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Why You Should Pownce on Rejaw

Image representing Pownce as depicted in Crunc...
Image by via CrunchBase

Six Apart recently purchased Pownce, shut it down, and scrapped it for parts. Their blog says Welcome Pownce Team, so the users of the Pownce service need to find another place to be accepted. The Pownce service will officially shut down on December 15th, according to The Pownce Blog.

It’s very unfortunate that Pownce users are being left out in the cold, but I offer a solution: Rejaw. There are a million micro-blogging alternatives out there. Let’s review:

  • Twitter – No videos, no photos, no audio, no media at all, period. No threaded conversation.
  • Identi.ca – Same issues as Twitter. It’s just not anywhere near what Pownce is.
  • FriendFeed – A truly awesome service. My home on the web. You can import all types of media, but it will usually only display if imported via RSS. Some people have also found FriendFeed to be a bit overwhelming at first glance.

What is Rejaw?

Rejaw is a new way to communicate in real-time with friends, family, and co-workers. You can shout messages to your followers, or whisper to your friends. Monologue or dialogue, micro-blog or status update, soliloquy or dialectic – how you use Rejaw is up to you.

You can also add links to images and audio within your shouts and they can be automatically embedded within your message. Threads build around each item or Shout posted. The interface updates automatically via AJAX, always showing you the most active discussions. The Whisper feature allows you to send private messages to individuals and groups.

Rejaw Tools

The Rejaw web interface is also the primary client. It provides you access to all features and updates in real time. There are also other tools available to access Rejaw:

Rejaw Radar

Rejaw Radar is a desktop application for Mac that keeps you up-to-date with the latest shouts, whispers and replies on Rejaw.

Rejaw for iPhone

Rejaw for iPhone is a simple, fast iPhone client that allows you to keep up-to-date with the latest shouts, whispers and replies on Rejaw.

There is also a Google Gadget, a Firefox Plugin and more available on Rejaw tools page.

You Can’t Lose

Maybe you lost a good service and I’m sure there isn’t a true replacement out there, but Rejaw may be an excellent substitute. Check it out. You can use it to send stuff to your friends. If you’re looking for people to follow, most of these guys rock.

Rejaw would also like to offer some support in making sure you retain your data from Pownce:

We would like to support Pownce import- if you have a Pownce export file, and you want to help us out, please forward it to support [at] rejaw.com, so that we can decipher the file format. Thanks! –(original shout)

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5 Easy Ways to Explain Twitter Without the Geek Garbage

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

It seems like a lot of us tech people find it hard to explain the tools we use on a regular basis. I don’t think the problem lies with how complex our tools are. The problem is that, as geeks, we usually make things too complicated. I’m definitely guilty of this and those close to me point it out all the time.

It’s like trying to explain what a computer does by starting with how microchips work. Who cares about all that? Normal people just want to know how something benefits them. How can it fit into their lives? Nobody cares how a microwave works, they just know it makes food hot. Nobody cares what HD really means, they just know it makes sports look really good and allows you to see how many people on TV actually wear make-up.

Now, here are 5 easy scenarios that you can use to explain Twitter to regular people:

1. It’s a way to let your friends know what you’re doing all at the same time

Let’s say you decide to have a little get-together. You could call all your friends individually, you could email them, you could even text each one. With Twitter, all you’d have to do is send one status update and all your friends will see it immediately. They could even respond to let you know they will be there.

None of this has to involve direct contact with a computer because Twitter supports SMS. You could be handling all the initial preparations right from your cell. No making fifty calls to give out directions, tell who to bring what or any of that mess.

2. It’s a way to ask your friends a question

You’re watching TV and you can’t remember the name of this actor, it’s driving you nuts. You’re pretty sure one of your friends knows, so you update your Twitter status:

Hey, anyone know the name of the black guy on House? Total brain fart.

Pretty soon, someone sends you a reply, reminding you that it’s Omar Epps.

3. It’s a way to share important news

You hear breaking news about a tornado sighting. Your kid’s team just won the playoff game. Kroger has 2-liter bottles of Coke 10 for a dollar. You just ate the tastiest mango you have ever had in your life! Whatever the scenario, you can let everyone know what’s going on immediately my sending out one simple update.

4. It’s a way to get important news

In the same way that you can quickly share news with others, you can get news updates. Not only can you get news updates from your friends, but you could actually follow CNN, MSNBC, BBC or maybe your local news network. Whatever you want to know about, there is probably a reliable source for it on Twitter and you can listen in and stay up-to-date.

5. It’s a way to strengthen relationships with those you care about

My family is pretty much scattered across the US. It’s even sometimes hard to stay in touch with local friends and family. Sometimes, you don’t have time to reach out and touch someone. You know you want to stay in contact, but maybe you don’t do small talk too well or you just don’t enjoy discussing the weather. Maybe you know people who gossip too much and you don’t want to deal with it, but you still want to stay close because they are your family.

Twitter allows you to maintain that connection with loved ones, without all the bells and whistles. You don’t have to talk to them directly to remain connected and stay in touch. You keep track of their updates, they keep track of yours. You maintain a bond with minimal effort. If you so choose to have a discussion, the option is always there. This may sound like an impersonal solution, but what’s the alternative? Falling out of touch with those you actually care about?

Conclusion

These are just a few examples to maybe spark a fire in your mind. Those of us familiar with social media tools often struggle to explain them. They don’t end up getting used by the general public because we can’t even tell the general public what the point is. It almost boils down to one of the most basic rules of sales:

Features tell, benefits sell

Stop trying to describe tech tools by gushing about how scalable they are, how clean the website is, what random tech blogger guy is behind it. Nobody cares about any of that. All they want to know is what will it do to increase the quality of their life.

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A Plea to Fellow FriendFeeders

As many of you already know, I’m not a Twitter fan. There are many reasons why that is and none of them actually matter at this point because I have been trying to change my mind about it. You may have seen me around (@rahsheen). I decided that extending and remaining connected to my network of friends and associates online was far more important than any reason I had for avoiding Twitter.

Now, most of the people I have decided to follow on Twitter are people I was already subscribed to on FriendFeed, which is really my primary place of residence when it comes to online communities. Recently, FriendFeed added the ability to dump your stream directly into Twitter. This is the issue that me and you need to discuss.

Please, for the love of all that is geeky, stop dumping all of your FriendFeed stream into Twitter. Wait! Wait! Hear me out. Allow me to explain:

Twitter was not designed to be what it is today. It was to be something much simpler and people found more exciting ways to use it. We all know how that turned out. Now, FriendFeed has basically given each of it’s users a cannon to blast away at Twittter’s weak infrastructure and unsuspecting community. Most of those poor Tweeters have no clue what’s going on.

Back when I was active on IRC and dinosaurs roamed the earth, anyone who posted several messages in a row was considered to be flooding and would probably be booted from the channel, immediately. Now, if it’s impolite to flood an interactive live chat, why would it be ok to flood Twitter? You barely have the ability to scroll back.

We are burying everyone’s updates with truncated FriendFeed items.

Are you really adding value for your followers?

I just figured I would put this out there because I’ve seen a few people drop so many consecutive updates it looked like they were the only person I followed, and they weren’t even using Twitterfeed. Think about your strategy before you open the floodgates between services. Your audience will thank you for it.

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Ask Rahsheen: How Can I Recieve Texts Without Giving Up My Phone Number?

SMS message received on a Motorola RAZR wirele...
Image via Wikipedia

Hello Rahsheen,

I just read your post on Twitter and it sparked an idea. I’m a dj and I often get requests for songs. I was wondering if there is a way to use Twitter so that people could text their request to me. 
The immediate questions that pop up:

Would the person texting have to have a Twitter account?
Is there a way to set up a private twitter so that these aren’t on the main timeline and I get notified when their directed to me?
Is twitter the right route? Is there something better?
Is this even possible? 

I own an iPhone if that helps. My main goal is to be able to communicate with people while I’m in the booth and make their listening experience better. A great by product of this would be collecting people’s information (cell or email) so that I can populate a list so that I can send dates and venues. Any ideas? All and any help is appreciated!

So, we have a few things here to consider:

  1. Anonymous: We want to recieve messages to our phone from members of our audience, without giving out our phone number
  2. List-building: We would like to capture contact info during this process so that we can keep our audience updated
  3. Simple Texting: Users should be able to text their requests and, this isn’t specified, but we want to make this process as simple as possible

I’ll lay out a few options I found and, if you were looking for a similar solution, you may find something that clicks.

Twitter

The most obvious solution is to use Twitter’s Direct Messaging feature. You would link your phone number to your Twitter account and set it up so that you at least receive DM’s via SMS. 

Process

  • User sends a text “follow + <your username>” to 40404 (which is the shortcode for the US, find the code for your country here). This should sign the user up to Twitter if they don’t have an account already and follow you in one go. They are now one of your Twitter contacts. 
  • Now the user texts there requests using the proper format: “d + <your username> + message“.

Notes

  • We’ve got (1) covered, as long as you don’t mind receiving DM’s on Twitter
  • In order to fulfill (2), we have to rely on the user to actually follow us 
  • The user will have to remember the proper syntax to text a Direct Message “d + user + message”. If they mess it up, you will never see the message. So, (3) is covered, but it’s not as simply as we’d like.

Email

April linked me to a Lifehacker article on recieving text messages without revealing your phone number. You simply create a Gmail account that forwards all mail to your cellphone’s email address. T-Mobile users would have an address like 4045551212@tmomail.net, for example. 

Notes

  • We’ve got (1) covered here, since the user won’t see your actual phone number
  • (2) should also be covered…kinda. We may be able to see the user’s phone number and cellular email address.
  • (3) is kinda tricky. This solution assumes your audience can send a text message to an email address. There are carriers and plans that do not support this. Even some phone models don’t allow it.

Drop.io

Chris and Ian both mentioned Drop.io as a solution. It’s probably one of the most awesome services I’ve come across. 

Process

  • Create a drop and distribute the email address for it. You may also choose to distribute the phone number for the drop so users can leave you a voicemail, or you can simply provide the URL for the drop.
  • You can choose to be alerted a few different ways when user’s add notes to the drop, including Twitter and SMS.

Notes

  • (1) is definitely covered here. We can actually choose to recieve updates via Twitter or Direct SMS.
  • (2) is problematic because I believe the drops are anonymous. I haven’t into the internals, but it doesn’t appear that Drop.io will tell you who sent what.
  • Drop.io doesn’t have a shortcode or phone number available to send SMS messages to, so you run into the same issues as with the Email solution above as it pertains to (3).
  • Even though you have to rely on the SMS gateway, there are features of Drop.io that are pretty amazing and it’s definitely worth a look.

Widget

We also have the option of having users send us a message via a widget on our website. Mona mentioned this one, to me and Google told me that txtDrop.com will help me set it up. You simply go there, create your widget, then stick it on your website.

Notes

  • (1) is definitely covered, the user will not be aware of your actual phone number
  • (2) and (3) are a wash with this solution. You won’t be able to capture contact info and users won’t be able to text directly from their phone or even send an email. 

The End

This is obviously not a comprehensive list. There are many services that can help with this problem as well as a million ways to mix and match the solutions provided. Tiffany mentioned that you can even buy your own shortcode from the Common Short Code Administration.

How would you set this up? Can you think of a better solution? Let me know in the comments.

 

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5 Ways to Use Ubiquity for Getting Things Done

Ubiquity is a new Firefox add-on that attempts to fix problems with the usability of the web. Developers and users alike can extend the web as they see fit. It allows you to control the web using regular language.

With search, you type what you want to find. With Ubiquity, you type what you want to do.

Here are a few ways that this new Firefox add-on can help you get things done and boost your productivity.

Schedule an Appointment

You can easily add an event to your Google Calendar using the add-to-calendar command. Simply describe your task in plain english:

add-to-calendar lunch with Louis and Scoble on Thursday

Check Your Calendar

Make sure you’re available for upcoming events with the check-calendar:

check-calendar thursday

Fire Off an Email

Sometimes I keep Gmail open in case I need to send an email real quick, but that’s no good for staying focused and on task. Ubiquity gives us the email command to make the process easier. Send a quick message by specifying a message and a contact from Gmail:

email Rahsheen is an awesome musician. Check him out. to Diddy

You can also select text and images from the page you’re on and do something like:

email this to Kyle

Add a Task to Remember The Milk

Being somewhat of a Remember The Milk fanatic, the first thing I looked for was a way to add tasks to my list. Google led me to this command:

rtm Finish mixing new song

Send a Message on Twitter

It’s possible that some people use Twitter to accomplish things besides broadcasting when they create a new blog post. For those people, you can use Ubiquity to send a tweet like this:

twitter I just ate a mango

Tying it All Together

Visit Mozilla Labs for an Introduction to Ubiquity. I recommend watching the video first. It doesn’t really make sense until you see it in action.

All of the commands above are included with Ubiquity except for the Remember The Milk command, which you can find in the Ubiquity Wiki. You’ll also find a plethora of other commands for your perusal.

Installing new commands is as simple as visiting a web page once you have the add-on installed.

Are you already using Ubiquity to increase your productivity? Tell me about it.

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How I Keep Up With Identi.ca, FriendFeed, Twitter, Kwippy, and Rejaw

This is quick video showing how I keep track of multiple micro-blogging services using Pidgin, Launchy, and Ping.fm. I basically send everything via Ping.fm and recieve everything via IM.

One thing I forgot to mention here is that I can also “post” to Twitter from TwitterSpy (which I mentioned in a previous post).

How I Keep Up With the Micro-Blogosphere–>

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Cross-Posting Etiquette: A Few Ways To Stay Connected

Everywhere At Once

Welcome, StumbleUpon users! Don’t forget to subscribe.

Ok, now that we understand the evils of posting across multiple services, let’s talk about the basic ways we can go about keeping track of these services.

The main issue with cross-posting using services like Ping.fm and Hellotxt is that you’re not actually engaging with people, you’re just using their time-line as your own personal billboard. I’m pretty sure this is detrimental to your personal brand.

If you don’t care about your personal brand, let’s just say it makes you look like a total noob.

There are 3 simple ways that you can interact with a micro-blogging service short of visiting the website. There may be other ways, but I choose these because I actually use most of them on a daily basis.

Instant Messaging

Identi.ca has full IM support

You can send and receive all your updates via IM. Simply login to http://identi.ca and go to Settings->IM, then follow the directions.

Kwippy provides alerts via IM

Kwippy will IM you when you recieve new comments, private message and various other things you might want to know. To set it up, login to Kwippy and visit your dashboard. The first thing you see should be the instructions for activating IM support.

TwitterSpy pretty much replaces Twitter’s IM functionality

Twitter is currently working feverishly to restore IM functionality. They also plan to implement a monetization strategy, completely fix the spam problem, and bring about peace in the middle east. Until their work is complete, you can use TwitterSpy.

Simply add ‘twitterspy@jabber.org’ to your GTalk buddy list. Typing “help” will give you a list of commands. Don’t worry about all that right now:

  • track @<username> (this will make sure you get your @replies)
  • twlogin <username> <password> (this logs you into twitter)
  • post <message> (now you can post to Twitter via IM….again)

For those who miss the “track” feature on Twitter: “help track”. (more info on TwitterSpy).

Email

Most services allow you to receive basic notices via email. Identi.ca does allow posting via email, but I don’t see a method to receive updates on any of the micro-blogging services I’m actually using.

That is not to say this isn’t possible. There are various hacks and services you could use such as TwitterMail and this one.  Those work (I guess) for Twitter. I’m pretty sure you could do something similar with Identi.ca. As for the others, I’m not sure.

SMS

Identi.ca supports SMS via Email

This means that you can receive your updates if your carrier has an Email<->SMS gateway. Most do. Just check the settings to see if your carrier is listed.

Twitter has full SMS support

I know this may come as a shock, but Twitter actually has SMS support. I believe it works pretty good. You should check it out.

Conclusions

Earlier, I read an account of one user’s Ping.fm usage and he brought an important point to light. I think the majority of issues come from mobile users.

It’s easy as hell to “Ping” from your phone. Ping.fm provides an interface for mobile phones and a specialized interface for iPhones.

Why is this a problem? Well, the cards are stacked against us! Ping.fm can already post to just about any service you can think of, then they support new services almost as soon as they’re released.

These micro-blogging services haven’t even had a chance to provide mobile users with a way to access their updates. So, we have a bunch of people running around Ping.fm’ing the crap out of us with no way to monitor our replies without actually visiting 4 or 5 different websites from their phone.

Bottom line is, it’s still your responsibility to be aware of your actions. Just because you’re holding a hammer, doesn’t mean everything is a nail. You know you’re not very active on certain services, so stop broadcasting to them.

If you are hell bent on trying to talk to everyone at once, you need to be just as passionate about being able to listen to everyone at once.

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Cross-Posting Etiquette: The Evils of Ping.fm and HelloTxt

Welcome, StumbleUpon users! Don’t forget to subscribe.

A little while ago, I did a post on using Ping.fm without spamming FriendFeed. This was followed up with a post by Andy DeSoto, where he talks about whether this Ping.fm cross-posting is saving time at the expense of others. Now, I know there are a lot of people in the social media community who are against etiquette and I totally understand where they are coming from. The problem is there are some things that you can do that make you look like a very bad and inconsiderate person.

There are people that I am really interested in following. I want to be aware of things going on with them. That’s why I follow them. I hate to see these people tarnish their image by abusing community technology tools. Social media is about being social. You have to listen as well as talk. Services like Ping.fm and HelloTxt are very powerful and can cause a lot of damage to this interaction in the wrong hands.

Using an ‘@’ symbol in Ping.fm

Are you serious? As Andy pointed out in his post, the ‘@’ is pretty specific to Twitter replies and doesn’t really translate to other services. Even in the rare case where you might be talking to a person who actually exists on two or more different services, why would you ‘@’ them on all of them? I don’t need to see your Twitter ‘@’ replies on Identi.ca. The person you’re talking to don’t live here and nobody can piece together what you’re talking about.

Your follower count is 0, Zero, Zilch

Are you broadcasting to a service where you are following 0? Nobody? Nadie? Why would you do this? I know I’m new here and all, but having a large number of followers and a low (nonexistant?) number of people you’re following is the mark of a spammer. I understand that you may not be active on every service, but come on. You didn’t even try. People may be interested in what you broadcast and then totally reversed once they see you are not listening.

You Never Check Your Updates

Have you ever received a call from an automated message? Annoying, isn’t it? If you are not available to speak to me live, why the hell did you call? I figure that most of us use Social Media to connect with others, but how are you doing this effectively if you don’t even respond when people try to engage with you? When you broadcast to a service, people expect that you are actually there. You are available for discourse. When you don’t respond, that leaves people with a bad impression.

Step Your Game Up

We can’t all be on every service all the time. It’s just not possible unless you’re a robot or you have some slick software yet to be released (I can haz beta key, please?). You have to set realistic goals for interacting with the community. It’s fine if you want to jump on every new service that comes out. Go ahead, play around with it. That’s what we do, right? Here are some basic guidelines to help you out:

  • Do not plug every service you have an account with into Ping.fm or HelloTxt just because
  • Do not make Ping.fm your primary method for using Twitter or any other specific service
  • Do not ever use Ping.fm to send an @reply. Period.
  • If you are not going to check a specific site at least once or twice a day, don’t broadcast there

Think about a person you would just love to have a discussion with. You have followed there blog or maybe heard them speak on a podcast. You would really like to get into this person’s head and here they are right in front of you! The problem is, no matter what you do to get their attention, they ignore you. They have a megaphone in hand and they are shouting at someone you can’t even see. Other people nearby are looking at this person like they’re crazy. Now, turn things around. Are you the nut job with the megaphone?

Stay Tuned

This post is not aimed at anyone in particular. I just felt compelled to share because I really hate running into situations where very interesting and intelligent people are misusing these services and probably don’t even know it. I took Plurk out of Ping.fm because I never go there. I dislike it immensely, so it would be wrong to continuously post there. Be considerate of others. This is a community, after all.

Far be it from me to call someone ashy without being able to provide a little lotion. There are many ways that you can make your life easier in keeping track of all these different micro-blogging services. I plan to share them with you at a later date, but this post has become entirely too long and I got updates to check.

Get the next installment here: Being Everywhere At Once

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Ping.fm: Updating Your Social Networks Without Spamming FriendFeed

Ping.fm is a service that allows you to send out updates of various types (status updates, blogs, micro-blogs) to multiple social networks. I have been using it for some time and my results have been mostly positive. This is not a tutorial on how to use it. After seeing the topic on numerous occasions (here, there, everywhere) and reading DeSoto’s “Must blogging be a balancing act?“, I decided to share my Ping.fm strategy to see what others think.

Why?

This is all about increasing my social networking influence. I want to interact with a diverse selection of people because I have diverse interests. Ping.fm allows me to keep all these different groups updated with whatever is going on with me. I can share new music I create, content I’ve written, whatever I choose and I can share it across multiple social networks. I want to learn from others and get their feedback on what I’m doing.

Updating all of your social networks from one place is definitely a time-saver, but it could also have the community thinking you are a spamming moron if done incorrectly. For instance, Most of the services supported by PIng.fm are also supported by FriendFeed, so you could potentially send one update and have it show up several times. This is usually not desirable. I say “usually” because some FF users actually advocate turning everything up to full blast and allowing the user to filter accordingly.

That solution is less than ideal for me. I really don’t want anyone to Hide any of my FriendFeed services because I haven’t really figured out how I’m going to organize them yet. I may duplicate content now, but that may very well change in the near future. So, I decided to devise an updating scheme that allows me room for more flexibility.

What?

Before we get into those details, it’s important to understand how each Ping.fm update type shows up on each social networking service you subscribe to, so here is a table describing a few:

Ping.fm Update Type Bebo Facebook Hi5 Identi.ca
Statuses Changes Status Scraps Dent
Blogs Blog n/a Blog n/a
Micro-Blogs n/a Status n/a Dent
Ping.fm Update Type LiveJournal MySpace Tumblr Twitter Xanga
Statuses Blog Status Blog Tweet Pulse
Blogs Blog Blog Blog n/a Blog
Micro-Blogs Blog n/a Blog Tweet Pulse

Yeah, I have Bebo, MySpace, and Hi5. Big Whoop. Wanna fight about it?

Using Ping.fm, I can actually stay active on networks that I don’t really visit any more than once a week. Here is how I decided to break everything down:

  • I will post full, original content here at SheenOnline. I will also post more personal or off-topic content on LiveJournal and/or Xanga. I haven’t really figured out how this will work yet.
  • The social networking sites that provide a blog service will get excerpts and links back to whichever blog has my full article. I also would like to send excerpts to LJ and Xanga which link to my posts at SheenOnline.
  • Obviously, Identi.ca and Twitter both get my statuses, but I’m mainly only watching for responses on Identi.ca at this point.
  • I have no idea what I’m going to do with Tumblr. I’m thinking I want to pipe everything I write online to Tumblr, but I haven’t researched how much of a pain that would be.

Now that we have a basic (hah!) Ping.fm strategy, how will this fit into FriendFeed? If I were to pipe all this directly in, I would post a total of around 4 items anytime I made a blog post and I don’t think my followers would appreciate that very much. Also, I don’t want any of my services to get hidden.

Services that post to FriendFeed:

  • Identi.ca – Center of my micro-blogging world 🙂
  • LiveJournal – “Personal” blog
  • SheenOnline – Primary blog

Services that didn’t make the cut:

  • Twitter – This would just end up being a duplicate, I rarely post here directly
  • Xanga – Not sure what will go here yet. Possibly nothing 🙂
  • Tumblr – This may end up aggregating just about everything, so definitely not needed for FF

Caveats and Notes

One of the main points of all this is to be able to link everything back to my primary blog here at SheenOnline. Here are the details I found out as far as linking and HTML go:

  • Bebo will make a link clickable automatically
  • Facebook does appear to convert a link properly for statuses
  • Hi5 handles HTML weird. I haven’t figured out reliably how it handles links
  • Identi.ca and Twitter handle links just fine (duh?)
  • LiveJournal converts your links
  • Myspace will convert your links and handles HTML
  • Xanga will handle HTML links

In order to explicitly create a blog post, you can either go to the Ping.fm website, or you can send the content via email (Settings->Edit Profile to find your posting address). By default, Ping.fm sends out a status message, so your email should be of the form:

  • @b <title>^<body>

Conclusion

Please keep in mind, this is not a step-by-step guide that you should follow. I am simply posting this to describe my thought processes surrounding how I leverage Ping.fm to maintain my online presence. Maybe you don’t subscribe to some of the stuff I do and you’re not trying to balance eleventeen blogs.

In a future post, I will talk about drinking from the firehose or “playing in the stream” as J. Phil puts it. If your efforts at connecting with others actually pan out, you will have a lot of incoming data to deal with.

How do you use Ping.fm? Do you use a different service for this? Tell me about it.

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…But by the Content of Their Character

Success is not based on who is following you on Twitter. Success is not based on how much traffic you get to your blog each day or how many people are subscribed to your RSS feed. Success is not the measure of how many people appear to be watching your content online. If this paragraph makes you frown in confusion, you most certainly need to read on because you are in need of some help.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Aug. 28, 1963

(Thanks to @boycaught for reminding me of the full quote)

This quote by Dr. King not only applies to race, but to any other insignificant or material characteristic of a person. You can’t judge yourself or anyone else based on the statistics surrounding your online presence. Darren even breaks it down into an equation for you and shows how detrimental it can be to your success.

In my post, A Leader Doesn’t Care What You Think, I give a few examples of some characteristics that most leaders share. The overall idea is that someone who is successful, a leader, is one who is always looking ahead. These are people that are always trying to learn from those smarter than themselves.

Is Scoble a success because he has the entire Social Media Militia following him, or are they following him because he often leads to something new and interesting?

Scoble has said on a few different occasions that he seeks to talk to someone interesting and/or learn something new everyday. He doesn’t base his life on what others think about him. This is the attitude you should have if you want to have anything close to the status and respect he has.

Just recently, Twitter users lost huge numbers of their followers and the community was (still is, actually) in an uproar. Their ability to broadcast to hundreds and thousands of listeners was taken away. Cyndy is actually depressed that some Social Medialites are more focused on broadcasting than actually having a conversation, while Corvida writes that this is a golden opportunity to reach out and expand your horizons.

These ideas extend well beyond the realm of the Social Media community, past “The Internets”, and right into your own home:

  • You are not the center of the universe
  • You must become a comet, a moving target
  • No one can follow you if you’re standing still
  • No one will even notice you

Make sure you are not so full of yourself that you can’t take  in anything new. Allow yourself to grow. People will start to listen to you. Your prestige will rise. The followers, the traffic, and all the numbers that some obsess over will eventually follow suit.

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Remember The Milk: Posting Directly from Your Desktop

In a recent post, we talked about 6 Ways to Add A Task to Remember The Milk. While the methods discussed were varied and useful, I was not satisfied with any of them. This post will show you another quick method to handle this.

I have very simple criteria for being able to add tasks to my ToDo list:

  • It must be quick
  • It must not disturb my current work flow
  • It must be reliable

I had almost satisfied all of these using the solution involving Launchy, Curl, and Twitter. Launchy is probably the fastest desktop launcher available for Windows. So the procedure went like this:

  • Launchy pops up instantly when I hit ALT+Space
  • I type in “rtm<TAB>Task Description<ENTER>” (rtm is just a batch file in my path)
  • The task is added to my Remember The Milk Inbox list via Twitter

If we review the last item on my list of criteria, we see that our posting method needs to be reliable. Well, Twitter shouldn’t even be in the same sentence. I have actually been burned before using this setup, as you can read about in my post How Twitter Keeps Me from Getting Things Done.

So, how do we make it better? I had to find a way to get Twitter out of the picture. If you recall, You can add tasks to Remember The Milk via email. All I needed was a way to shoot off an email to RTM from within Launchy. Problem solved, right? Well…not really. GMail apparently makes this slightly more complicated.

This is about to get pretty technical, but I will try to break it down as simple as I can. If I don’t do a good job, please leave a comment and I will be happy to help 🙂

Download, Install, and Configure “Stunnel”

We need Stunnel so that we can communicate with the Gmail server securely. From the website:

Stunnel is a program that allows you to encrypt arbitrary TCP connections inside SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) available on both Unix and Windows.

So, here is what we need to do:

  • Download Stunnel from the Binaries Page. The version I used is 4.25 (direct download link)
  • Run the installer and hit “Close” once complete
  • Now, edit C:\Program Files\stunnel\stunnel.conf
  • Replace the “Service Options” section with the following:

[SMTP Gmail]
accept = 127.0.0.1:1099
connect = smtp.gmail.com:465

[POP3 Gmail]
accept = 127.0.0.1:1109
connect = pop.gmail.com:995

  • From the same directory, run the command “stunnel -install”
  • Then run the command “net start stunnel”

Download, Install, and Configure “Blat”

We need Blat so that we can send email right from the command line.

Blat is a Win32 command line utility that sends eMail using SMTP or post to usenet using NNTP.

  • Get Blat from here: http://www.blat.net/
  • Open the archive and stick “blat.exe” into C:\Windows\System32\ or somewhere else in your path
  • Run the command: blat -install smtp.gmail.com yourusername@gmail.com

Configure Launchy

You already have Launchy, right? If not, you are probably not working very efficiently, you are on a MAC, or both. Go ahead and fire it up now.

  • Open Launchy’s Options dialog (click the gear), go to Plugins and click Runner.
  • Hit the “+” button to add a new command
  • Enter something nifty for the Name (“rtm”, maybe?)
  • In the Program field, Enter the path to the Blat executable: C:\Windows\System32\blat.exe
  • In the Arguments field, Enter the following:

– -body ” ” -subject “$$” -to [Your unique RTM Email Address] -u [Gmail Username] -pw [Gmail Password] -f [Your Gmail Address] -server 127.0.0.1:1099

  • Hit “Ok,” we’re done here

Make sure you include the preceding “-” and the space between the quotes for the body argument. To find your unique Remember The Milk email address, login to RTM and go to Settings->Info. You want the Inbox Email Address.

Conclusion

Now, you can hit ALT+Space (or whatever key you have it set to), type “rtm<TAB>task<ENTER>” and you have just added a task to Remember The Milk without even breaking stride.

Being able to quickly dump tasks/ideas out of your head and into your organization system of choice is pretty important. Without doing this, you will never get anything done because you won’t ever know what to do.

More often than not, you are going to be in the middle of something when an idea strikes you for something else that you need to capture. As we all know, if you get interrupted, it takes about 10 minutes or so to find your place and get back into the groove.

This is why I have been so anal about this specific facet of my system. I don’t believe there is a faster way, short of direct brain-to-computer communication, to capture your thoughts to your to-do list.

How do you make sure you can capture things at all times? Do you have a better method than me? I’d like to hear about it. Leave me a comment.

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Super-Charge Remember The Milk Part Deux

In the first part of my Super-Charge Remember The Milk series, we discussed a method of organizing and processing tasks based on a simple system using Tags and Smart Lists. After reading the post, my mother pointed out two important facts:

  1. I spelled “Super-Charge” wrong
  2. She had no clue WTF I was talking about and she has a CS degree

Since I would like my blog to be understood and helpful to all, I would like to extend my apologies to anyone I managed to confuse (sorry mom). In this installment, I will start off first with a brief introduction to “Getting Things Done” (GTD) and “Remember The Milk” RTM.

This post is the first in a series on Super-Charging Remember The Milk including:

What is Getting Things Done (GTD)?

Don’t worry, we’re not going to get too in-depth here as my good friends over at Black Belt Productivity have already provided an awesome primer with videos. Just to give you a very quick overview:

“It’s possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things
to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive
sense of relaxed control.” — David Allen

  • GTD is a book written by David Allen
  • It allows you to get organized by following very basic steps
  • It keeps you from being forced to remember things
  • It makes sure you are moving toward your life goals
  • According to David Allen, a Context describes the tool, location or person that is required to be able to complete an action. We have been starting our tags with “@” to show that it’s a Context.

What is Remember The Milk (RTM)?

Remember The Milk is an awesome To-Do list application. You can access it from their site at http://rememberthemilk.com. Go ahead, sign up for an account. I’ll wait.

…

All set? Good. Not only is RTM an awesome To-Do list, but it’s flexibility allows you to take care of most of your GTD needs from one place. This makes staying organized even easier.

The two primary features that we’ve discussed so far are Tags and Smart Lists. Here are a couple of definitions from the RTM FAQ:

What Are Tags?

Tags are like keywords or labels that you can add to a task to make it easier to find and organize later. For example, you can tag a task with ‘phone’, and then later when you’re looking for tasks that require phone calls, you can just click on that tag and see all the tasks that have been tagged that way.

What Are Smart Lists?

Smart Lists are special lists that are created based on criteria that you define, and are automatically updated as your tasks change.

RTM and…Twitter?

Now we have RTM set up quite nicely. You have tagged your Tasks, your Smart Lists have automatically organized your Projects and Contexts. You can easily view your Context lists to see what you should be doing Right Now.

One of the basic ideas regarding GTD is that your system has to be portable. You have to be able to track what you’ve completed and also store those important tasks and ideas that pop into your head at any given moment.

You could print out your To-Do list. RTM provides a nifty feature for you to do so, but that is so booooooring! Who uses paper anymore. Even the Gen X guys would probably frown on that solution. So we have two options:

The second option works great for me because I don’t have the web on my phone (long story). There are other features of accessing Twitter this way that we’ll discuss later. In order to get this set up, just go here and follow the directions.

Now, you can communicate with RTM with Direct Messages on Twitter. This means that you will definitely Remember The Milk the next time you happen to be in the grocery store.

Here are a few more examples of talking to RTM via Twitter:

  • Add a Task – “d rtm Subscribe to SheenOnline.Biz”
  • Get Tasks due today – “d rtm !today” (shortcut: !tod)
  • Get Tasks related to your “Blog” project – “d rtm !gettag .blog” (shortcut: !gt)

What Does This Have To Do With Your Cell Phone?

Well, I’m glad you asked! You can add your mobile phone as a “device” on Twitter. This allows you to send and receive Twitter messages via SMS (text messaging). This means you can now text a Direct Message to RTM to access your Tasks.

You will probably want to add Twitter to your contacts. The number is “40404”.

For more details on how to talk to RTM via Twitter, go back here.

But Wait! There’s More!

Well, not really. At least, not right now. There are a few other slick tricks you can do with this setup that I will discuss later. I think we have covered enough for today and the longer I talk, the more incoherent I may become.

A few things to consider with this setup:

  • If Twitter is down, it obviously all goes to hell in gasoline draws
  • Adding a task via Twitter doesn’t allow you to properly tag it, so make sure you check your “Inbox” list or your “!” Smart List whenever you get back to a browser
  • Completing tasks via Twitter means you have to provide the entire name of the task, so don’t make your task names longer than they need to be.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Corrections? Let’s discuss in the comments. That’s what they’re for, after all.

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Make Sure Your Tweeps Know What The Bizness Is

I noticed I get a lot of Twitter updates regarding bloggers publishing new blog posts, so I figured there must be a WP pluging to do so. A quick search turned up Twitter Updater:

The Twitter Updater automatically sends a Twitter status update to your Twitter account when you create, publish, or edit your WordPress post. You can specify the text for the updates, and also have the option to turn the auto update on/off for the different post actions in the admin panel.

Follow the directions in the post and enter your Twitter username and password under ‘Manage->Twitter Updater’ in your admin panel. You will probably want to turn off updates for “New Post Created” and “New Post Edited” because those could result in some noise if you change your mind.

Read the full post here

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How Twitter Keeps Me From Getting Things Done

You probably think this article is about how much time I waste on Twitter. You probably think I’m going to lament about the long hours I spend Tweeting my Tweeps from Twhirl about how we gonna have a Tweetup or whatever. You got me all wrong.

You see, I recently learned all about Getting Things Done. I am horrible at organization, so finding such a simple system for getting it together was enlightening. I started emptying my GMail Inbox mutiple times a day (the Y key is your friend). I started actually putting events on my Google Calendar. I started dumping everything I needed to do into my new TODO list app, Remember The Milk.

I was able to interact with GCal and RTM right from my cell using SMS (I don’t have the web on my phone). I was also able to use a nifty application loader called Launchy to quickly add things to GCal or RTM without missing a beat (the details of this setup are here). All was right with the world. I was Getting Things Done.

What the hell does all this have to do with Twitter? Well, in order to interact with RTM and GCal so easily, I was piggybacking off of the Twitter service (this is actually how I was introduced to Twitter). There are two bots (gcal and rtm) on twitter that allow you to control each service. I had scripts that would use curl to pass messages to these bots directly from my app launcher. When Twitter went away, I had no way of knowing my scripts were failing.

Instead of adding items to my calendar or todo list, I was just throwing them away into oblivion. This is definitely the opposite of Getting Things Done. Now, I am in the process of coding my own apps to make sure this never happens again. RTM has an open API. Just my sad story about Twitter. You probably don’t care, but the recovery is always in the telling.

Has some nifty web 2.0 app wronged you somehow? Tell us about it.