Posts Tagged ‘Twitter Q&A’
Your Impressions of Google Wave · I tweeted, "Whether or not you got invited in, tell me your impression of Google Wave in 140 characters." Here's what my followers said. 
Twitter replies
· 
2 comments
A friend complained to me that after only two years, she had to replace her laptop's battery because it wouldn't hold a charge. I found myself telling her that she shouldn't keep her notebook computer plugged in continuously, because it would kill the battery faster. Then I stopped myself: Was this just outdated geek lore rendered obsolete by modern batteries?
Yes and no. It depends, of course, on what kind of battery you have. Battery technology has come a long way over the years, and surely in 2009 you don't have to worry about how long your laptop's been plugged in. However, one major notebook manufacturer (which ships Lithium-ion batteries) thinks you should, and suggests adding a reminder to your calendar to deplete and recharge your battery once a month. To quote: "Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time."
My friend, however, has a two-year-old Dell. Cursory Googling for her model didn't turn up the equivalent of Apple's definitive statement, only lots of opinions which ranged from "it's a non-issue" to "yes, it kills batteries!" Dell.com's battery recommendations page doesn't say anything about not keeping your notebook plugged in. HP's battery tips page doesn't answer the question, either. I pored through my wife's ASUS Eee PC user guide and didn't find any warning about continuous charging. A non-mention might make you think it's a non-problem, but if this is an issue for Apple notebook batteries, it is for PC notebooks with lithium-based batteries too. When I asked, my Twitter followers returned mixed replies, but many notebook users (both Mac and PC) DID report anecdotal battery problems when the machine was plugged in constantly.
Read the rest »
The official release of Firefox's latest version 3.5 is available for download by the non-beta-testing public today.
The folks at Mozilla Add-ons do a great job of nudging their extension authors to make their work compatible with new versions. Still, a few add-ons aren't there yet, notably Google Gears (not hosted at Mozilla Add-ons) and Tab Mix Plus. Update: Testers tell me a developer build of Tab Mix Plus is Firefox 3.5 compatible. Thanks all!
Luckily when you install Firefox 3.5 you get a warning upfront of which of your installed add-ons aren't yet compatible, like the one I got today, pictured here. (Come on, Auto Copy and Evernote, get with the three-point-five!)
Here are a few others my Twitter followers are missing.
Read the rest »
Asked my Twitter peeps whether or not they were buying the just-released iPhone 3GS, and 175 replies later, the response is a pretty solid NO.
Almost 80% of respondents are passing on the 3GS mainly because they don't think the upgrade is worth the money, they're not eligible for the upgrade pricing, they think AT&T blows, they're waiting for next year's model, or they're simply happy with their current phone. The other 20% were thrilled about getting their paws on the 3GS' speed and video camera. Yes-folks said the 3GS finally feels "feature-complete," that the device replaces their GPS, point and shoot camera, and in some cases, their laptop, and others said it was the perfect reason to ditch their current crappy phone.
Out of 175 responses, 138 said they were not getting the 3GS, and 37 said they were. (Since I'm an Android user, I attract non-iPhone types, so these results are skewed by who follows me.) Here are the best replies I got, with the cleverest quips and insights highlighted.
Read the rest »
After whinging loudly about not having access to the Google Wave preview, Santa GOOG dropped an invite off in my inbox last night. Sadly I have no invites to give you, but I want to share the love how I can. Last night I held a Wave Q&A on Twitter, where folks asked anything they wanted to know about the app and I did my best to answer. I'm no Wave expert, but now that I've got my dirty little paws on it I had some insights and screenshots to share. The question and answer transcript is here, plus those images.
Read the rest »
Once you get past a simple to-do list and start getting into the heavy-lifting of complex team projects, it's time to look into project management software. My only memories of my project management course in college are dreadful words like milestones, Gantt charts, and critical paths. Still, when you've got a group of people at work on a long-term undertaking with lots of tasks associated with it, you need something to help manage the flow.
I asked my Twitter followers what project management software they use at home and at work, and how they like it on a scale of 1 to 10. I got fewer replies to this question than usual, which makes me think lots of people don't use a PM app to begin with. Out of the 97 replies I did get, 17 said they use 37 Signals' Basecamp (and gave it an 8 out of 10 average rating), 12 said they used Microsoft Project (it averaged a 6.6 out of 10 rating), and, interestingly, 9 people said they like Things (which averaged a 7.7 rating) and OmniFocus (which got a rating of 9), both for Mac OS X.
Read the rest »
Everyone loves free software, and it's less about principles and more about the practicality of not having to take out the credit card. So what great software packages are people willing to pay for? Yesterday I asked my Twitter followers what the most expensive software they ever purchased out of their own pockets (versus pirated or expensed at work).
While many of the 127 responses weren't surprising (like ~$315 Microsoft Office and ~$110 Mac OS X Leopard), some old-school names I haven't heard in years came up (like OS/2), a few people mentioned games (like WoW and ~$30 Half-Life) and speech-to-text apps (like ~$160 MacSpeech Dictate and ~$50 Dragon NaturallySpeaking). By far, the packages people plunked down their hard-earned cash for most are creative tools (like ~$1,300 Final Cut Pro and ~$1,600 Adobe Creative Suite*).
In fact, various versions of Adobe Creative Suite took the prize for the most-paid-for-out-of-pocket application (22 mentions), with Leopard and Microsoft Office not-so-close seconds (14 and 12). Photoshop (which comes with Creative Suite) was third (11 mentions), with Windows Vista and Final Cut (Express, Studio, and Pro versions) bringing up the rear (10 and 9 mentions, respectively).
Here are all the public replies to the question I posed on Twitter.
Read the rest »
Once you've amassed enough of a following, one of the best uses of hot social networking app Twitter is getting instant answers to any question on your mind. When you post a question on Twitter and get a dozen replies within the next 10 minutes from live humans--some of whom you know and trust--it's waaayyy better than impersonal and sometimes out-of-date Google search results.
After two years and 1,700 updates on Twitter, this insta-Q&A is my favorite use of the service. The only problem is, I always want to archive and share what I learn from my followers on my blog, and it's not easy. My post on what people love and hate about netbooks, sourced entirely from Twitter replies, took me hours to compile manually, because Twitter doesn't easily list replies to a particular "tweet" in a very readable or republishable format. So this weekend I dug into the service's API to make that happen. Using Kevin Makice's new book, Twitter API: Up and Running, after just a day of coding I had my entire Twitter archive plus replies ready for viewing and publishing. While the code itself isn't ready for sharing, a few questions and subsequent replies posted on Twitter and compiled here recently include:
Update: I've posted a pre-alpha, nerds-only version on GitHub, tentatively named Twitalytic, called ThinkTank.
Of course, I included only replies from Twitter users whose updates are public, and I didn't include direct messages (because, by nature, they are private). I hope to post more lists of curated public replies going forward; I'll file future posts under "Twitter Q&A." Let me know how I can make posts like these more useful and readable.
The straight-faced definition of crowdsourcing is using the ability to communicate with thousands of people efficiently on the internet to get those people to do something for you. To me, "crowdsourcing" is also one of those annoying internet neologisms that's overinflated by "Web 2.0" marketing hype, so I qualify it with quotes. Even though I "crowdsource" information all the time, quality results require stringent editing, checking, and yes, curation. I'll be on a panel at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, TX called "Curating the Crowd-Sourced World" on March 13 to discuss just this.
As a part of their SXSW coverage, The Austin Chronicle quoted me as saying,
For a blogger, crowd-sourcing is just outsourcing your research. Without fact-checkers, why not?
Since the reporter asked for a definition to go in his "glossary with a sense of humor," I said that with tongue lodged firmly in cheek. The truth is that crowdsourcing research--and editing and even fact-checking(!) the results--is a serious subject with lots of issues. Because I felt like being cute, I crowdsourced what "crowdsourcing" means, by asking about 9,000 people on Twitter. My followers didn't disappoint; several nailed some of the thornier aspects of the issue in their 140-character responses.
Read the rest »
Subscribe
Follow
15 comments »
I'm 
