Marcus Hamaker is The Sleepy Geek

There was a time when I was much more active on Twitter but I am fickle when it comes to outages. I understand technically that there are some things that happen which aren’t foreseen, but Twitter is down a lot!

So here we go again. This is frustrating because I was starting to get back into doing some updated and now this. I hope it’s short lived!

Geek on (if it doesn’t go down!).

I have been trying to find my way with Twitter for some time and I really have my own thoughts about how to use it but there was always this piece of me that thought I was missing out on something. I don’t think that anymore, but it’s nice to hear some industry leaders saying the same things openly. The idea that we can ‘connect’ on twitter is a bit of a misnomer to me. When someone says that it means that there is an ability to trade ideas back an forth in my opinion. I can really make good use of publicizing my activities and you can read them but if you do so 17 hours after I wrote something, then it’s hard to follow where and answer might relate to.

I have been following Chris Pirillo for some time and when I referenced the “industry leader” above, I was referring to him. He recorded a video and pretty much hit the nail on the head.

What are your thoughts on the matter? There are tools that are much better designed to converse with than Twitter is.

Geek on!

Not sure what it is – but I am not interested in Twitter since coming back from the beach. I will continue to post up my new blog posts to Twitter so my followers can come over for a read, but trying to strike up conversation is out.

I feel like it takes too much effort to try and get someone out of your followers group to answer you and actually have a meaningful conversation about something. Most people are following over 1000 people and probably have more than 1000 followers and so it’s like trying to be heard in an arena rock concert while everyone is standing around chatting and waiting for the band to show up.

I think that with some time off and time away from the blog/internet/twitter I am going to concentrate my efforts on 3 things. 1 – expanding my service company, 2 – concentrating on good blog content and 3 – moving forward with my podcast plans with my buddy Bryan.

Geek on!

I came across this while reading this morning and it looks very cool. Handmark has released a new Twitter client for Blackberry that looks very promising. If you have been using another Twitter client up until now (for my it has been TwitterBerry) and have been looking for a change then this is for you.

They have made a really cool video outlining it’s features which I think you should check out. If you are convinced enough to give it a look then head on over to their submission page where you simply have to send a tweet about it, then put in your phone number for an automatic message.

Have fun with it, let me know what you think!

Geek on!

If you are a member of Twitter and have wondered what all the #followfriday hashtags are about then listen up! This is something that was started by Micah Baldwin at the beginning of 2009 and has completely mushroomed into a Friday culture. I believe the reason is how easy it is to participate.

Simply create a Tweet with a list of people who you really appreciate on Twitter and add #followfriday to the list. THAT SIMPLE! The reason it works is because so many people are participating in the practice. When I see a list from one of the people, I open up each profile and take a look to see if they are someone I want to follow. More often than not, they are worth it because they were recommended by someone who already shares like interests with me.

So every Friday think of people who you have interacted with during the week that were of value to you and list then out. Have fun doing it and we’ll see you in Twitterland!

On my way home from work and all of a sudden I start getting text messages from a familiar provider, 21212. It took me a couple of minutes but I realized it was Twitter sending me SMS updates all of a sudden. I haven’t gotten SMS updates from Twitter since they took down that service last year. From what it sounded like at the time it was due to the cost, which leads me to believe that they have worked out a deal with the major Canadian cell companies.

I took a trip to the twitter.com website as soon as I got home – low and behold; the service has been re-instated. I was able to find this blurb on the page where you register your cell phone number in their system:

Note: In Canada we currently support SMS notifications for Bell Mobility, Rogers, Fido, Telus, Koodo and Virgin Mobile Canada subscribers

So congrads to Twitter. The only issue I have now is SMS subscription management. It seems like many of the people whom I added as freinds are listed to update through SMS. Time to search for a tool to mass switch it off so I can add the people I want. Which won’t be many for SMS udpates due to the number of posts I will get…. I just can see it going all night.

My wife would kill me!

I am spending a couple of hours tweeting and surfing while my buddy borrows a computer to check his email. While doing so I saw a website fly by on Twitter. Like I normally do, I hit the link and then immediately went back to Tweetdeck to read some other posts. I leave my stuff rot in Firefox sometimes for ever just because I am busy with other things. But another tab won’t hurt right?

Well this tab was there for over an hour and I had forgotten about it. Pointing to http://visibletweets.com/ I inadvertently clicked on it. It was a clean site, so I put in my twitter ID and just watched. This is an amazing thing to watch. Sit back, relax and enjoy the great programming.

After you have come back to reality, you realize that this site actually is more than just pretty. One of the animation options in the top right of the screen is “cloud”. So if you entered your ID as the search critera then you can see what other words in posts about you are being referenced more. VERY COOL.

Have fun with it! And above all, appreciate the good craftsmanship here ;)

From a high school friend of mine. I couldn’t agree more with this comedic depiction of my reality!

Automated: “The Day The Twitter Died” | Ara Pehlivanian.

A tweet just came in from @markshaw – “When Did you Join Twitter? http://whendidyoujointwitter.com/ Please RT”

Of course I go and check it out. Enter my name and poof! My twitterversary is tomorrow. How cool is that? It’s amazing how many small websites are popping up with cool tools to get information about your twitter account.

So go check it out. You might be surprised to find out when you joined. Either that or you have a photographic memory and then screw you :)

I was chatting with @Gordonamy today and she was talking about a friend who lost of their followers. Seems like another Twitter glitch and so after some back and forth about the horrors  of it all, she asked “@thesleepygeek hopefully, its a simple fix hey, how DO we back up our lists anyway?”

Of course that prompts a searching session and it brought me here: http://tweetbackup.com/.

This service seems to provide a backup that we all probably want. The problem is that after some digging it isn’t a backup if your profile. ***UPDATE (2-May-09): Read the commend below from Jonas*** This service will simply backup all of your tweets and all you have to do it follow them. Their server will automatically follow your account and record anything that you tweet.

Cool service, but don’t be fooled. At this point the only people who are backing up twitter accounts are twitter themselves. Someone please prove me wrong and let me know!