TweetDeck for iPad - Crossover Review with Bird House Rules

This is the third in the series of reviews with Tee Morris from the Bird House Rules podcast. We have been looking at Twitter clients for the iPad. Tee and I sat down and recorded audio for the Bird House Rules podcast, and I'm posting a companion reviews here. I encourage all my readers to also check out the audio from the podcast. You don't need an iPod to listen to the podcast, just something that can play an MP3 file. I hope you're enjoying this series as much as we're enjoy bringing it to you.

#FollowFriday - @EveryPhoto: Inspired short fiction, from a common image.

This week I am recommending @EveryPhoto, the Twitter feed for the Every Photo Tells... podcast. Every Photo Tells... is a podcast that is centered around a writing experiment. The podcast is run by Katharina Maimer (@KMLaw) and Mick Bordet (@MickBordet). Each month, they post a new photo on the Every Photo Tells... blog, and over the course of the month they write and podcast short stories based on those pictures. But the fun doesn't end there! For the first two weeks of the month, they also accept submissions from the audience, giving you the chance to be inspired and write your own story based on the photo for the month. If they like your story, they'll record it and include it in the podcast. Two weeks ago, they published 29 stories from the first six months of Every Photo Tells... on Podiobooks.com as Every Photo Tells... Book 1.

#FollowFriday - @Podiobooks: Gateway to hundreds of worlds of serialized audio fiction.

This week I'd like to introduce you to @Podiobooks, the official Twitter stream of
Podiobooks.com. Podiobooks.com is the Internets first clearing house of podcast fiction. It has provided a place where authors (and podcasters) can get their works out to an audience (that would be you) and gain a following without having to mortgage their souls to monolithic and uncaring publishing companies. The site allows you to browse their catalog of novels and collections of short stories in serialized format. If you find something you like, you can set up your own private feed and Podiobooks will send you a chapter at a time, at the rate that you want to listen to it, be it one a week, one a month, or one a day. And all of this is free, and with the permission of that authors. And if you really like the work you're listening for, you can go back to the site and make a donation to the author via Paypal. Podiobooks takes 25% of your donations to cover the costs of their servers and bandwidth and sends the other 75% to the author. That is better than just about anything else in the publishing world.

On Twitter, @Podiobooks is basically a news feed, keeping you updated on the latest offerings and events associated with the site. Some books listed are works in progress, and @Podiobooks will tell you when new chapters become available. Others are complete, but may have special episodes or live events that @Podiobooks will tell you about. And there are always announcements of new works being added to the catalog. If you're a fan of audio fiction and podcasting, how can you not listen to @Podiobooks?

That is it for today. Next week I'll be back with another Follow Friday post, and then on the 30th, Tee Morris and I will be back with another installment of our podcast/blog crossover. I hope folks have been reading and listening to the chapters, and that you'll let me know what you think be leaving a comment, or voting in this month's poll. Have a good one. See you next week!

Echofon Pro for Twitter - Crossover Review with Bird House Rules

Welcome to the second in the series of reviews with Tee Morris from the Bird House Rules podcast. In this series we are looking at Twitter clients for the iPad. Tee and I sat down and recorded audio for the Bird House Rules podcast, and I'm posting a companion review here. I encourage all my readers to also check out the audio from the podcast. You don't need an iPod to listen to the podcast, just something that can play an MP3 file. I hope you've enjoying this series as much as we enjoy bringing it to you.

Last time we looked at Tweet Flow. This time we're looking at Echofon Pro for Twitter. Echofon is one of a group of Twitter apps that we tend to think of as old familiar favorites. In Echofon's case this is because it started out as Twitterfon, a Twitter client for the Mac and the iPhone. If you're familiar with Echofon on any of these platforms, then you have a good idea what you'll see on the iPad. But with Echofon Pro, they've re-vamped things to take advantage of the iPad's screen space. Echofon was written by Naan Studio, Inc, and is available from the App Store for $4.99. Echofon Pro is a plus app, meaning that it will work on the iPhone as well as the iPad, but most of the functions we'll be talking about only exist on the iPad. Echofon is a full-featured Twitter client aimed at handling just about anything you might want to do on Twitter. We believe that it comes pretty darn close.

The first place where Echofon moves past Tweet Flow is in its ability to handle multiple Twitter accounts. You can set up as many accounts as you like, Echofon will let you switch between them at will. Admittedly, you can only view tweets associated with one account at a time, but very few clients will allow you to look at tweets from multiple accounts at the same time.

As you would expect, Echofon handles both landscape and portrait views. Portrait may be better when you're just reading what is in your stream as it lets you see more tweets at one time, but to see more of what Echofon can do, we're pretty much going to concentrate on the Landscape views.

Same tweets, just a more expanded menu bar on the left side. The Home section naturally shows you all of the tweets in your Twitter stream. The tweets are automatically updated every one, two, or three minutes according to how you've updated your settings. By default, it updates every minute. You can turn off auto-updating if you like, or refresh by tapping the refresh icon in the upper right corner.

Naturally, Echofon will show you your Mentions, Direct messages, and Favorites. Unlike Tweet Flow, Echofon also handles Twitter Lists, both lists you've created and ones that include your account. You can also create and save searches and check on trends in the tweets in your local area, across the country, or across the world. This is a fully featured app, so we won't be doing a complete walkthrough like we did with Tweet Flow. We'll just be looking at a few of the highlights.

One of the strengths of Echofon has always been its ability to track a reply back to the tweet that prompted the reply and to pull up the related tweets in the conversation. You'll notice in the above screen shot that all the tweets have an icon on the right of two overlapping conversation bubbles. That is the button for tracking back the rest of the conversation.

When you click the button, Echofon pops up a windowlet and shows the conversation so far as a chat window. Tweets are ordered with the oldest first and the more recent below. Not only does Echofon detect the tweet replied to, it finds any other tweets associated with the conversation in question and displays them. This includes comments from third parties, and any other comments made after the tweet whose button you clicked. While many other clients also supply this kind of conversation tracking, Echofon seems to have one of the best algorithms out there for  selecting the relevant tweets.

Direct messages are organized according to the sending account. This way you can see just the exchanges you've had with a particular person and not have to sort them out from a list of unrelated direct messages.

Another thing that Echofon does that most clients do not do is show you all of your followers the same way that Twitter does. Most clients will list everyone that you're following or that is following you, but they will alphabetize the list. While this is conventient if you are looking up a particular person, it is less useful if you're looking for the last five people who followed you. On the users tab, Echofon presents users order by time, with the most recent followers on top.

Tap the compose icon in the upper right corner, and Echofon slides up the keyboard and the compose windowlet.

The compose screen is pretty straightforward, but there are a couple cool features built into the compose screen. If you want to add a mention to someone to your tweet, either because you've got multiple people in the conversation or because you're starting a message to someone that isn't a reply to anything previous, click the icon of the two silhouettes in the top left and a windowlet will pop down to display the people you are following in an alphabetical list and with a search window so you can search for a particular person.

The other nifty tool that Echofon has is the way it allows you to select pictures. If you want to share a photo from your iPad with your friends, tap on the camera icon in the lower left corner of the compose window. Echofon will first present you with a list of all your different collections of photos on the iPad, albums, the main library, people and places. Then once you select a collection, it will show you a matrix of all the pictures in that collection.

At this point, most clients make you select a photo from this view. Just tap it and that is the photo you've selected. Echofon takes this one further. Select a photo from this matrix and Echofon gives you a view of the photo, not just the thumbnail.

If you've got several similar pictures, you can look at each one and make sure you've selected the right one. The picture doesn't get added to your message until you click the Use button in the upper right corner. The camera icon becomes a thumbnail of the picture you selected until you finish composing your tweet. You can even tap it again and change the photo selected or clear the photo altogether. The photo doesn't get uploaded to your chosen hosting service until you click send.

Unfortunately, Echofon will only let you put one photo into a tweet at a time. But hopefully some future update will allow you to post multiple photos.

When your photo, or someone else's, shows up in the tweet stream, in addition to the URL in the text of the tweet, you'll also see a thumbnail of your tweet off to the right.

Tap the thumbnail, and Echofon opens a larger windowlet and displays the picture for you. In the bottom left is a button that lets you save the image, and in the bottom right is a button to let you go to the page the image is being displayed from. The icon of this latter button is rather poorly chosen as a speech bubble. I wouldn't think that clicking on a speech bubble would take me to a web page, but that is what it does. Otherwise, it is a nice way to handle pictures.

As nice as Echofon is in many ways, it does have some rather unintuitive features. It has settings for the application overall, and settings that are particular for each Twitter account. These account specific settings tend to be buried, making them difficult to access.

Another odd thing is that when you tap on a tweet to select it, Echofon puts up a very helpful context menu with options.

The odd thing is that the last option is "More". Tap more and you get some additional options, but no way to get back to the first group of options. And why do you need two menus of options when there is plenty of screen space to list them all? This may be a holdover from earlier iPhone versions of the application. We shall watch eagerly to see if it is addressed in future versions.

While Echofon may have a few quirks and stumbling blocks, it is an excellent Twitter client. For some folks, it may be just what the doctor ordered. For quite a while it was my favorite Twitter client. And it may take that place again. But next week, we'll be talking about one of Tee's favorities. If you listened to the podcast, I'll bet you can already guess what it is! See you in two weeks for the next in the series.

  Bird House Rules - Episode #13: Review of Echofon (with Nifty Tech Blog) [16:06m]: Download

#FollowFriday - @_S_A_R_A_H_: Eureka's most outspoken domicile

Fans of the SyFy channel's show Eureka are sure to recognize @_S_A_R_A_H_, Eureka's only Self Actuated Residential Automated Habitat, Sheriff Carter's residence, and the most outspoken domicile in Eureka. For those of you not familiar with this excellent show, Eureka is the home to a classified think tank of experts in just about every field of science one can think of. And a few more that probably shouldn't exist (yet). S.A.R.A.H. is an artificial intelligence built into an old military bunker as a proof of concept for a modern smart home. Externally, she's a disused concrete bunker, internally, she is a very nicely appointed home that is self-cleaning and maintaining. And can cook your meals, order the groceries, and screen your cars and visitors.

@_S_A_R_A_H_ primarily tweets about the goings-on in Eureka. These comments tend to give hints about the events in the upcoming episode of Eureka, or relate to the episode just past. But @_S_A_R_A_H_ isn't just about the show. She reads and replies to the tweets directed at her, and comments on the statements of the 2 thousand people she follows. If you're not familiar with the denizens of Eureka, it may not be your cup of tea. But for any fan of the show, @_S_A_R_A_H_ is a must follow.

Be back here on Monday for another installment in the series of crossover reviews with Bird House Rules. I hope everyone has been listening to and enjoying the audio. And that you'll listen to this next episode and vote in this months poll. And tell your friends.  And your friend's friends.

And I'd like to hear from YOU. I've been giving out Follow Friday recommendations for a few months now, and hopefully I've enhanced your appreciation of Twitter. But if you're on Twitter, I'd like to hear whom you would recommend that I should follow. It isn't that I've run out of people to recommend. There are always new gems out there to be discovered and I'd like to hear about the ones that you've found. So let me know who you're following!

#FollowFriday - @VividMuse: Mother, Gamer, Podcaster, and Girl Who Rules!

This week I'd like to tell you about one of the hardest working, but most unassuming people I follow on Twitter. She is a mother to two sons by a previous marriage, a wife to her lucky husband @Choochus, step-mom to Chooch's son, an avid online gamer, the co-host of the Into the Blender podcast, and the host of the new Girls' Rules podcast. She has lent her vocal talents to a variety of podcasts as a voice actor, and maintains a personal blog at vividmuse.com. Folks, I give you @VividMuse.

And for the most part, I'm going to have to tell you what she is like on Twitter. Although Viv is well worth following, she keeps her Twitter feed locked, which means that you'll have to convince her to let you in if you want to see what she says. Hey, it's her feed and her right.  Of course you could subscribe to the two podcasts she is a part of to get a feel for how she communicates and if you'd like to hear more.

On Twitter, Viv is usually warm and compassionate, unless someone or something has ticked her off. She frequently tweets about the decadent delights that she cooks for her family. If some of this stuff is only half as good as it sounds, it will still be amazing. She is easy to engage and has a good sense of humor. Viv is also one of the strongest people that I know. She has suffered from some medical problems in the past year that frequently have her in pain, and have prevented her from working, yet her outlook on life is usually upbeat, and despite the problems she has had she continues to put herself out there for her family and friends. She is a really nifty lady.

This coming week is a writing week for me as I continue to try to rebuild my buffer. But there may be an editorial or two before next week's Follow Friday. In the mean time, there is still August's poll! Have you voted? And on the 16th Tee Morris and I will be back for another look at Twitter applications for the iPad. See you then!

August Poll!

It has been a more hectic week than I had expected. But despite the delay, I've got a new poll on line for August! I hope that everyone has read last Monday's review on Tweet Flow, and listened to the attached mp3 file from the Bird House Rules podcast. Because that is what I'd like to talk to you about for August. Tee Morris and I are doing a whole series of reviews in connection with his Podcast. And while you don't have to listen to the podcasts, I'd like to know if you like them. It has been suggested that I should be podcasting these reviews instead of blogging them. So, do you love the podcast? Is it nice for special events like the crossover? Or should I just stick with the blog? You're my readers, so you should get some say in how you'd like to see the reviews and other features. Right?

We've got a few more podcasts coming up in this series, but the poll ends with August, so don't wait too long before casting your vote.

Tweet Flow - Crossover Review with Bird House Rules

A while back, I did a review of Twitter along with the help of my friend and Twitter maven, Tee Morris. Well, now we're back to do it again. This time we're looking at Twitter clients. Specifically, clients for the iPad. Last time it was an interview. Now we have another special treat. This review is the first of a series of crossovers with Tee's Bird House Rules podcast. So along with each review you also get a chance to listen to Tee and I talk about each client in a special episode of Bird Bird House Rules. The content is different, so be sure to take time to listen to the audio in addition to reading this review.

And first up is Tweet Flow. Note that this is Tweet Flow for the iPad written by Presslite (www.presslite.com), not TweetFlow written by Darragh Moriarty for the iPhone, which is completely different and not covered here.. You'll know you've got the right one because Tweet Flow is free from the App store. Tweet Flow is a simple, basic, no frills client for Twitter that manages to be elegant in its simplicity. This is a great client for an iPad owner starting out with Twitter.

Tweet Flow only handles one Twitter account, but if that is all you have, it delivers reliable service. So, let's take a look. When you open Tweet Flow for the first time, it greets you with the following settings screen.

And as far as settings go, this is it. Pretty much nothing else. Enter your Twitter logon and password, and decide if you want sounds or not. We'll come back to what "Classic scroll" means in a bit. Touch Save, and you're off.

One of the features of Tweet Flow is the way it displays the tweets. The most recent tweets are displayed at the top, with older tweets spaced down underneath it, getting smaller as they are older. You can scroll up and down through this list, and the tweets will get larger as they move to the top of the screen. If you go back to Settings and turn on Classic Scroll, all the tweets will show at the same size as the top tweet. But where is the fun in that?

Edit: This made it into the podcast, but somehow I left it out of the review. Tweet Flow auto-updates your tweets every three minutes. There is no manual update, there is no setting to adjust it. It is hard-coded. There is, however, a way you can trick Tweet Flow into updating early. When you change screens, Tweet Flow re-loads the tweets for that screen. And it even works if you change to the screen that you're already on. So if you want to refresh your Home screen, just tap Home, or tap the Tweet Flow logo in the Upper Left and wait while it reloads. The downside to this three minute update is that sometimes the update will catch you in the middle of doing something. This has caused me to loose a tweet being composed, and some other unpredictable things depending on which screen I was on. Nothing majorly problematic, just quirky. And now, back to the review, already in progress.

Since there isn't much to see in Tweet Flow, it is easy to give you a quick tour. You've seen the Home screen, and before that, the Settings screen, so let's just work on down the list and check out the My Profile screen next.

Here on your profile page you've got a large version of your Twitter avatar, and some stats on your account. Your tweets are shown in a green background, just as they are in the regular tweetstream. This handy color coding helps you keep track of things in the main screen. You'll also notice the background has changed. Tweet Flow downloads the background from your Twitter profile and displays it as the page's background, although with a slight greenish tint. My profile background is a bit more yellow. Next stop, Public replies.

This page features replies from other people back to you. Also known as @mentions. These are color coded brown and also show up as brown in the main tweetstream. So far very consistent and predictable.

The Direct msg screen shows you your private direct messages from other Twitter users. These have a simple white text on a black background like the regular tweetstream. And the Favorites screen is much the same, except that it displays the tweets that you've previously marked as Favorites. So let's jump back the Home screen and dig a little deeper this time.

One thing you may notice is Tweet Flow's default background, with the sky and the clouds. This display actually changes during the day. I took these screen shots in the morning, so it shows the sun low to the ground. As the day progresses, the sun rises. When it becomes night, the sun turns into a moon! It is like they built a clock into the background.

Tap in the white bar at the top of the screen and the keyboard appears and you can type in your tweet. Tap the Tweet button in the top right corner to send it on its way. The Done button on the keyboard is a little deceptive, as it doesn't send the tweet, as you might expect, but instead makes the keyboard go away. Just a little quirk.

If you tap on one of the tweets in your stream, you get a pop-up window that looks like this.

You can tap on the white area to select all or part of the tweet, which can be useful for quoting or ReTweeting. The buttons along the bottom of the pop up give you access to the other basic functions: The Profile of the author, ReTweeting the tweet, making a Public reply, adding to your favorites, or sending a Direct Message to the author. Tap on the Profile button, or the name bar at the top of the window and you'll be taken to the profile of the person who wrote the tweet you were looking at.

This looks much like the screen for your profile. Again, the background from the person's Twitter page is downloaded and displayed as the screen's background. Just this time without the colored tint. If the person is using the default background, it uses Tweet Flow's own default background. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to go from this back to the original tweet you were on.

You'll notice that the second tweet on this screen has a sizable image in it. This is another nifty feature of Tweet Flow. When someone tweets a link to an image on Twitpic or one of the other image services for Twitter, it displays a thumbnail of the image. Tap the tweet to see the detail, and again, you'll see the thumbnail.

If the tweet actually contains links to multiple images, you'll see each of the thumbnails that will fit in the space. Now, you'd think that if you tapped on the thumbnail, you'd be taken to a large version of the picture. But it doesn't work like that. You have to tap on the link to open it in an internal browser.

This is a real browser. you can click links and dig down as far as you'd like. Buttons at the top will let you go back and forth, or just close the browser and return to your twitter stream.

Tap on a tweet, and try the ReTweet button this time. You'll be greeted by a pop-up window asking which style of ReTweet you want to use.

The old ReTweet will put the text in your tweet bar and pop up the keyboard so you can add your own comment to the ReTweet in the space that is left. The official ReTweet will add the selected tweet to your stream so your followers can see it.

Public Reply will put the person's name in your tweet bar and let you type your reply. Message brings up a separate message window so you can send a Direct Message. Add Favorite will put the selected Tweet into your Favorites, but oddly enough, there is no way to remove a Favorite from your list. Possibly an oversight?

And that is pretty much it for Tweet Flow. The only thing really left to mention is that it works in Portrait mode as well as Landscape mode.

Tweet Flow is a good, basic Twitter client. It is elegant in its simplicity. If this is the kind of thing you're looking for on your iPad, it is worth giving a look. And it is worth giving a listen to the Crossover episode of Bird House Rules and finding out what Tee and I had to say about Tweet Flow. Or go ahead and subscribe to Bird House Rules. But come back in two weeks to see the next client we'll be looking at.

    Bird House Rules - Episode #12: Review of Tweet Flow (with Nifty Tech Blog) [16:06m]: Download

July Poll Wrapup

July's poll has come to an end, but before we look at the results, I'm afraid I've got a little administrative news to impart. I've been working to provide a special review for tomorrow, and coordinating everything is going to take a bit more time than expected. So instead of tomorrow's review showing up at 12:01 AM, it is going to be delayed until 7 AM. It shouldn't be any later than that. And hopefully, you'll enjoy what we've got in store for you.

But enough about me, let's talk about You! The subject of July's poll was You, the reader. I asked what you felt your level of expertise is. The Nifty Tech Blog is intended to be accessible to everyone, but I wanted to know if I've been successful in attracting a cross section of potential readers. Thirteen people responded to the poll, the best turnout we've had to date.

You've heard that there is one in every crowd? Well we've got our one, and this person responded "I don't read your blog, I'm just here to skew your poll results." I guess one way of looking at it is that 7% of my readership is a technical smartass. Two respondents said they know how to use a few programs, and another two said they were regular users, but wanted to learn how to use more. To those folks, I say, "Welcome!". You're the ones I most want to reach with this Blog. Technology isn't something to be intimidated by, and I hope that I'm helping you find new ways to be productive and explaining things in ways that you understand. If you've got questions, please ask! And if you have problems you'd like to find solutions to, tell me about those, too. It may take a while, but I'll do what I can to find the answers.

Four more respondents said they were power users. I hope you've learned some new tricks here, but I also hope that you'll be willing to share some of your tricks with everyone else. I love volunteer submissions from the community, be it a review, or just a suggestion of a product to review. Even tips or tricks would be welcome. The more we share, the more we all know.

The last group of four identified themselves as Tech Experts, but admitted they don't know everything. I'm glad you guys are here. I'd like to see suggestions and tips from you, too, and the occasional review. But more than that, I depend on you folk to keep me honest, spot my mistakes, and make sure the right information gets out. Nobody's perfect. I make my share of mistakes. I catch them where I can, but I'm more interested in making sure that good information is available for everyone. Thanks for the help, guys. Glad to have you along.

Tomorrow is a new review, even if it is a tad late. And I hope to have August's poll up on Tuesday. So, it is going to be a busy week. I hope you enjoy it!