due to bad cell phone reception inside the restaurant:

Ed Truitt – Twitter :: Blog
Shawn – Twitter
Sandra Fernandez – Twitter :: Blog

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All in all, I had a great time and will definitely try to attend more meetups in the future.