Ok it's far from breaking news that Twitter has been having some issues. I will not waste my time complaining about how they need to step up their efforts this that and the other. What I will do is support them. Why? Well to be honest I haven't found a single alternative that comes close, and let's be honest who wants to lose all of their good friends on Twitter by switching to another service. I know I have a great group of followers I communicate with on a daily basis, and I don't want to jeopardize that.

Over the past few day's there has been a lot of tweets from people saying they are fed up. I can see their point however I choose to support rather than complain. To be honest my Twitterstream has taken a hit as well. I can see many people simply not updating as much as they used too.

The only issue I have right now is the support of IM not being there. This pretty much makes Twitter hard to use for me, due to the fact I can't keep up with replies to me as well. Just so you know Twitter, I will be here for the long haul. I just hope all of my followers will join me in this stance.

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jUploadr is a cross platform, cross-site photo uploader. It supports Windows, Linux, and Mac. It gives you the ability to easily set all properties of a photo before you upload it to Flickr.It also features batch editing, so you can upload a large amount of photos effortlessly.

Here are some features.

• Simple drag and drop interface. Just drop photos or folders of photos on the main window to add them.
• Edit photos individually or as a group.
• Fast, responsive UI
• Proxy support
• Allows editing of all Flickr photo metadata, not just privacy and tags
• PhotoSet creation on sites that support photosets
• Tag assistance, jUploadr downloads your tags for you and allows you to select them from a drop down menu rather than typing them in by hand.
• Multiple Accounts: jUploadr can authenticate and keep track of several accounts, allowing you to set your tags and descriptions once, and upload them to multiple sites

You can see screenshots here.

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Direct from the Firefox blog

Get ready to participate in the Firefox Screencast contest! This is your chance to use your talents and passion for Firefox to create support screencasts for the Firefox Support (SUMO) knowledge base on support.mozilla.com.

We have prepared a list of the top 100 most popular support articles from the SUMO knowledge base and ask YOU to create screencasts for one, two, three, or all of them! You can enter as many screencasts as you like. With 100 different articles, anyone can choose whatever article for which they would like to create a screencast.

Mozilla will not be hosting the videos during this contest, so please use a third-party application like Jing to record your screencast and send us the link so we can view it. Ever used Jing? Here's a great online demo. Click "Video Tour" on the front page to see how to use it���it couldn't be easier! Just download and begin recording!

All entries will be judged by a team who will look at the submissions and pick the best one for each of the 100 articles. That's 100 winners!!

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SO after a night full of mowing, packing, and cleaning I think I am finally ready to leave out for the camping trip. I am really glad I got the 12 acres mowed last night so I won't return to a grown up mess. As for all the camping gear, I am pretty sure everything is accounted for.

This morning was far from perfect. I had taken the Jeep top off last night to pack it up. After I was done the top was being a pain to put back up and it was dark. Needless to say I gave up and decided to do it this morning. I overslept so didn't get to put the top up, and it just happened to rain on my way to work. Half way to work I realized I needed gas. I hope I am getting all the bad things out of the way.

I am leaving work around 11 to get my oil changed, fill up the Jeep then head to the house and wait on Carrie to get off of school. As soon as she gets to the house our camping trip begins!

Once we leave I am pretty sure there will not be too much contact with the internets due to lack of cell coverage. If I don't hear from you all I hope you have a great and safe memorial weekend! I hope to get plenty of pictures and video to share once we get back! See you all late Monday or Tuesday!

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This is coming in directly form the folks at Evernote.



EVERNOTE BETA UPDATE: More exciting features



If you need an invite to Evernote, Leave a comment with your email address and I'll hook you up.

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After my previous post about FF and Greader received some great reactions I decided to give out another little tid bit. Some of the people that are using Google Reader are not aware that they have a great looking link blog at their disposal. Anytime you share an item it gets posted into your shared items feed made by Google.

This feature can be a great addition to your blog or even something you can share with your friends to let them follow what you find interesting across the web. A good example of the Greader's shared feed is mine which can be seen here. You can access the link to your link blog/shared item feed by clicking the shared items tab in GReader.

If you have any question please feel free to ask me, I will be glad to help!

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It's no secret; I am not a huge fan of FriendFeed. I take a lot of heat for this, but I have good reasons. Well, at least I think they are good reasons. I personally find FriendFeed too noisy for me. Yes it does have a lot of great information and great posts. However for every good link I find via FF there are 100 other non useful links I have to comb through.

This is where I am trying out a new idea. I am going to use Google Reader as my FF substitute. Yes, I know it's not even comparable. But with using the note feature and by having my Twitter peeps add me I can make it work pretty darn well. By building my contacts within GReader, I can get stories that they share. This is a big thing for me, not everything they read is in my stream only the articles or posts they found interesting enough to share.

So far me experimenting with this has worked pretty well. I still need more contacts, so please feel free to add me tw3nty3ight@gmail.com .

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Videorix is an advertising site that pays you to add a small still image ad to the beginning of your videos. I have been using their ads for a while now and I must say I am OVERLY pleased with the results.

In the 3 weeks or so I have used Videorix my account stands at $51. This is far more than I have made through any other ad supporting sites out there. The only downfall right now with them being fairly new, there isn't a large amount of opportunities to take, but they are adding more and more every day.

In closing I highly recommend using them as another resource for money making online. Let me know how it works for you!

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I am waiting..... What am I waiting for? Well, to be honest that is yet to be seen. I just want to see a new Web 2.0 based app that makes me think WHOA and has me immersed in it.

It's been a while since a Beta app, site or any app for that matter has wow'ed me. I want that streak to end soon. The last apps/sites that really had me submerged in them has been BrightKite, and Viddler. Now I am back on the withdraw wagon. I have searched and searched lately for some Beta stuff that I may have missed and have came up pretty much empty handed.

The closest I have gotten within the past few days way Panoramio. I know they have been around but i just recently discovered them. I would like to see if any of you out there are immersed into an interesting Web app or site out there I may not know about. If not, join my revolt and grab the Web 2.0 world's attention. I want to be woo'ed.

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I have these invites to spare. First come first serve. Just leave a comment with your email address.

BrightKite

Toluu

Evernote

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Toluu announced today that they now have support for Twitter, and also made the activity stream look better. Below is some excerpts from their announcement over at their blog.

"We have just launched Twitter integration and a redesigned activity stream. You can now connect with your Twitter account so every time you add a new feed to Toluu, via the site or the bookmarklet, your friends on Twitter can know what great taste in blogs you have. We have also redesigned the activity stream to make it more scannable and give the important information more breathing room. There is also a new tab system that allows you to switch between the recent activity of you and your contacts, but also see the activity happening across the entire Toluu universe."

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Hello there!

I am trying out a new idea for tw3nty3ight.com. I noticed alot of smaller blogs and sites of people I am close to across the net are always looking for cheap and easy ways to promote their site.

I wanted to introduce a new spot in my sidebar that I will have available for you to submit a 100 x 100 pixel banner for only $5 per month. If you would like to choose this option please email me at tw3nty3ight@gmail.com and we can make the arrangements.

I also offer a mini banner through Scratchback for only $2 / month. You can take advantage of this by clicking here.

Thanks again and I hope that I can help get you more traffic!

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This is going to be a list of some features or functions I would like added to some of my most used web apps. I can only hope one day they will be added and make my life easier.


BrightKite - I wish they would add the ability to comment on someones note or photo. I would also love to see them develop and app for the Blackberry. They recently added a great mobile address however. I will be using that rather than checking in via email which at times can be downright painstaking.

Viddler - I would like to see them add support to upload from your cellphone. I would also like to see them offer some sort of live streaming support. I just can't get along with Ustream, or Justin.tv.

Flickr - Come on guys, give us some mobile apps! I mean you guys have been in the game a good while now, and I still only have the option of a mobile site, and uploading/viewing photos like that is down right awful.

Panoramio - The tagging feature takes a bit to get used to, maybe a revamp? The user profiles leave a LOT to be desired, heck at least let me have a profile picture. There also needs to be a better friend feature acquired, as the favoriting a user just doesn't cut it.

Digg - Hey Kevin Rose, two things. Give me the ability to delete more than one shout at a time! Thats highly annoying. Also the comment tracking, or lack thereof is absolutely horrible. If I leave a comment I wanna know if someone responds without having to go to the particular Digg page itself.

Twitterberry- This BB application is awesome, BUT I can't use it solely yet. Why? Because I need alerts. I want to have it alert me when something I track is said, as well as replies to me. This keeps me going back to Google Talk. I also would like to be able to delete sent/received DM's.

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My favorite bookmarking extension for Firefox Shareaholic, has a new release available. In this release they bring the total to 18 supported services. The newest additions include the likes of Mixx, Google Reader, and Streakr just to name a few.

Shareaholic makes it a breeze for you to submit a page you're viewing to your favorite sharing or bookmarking service, including: digg, del.icio.us, facebook, friendfeed, google bookmarks, google reader notes, magnolia, mixx, reddit, stumbleupon, tumblr and twitter. You also have the option to e-mail the web page directly to a friend.

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The last few days I have been hooked on Panoramio. This site lets you upload your photos, and "Geotag" there location. I have been having fun taking pictures with the Blackberry and uploading them here. My main goal is to eventually have mine listed in Google Earth.

There is a wait for your photos to be approved but after approval they are listed and able to be seen when browsing Google Earth. I have actually seen some really great photos just playing around in Google Earth.

If you want to try something new, make sure to check out Panoramio.

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Disqus sent me the shirt off their back. Well not really, but you get the point. I love Disqus and now I have a spankin new shirt to show my support. Every since I installed the Disqus platform on tw3nty3ight.com I can honestly say I have been more than overly pleased.

When I first installed my new theme I had issues with Disqus comments showing. After a few emails to Daniel Ha, he had me back up and running. I will say this, Daniel is the man over there. He is always willing to help someone out personally with any problems. If you don't have Disqus yet, my question for you is why not?

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gReader Comments 4.1 adds Disqus commenting system to Google Reader. With this Firefox extension or the Greasemonkey script version this sweet little toll will let you comment using Disqus without having to leave Google Reader.

What's even better is any entries with any feed can be commented on regardless if the original site has Disqus integrated or not.

Remember you can either use the Greasemonkey script or the FF add-on.





A big thanks to Paul Arterburn for creating this script

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I was surprised when the FedEx man slid a package on my desk early Friday morning. I knew what was waiting inside, and I wanted to get my hands on it as soon as I could. It was my new Blackberry Curve, and a day earlier than I had expected!

Upon the un-boxing, my first impression was OMG it's a perfect size. The Curve seamlessly fits so snugly in your hand. Right off the bat I was excited. The size compared to the 8830 is a big difference. It's right between a Pearl and the 8830. The best thing about the size, you don't lose any screen size from the 8830.

The next thing I noticed was that the menu, and back buttons near the trackball are angled for a better feel. As for the other keys, this is my only complaint on this phone. The keys feel kinda cheap, they have a clunky plastic feel when your typing. Not a deal closer but still an annoyance for me.

The camera and video of this little guy is great, some awesome quality for sure. Another improvement I seen is it has a different browser. The Curve has a mouse pointer when using the browser, it feels so good I have stuck with the BB browser over Opera Mini. Some serious improvements in that area.

Overall the Curve is a great choice. Perfect size, a camera, and it has louder speakers than the 8830, which had some serious speaker volume issues. Looks like I have found a phone that will stick with me for at least a year!

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Kodak is now offering Digital Photo Frames preloaded with 100 of your own photos on SD card. It's not the usual 100 photos of generic pictures of landscapes or family photos of people you don't know. Now, when you choose a Digital Frame you can choose up to 100 photo's to be pre-installed. This is a great concept for a gift.

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Last.fm has launched PLAYGROUND. With Playground you can access experimental projects that Last.fm has available for testing. In return for them giving you access they ask for your feedback on these projects. Here are a few projects currently being tested.

Multi Tag Search

Artist Name Variations

Most Frequent Top 10 Tracks

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Some years back I had what you would say and "alter-ego". Until recently I had forgotten all about it. Keep in mind when it was updated it received all kinds of traffic and had a pretty big following. To this day it still receives 80-100+ hits daily. It's at the top of the google search and I think has some huge potential.

The website is BlogginHotties.com  The concept of this site first started as me skimming the many blogs around the net looking for the hottest bloggers out there. Then submissions started rolling in. Thats when It was just too much for me to take on. I don't have the resources or the time to get this project at a booming rate.

I have decided to put BlogginHotties.com up for sale. What you getis full control of the blogger account along with ownership of the domain name. I will also throw in the hottfinder gmail account. If you would like to see some traffic stats you can see them here.

All interested bidder please contact me with your bids, questions, or concerns at tw3nty3ight@gmail.com

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I see  people on Twitter missing a lot of @'s to them due to them not following the particular person. I myself don't have this problem. I have it set up to where I am notified anytime mentions tw3nty3ight or @tw3nty3ight. How did I do it? It's simple really.

There is a very useful Twitter command that is overlooked by many. The TRACK command is the most underused command on twitter. In order for me to be notified of someone mentioning anything pertaining to myself I simply utilize this feature. There are two main ways to use this command, text (SMS) or IM with Google Talk.

I myself use GTalk on my blackberry do to not wanting to eat up my text message allowance per month, plus I have the data plan so why not? If you choose to use GTalk make sure to add twitter@twitter.com to your contacts. Using the Track command is easy, if your using SMS just send a text to twitter stating what topic or user you want to track. For example I track any replies to me so I send TRACK @tw3nty3ight and also TRACK tw3nty3ight. You can do the same commands with GTalk.

I also follow many other topics that I might have a need to recieve. I also track my real name, my hometown, city I work in, HighSchool I graduated from as well as my favorite sports teams. Using the Track command not only keeps you well informed, it helps a ton on the go utilizing your cellphone. I almost never miss a comment on Twitter directed towards me or anyone else I track.


Get Google Talk

Get Google Talk for BlackBerry & Other Clients

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I hear many people around Twitter labeling BrightKite as "The Stalkers Twitter". I don't go for that. The reason that I am in disagreement with that stereotyping is the fact that ALL of social networking has a "stalkerish" flare to it.  Now keep in mind BrightKite may make it just a bit easier, but they have privacy options you can utilize.

But seriously people, think about it a second. How many social network sites do you have profiles on? Lets say you have five or so. Across those five different sites you have many various bits of personal information, whether it's meant to be or not. You might have just your vague location, your first name, or your email on one, and then another you may have a full name. There is one vital piece of information right there. Do you comment on a particular blog? Chances are you have, and the owner of that blog can see the IP address you posted from. With little effort I have gotten info with a whois from your IP, now I have two main sources of information. I can keep going with this but I think you get the point.

All in all you can break anything down to the way you want people to see it, but if your not going to use a site or app such as BrightKite then you need to rethink your social networking presence as a whole.

Anytime I sign up for a social network I put the information in my profile knowing that people will be able to put two and two together. If your concerned with your privacy and still want to have a social presence then I suggest creating an Alias and be very vague when setting up your profiles. Don't let great apps or sites suffer from your paranoia.

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I have been looking for a ultra-portable camcorder for a while now. After countless hours of research and testing I decided to break down and buy the Sanyo Xacti cg6.

My first impressions out of the box was "WOW this thing is small!" It is indeed a perfect "in your palm style camcorder". I can easily slide it in and out of my pocket. It's super convenient being so small. If I see something I want to shoot, I just reach in my pocket and I am on my way to catching some video.

Not only is it a small, portable camcorder. It packs a big punch. The quality is pretty darn good for being what it is. Even after uploading video to the web it still has great quality and clarity. The main feature I am impressed by is the wind filter setting that is available on this camera. I tested the wind filtering in my Jeep Wrangler top and doors off at 50+ MPH and the sound was impressive. Very light sound from wind but it picked up my voice pretty well. I also tested it again with no top or doors at 70 MPH on the Interstate, the sound quality was reduced compared to the latter, however it was to be expected. Another cool feature is even while recording video you can take a still image without interruption.The still camera has good quality at 6 MP.

Now for the cons. To be honest the cons were a lot harder to point out than the pros. Of course that is a good thing. My main complaint is the volume during playback on the unit itself is very weak. Not a deal breaker by any means but still disappointing. The only other complaint I have is the clock is in 24 hour format.

All in all if you are looking for an ultra-portable camcorder, look no further than the Sanyo Xacti cg6

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I got to thinking today about how I would be bothered if some of my Twitter friends just stopped showing up on Twitter. After that I realized that everyone I am sure, has had the thought cross there mind at least once. I am sure all of you have at the very least, one or two people you follow that you have developed a friendship with.

I would like to take the time in this post to first list some of my favorite peeps on Twitter, as well as why I feel they deserve to be one of my favorites. Please don't be hurt if your not on this list... I LOVE all of you. Second I would like to see you comment on this post stating who your favorites are and why. This could actually get you and your friends some new followers on Twitter!

Here is my list.....


@martinelli18
She is absolutley my favorite person on Twitter. Why? Well she is my girlfriend, and she is awesome!

@carrie1982
She's a RL friend of @martinelli18 and I. Oh ya, and she is HILARIOUS

@Adamjackson
One of the first I ever followed, He got me to buy a Macbook

@Jeffisageek
He puts GEEK on the map in KC

@Danieljohnsonjr
Great local guy, Super nice and will do anything for you.

@Chocsprinkles
She has been so great to chat with on Twitter and local

@Matthewschick
She's been super nice to me and @martinelli18 very nice, and she is addicted to Twitter :)

@Schmee
I feel sorry for him, Just kidding. Good kid, fun to talk Tech with.

@Dogboi
Another great guy, who just so happens to be a Tech guru

@TwisterMC
Great guy really has been there to share pointers

@Robertnelson
Another fun guy to talk tech with

@thepunk
Great guy! Fun to go back about baseball with and tech related stuff.

@iAlbert
Makes killer Twitter Shirts, and a very nice guy!

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Have you ever realized that you forgot to schedule your DVR to record your favorite show, and your not at home? Well don't fret, cause with DirectTv's DVR Scheduler you are literally good to go.

DVR Scheduler lets you control what episodes,movies, or channels you want to record from the web or over your mobile phone. This program is currently in Beta but works great! If your a DirectTv customer and have a DVR this is a must to check out!

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In this post I will go over some of the best Greasemonkey scripts I have come across for us Twitter junkies.

First off If you don't know what Greasemonkey is, in simple terms it allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.

Hundreds of scripts, for a wide variety of other popular sites, are also available at http://userscripts.org



Now on to some great Twitter scripts.

Delete All Direct Messages In You Inbox

When you visit your direct messages inbox activate this script and watch it auto delete all of your old direct messages. This is far easier than doing it one by one. NOTE: just make sure you turn it off before you check for new messages.

Block Twitter Spammers From Gmail

Adds a link to all Twitter invites to allow you to block them easily - works in Gmail or Google Apps Mail.

Twitter Blacklist

Displays a banner on twitter profiles which are listed at http://twitterblacklist.com

TwitterIgnore

Someone that you enjoy following at an event that your really not that interested in, or tweeting a lot and taking over your Twitterstream? Don't you wish you could just stop seeing their tweets for a bit without actually unfollowing them? Well with this script you can!

Twitter Auto Update

How many times have you said to yourself "I wish Twitter.com would auto update."? Well now it does with this script! Updates every minute!


Don't forget in order to use these scripts you must have the Greasemonkey Firefox extension installed. I hope you enjoy these. I know I have!

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It's official. The BlackBerry Curve is coming to Verizon on May 9th. It can only be purchased via internet or business solutions on that date. Verizon is stating that on or around the 12th it will be available at brick and mortar stores.

As for Myself, I will be checking on May 9th to see if it is available via telesales. I will keep you up to date on this matter.

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Ok, I know this sounds like some spam that hits your inbox, but actually it's not. I recently found a  site called Myxer.

What Myxer does is have you sign up for a free account and search for ringtones, wallpapers and games for your phone. This site is legit and there is no cost. Of course standard text message rates apply. After you set up your account with your phones provider, make and model you can then find almost any ringtone you can think of. Once you choose the ringtone it's sent to your phone via SMS.

I have tried this out, I will till you it works great as well as the quality of the ringtones. You can even make your own with Myxer. Make sure you check them out and set up your free account.

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You all voted, and the results came in. My kitten's name is officially BETA. Thanks to everyone who voted!

Carrie's kitten is a little girl and she named her "Tuna". On a side note I was really glad we took these kittens. We truly did save them from a rough environment. The kittens were kept in a pet carrier all the time inside, and seems malnourished. We wanted to take them all, but we just couldn't. Hopefully the other kittens will find good homes. I really hate to see them in that place any longer than they need to be.

If you would like you can see a few more pics on my Flickr. Didn't get many pics taken yet due to them still being a little timid.

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