*Keep in mind, I am writing this out of rage.

Automated Tweets

Yes, I’m following you.  Yes, twitter is meant for the mundane, “What are you doing right now?” question.  However, you don’t need to sign up for a service that tells me everything you do.  Mainly because I don’t care that much about you.

If you use a service that automatically tweets…

• When you sign on to Xbox LIVE, or change the game you are playing
• When you have sex using pressure sensors on your bed
• When you weigh yourself in the bathroom
• When you go to Starbucks, and then again when you walk to the park minutes later (foursquare)
• When you are on a plane that tweets your location every 30 minutes

Or anything similar where you yourself don’t actually interface with twitter in anyway (foursquare being the exception), that’s not you tweeting.  That is just you using other services to tweet incredibly boring events in your life because you have nothing better to say on your own.  I immediately unfollow people that use services like Raptr.

Foursquare is a bit of the exception to my reasoning, but it still doesn’t belong on twitter.  You do intentionally have to check-in for it to make a tweet, but Foursqure status updates do not belong on a twitter timeline.  Why?  There is nothing anyone could possibly say as a response to, “Checked-in at Starbucks.”  You are a waste of those 100 some pixels on my timeline.

As far as automated tweets go, I’m perfectly fine with things that populate the tweet for you.  Such as sharing a video on Youtube, or sharing a bookmark from delicious.  Things like that don’t require you to do anything on twitter, but those tweets are you, not a service.

This first part is completely unscripted.  I just needed to get something going, or else I would’ve never started.  I’ve already started scripting the next ones, and this should be a five part series, just like last time.  Maybe I’ll do a PHP series after that.

Anyway, I hope between my stuttering and trying to get me thoughts together you find some HTML knowledge.  As with any first part, this is just a primer.  You won’t walk away anything special from this, but the rest of the series will definitely build more and more.

I highly recommend you view this full screen.

HTML Tutorial Part 1

It may seems as though I hate Apple, but this isn’t true.  I just have a stronger resistance to their powerful hype-machine, and visually appealing products.  This has caused me to turn toward my Blackberry, rather than an iPhone.  Stay with Windows 7, rather than going to Snow Leopard.  Being able to ignore the hype has now caused me to look the other way when the iPad comes out.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPad is an engineering marvel.  Not to mention to amazingly tightly integrated services they will provide through the iTunes network.  When you get past all the Apple sexiness and hype though, what you have is a really big iPod Touch.  The iTouch is also a great product, and a big one does sound really nice.  It’s all about the operating system and software though.

To me, Windows 7 sounds much more appealing than the iPhone OS.  Which is why I stumbled on to the Nokia Booklet 3G.  It has a physical keyboard, bluetooth, USB ports, and most importantly it runs Windows 7.  I don’t think anyone will disagree when I say Windows 7 will allow much more functionality than the iPhone OS. to do much more with the device.  Sure, it doesn’t have that ‘new’ look a tablet brings to the world.  Nor does it have a touchscreen, but in all honesty, who needs one?

The iPad is supposed to be this living room device, which is why it’s small and designed to look good on a coffee table.  There are many netbooks out there that look great and will do much more than the iPad because of the operating system.

Now, if the iPad was running some version of OS X, that would be a different story.  As of now though, when everyone is buying their iPad from Apple, I’m pretty sure I’ll be looking at a decent netbook which will have similar hardware specs, plus Windows 7.

The Nokia Booklet 3G seems to be one of the best that I’ve found.  I haven’t played with many devices of this size, but the Booklet is amazing.

The price is very similar as well.  Like the iPad, it runs of AT&T’s 3G network (it does have wifi support though), and you can get it subsidized for $200 with a new 2 year contract.  If you wish to get it unsubsidized, it runs for $600.

Features:

• Windows 7 (and all the hundreds of thousands of application that aren’t tied to any one source that you can install freely)
• 10 hr batter life (So they say, either way it will be better than the iPad)
• 120GB HDD
• WiFi Enabled
• 3G
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• HDMI Port
• 1GB Memory
• 44 ounces
• 1.6GHz Process (Atom)
• 10″ Screen
• Physical Keyboard
• 3 USB ports

So now tell me.  Would you want a giant iPod Touch?  Or a decent netbook?

Nokia Booklet 3G

I am not in anyway sponsored by or affiliated with Nokia or Best Buy.  The Booklet 3G is one of many similar netbooks that I deem more worthy than the iPad.

You can find all of these apps through just a couple sources.  The Blackberry App World will have most of these, the rest you can find on MobiHand, or searching for the developer’s website.

Podtrapper

Podtrapper isn’t free, but it’s definitely worth $10 if you need something to catch all your casts on your phone.  It does everything you’d think a podcatcher would, including support for videos.  The download manager is perfect, and the podcast bookmark feature is very useful.

Seesmic

This is the newest twitter client on the Blackberry scene, and is probably my favorite.  It’s free, and most importantly without ads.  Usability is amazing, especially with the new keyboard shortcuts.  While choosing a twitter client is really a personal choice, Seesmic takes the cake for me.

Google Maps

…it’s Google Maps.  You type in an address (or search for a business), it takes you there.  Not much to say here, other than it being a great alternative to the pre installed Blackberry Maps.

Pandora

Been a huge fan of Pandora ever since it was unveiled a few years ago.  The Blackberry app allows me to stream it all through my phone over 3G, while including the thumbs up/down and skip.  Quality is amazing, and it even allows you to create new stations from your device.

Slacker Radio

Between my media card and Pandora, my music needs are pretty much covered.  Slacker does come in handy when you want something new.  Their “Today’s Hits” station is just like turning on the radio in your car…without as much advertisement.  Although, I could do without the types of Miley Cyrus, but that’s not Slacker’s fault.

QuickLaunch

One of the most useful apps I have.  Rather than scrolling through the screen of icons to open up what I want.  QL lets me make my own customized list menu for anything I want.  Apps, files, bookmarks, even actions to contacts.

ScoreMobile

ScoreMobile, while could be better, it serves its purpose well enough.  Keeps me updated on live games with play by play, while allowing me to also go back and check scores throughout the season.  I only pay attention to the NFL, NBA, and MLB, but ScoreMobile caters to tons of other leagues.

BerryUnitConverter

As smart as I am, I can’t make many conversions in my head.  It does conversions for just about anything from tons of categories, even stuff I didn’t know existed.  What’s a Dyne?  Do I actively use this?  No.  Has it come in handy every now and then?  Absolutely.

GMail

While the Blackberry has one of the best email technologies out there, I generally delete messages off my phone to save memory.  The GMail app is very useful for searching those archived emails on the Google cloud.

Wordpress

This app could use a lot of work.  However, it is useful for my editing process on other blogs.  On a couple blogs, all I need to do is hit “Publish” on articles written by other authors.  This app lets me do that from my phone.  Would I ever write an article through this app?  Absolutely not.

Speedtest

Eh, it’s one of those things you like to have I guess.  I do question the accuracy at times.

White Noise Lite

This is a solid app, if you’re the type of person that can use it.  Many people, like me, can’t focus in a library or in an office environment that is too quiet, or too distracting.  White noise allows me to drown everything out, or remind me I’m still alive.  I only use the free version as that is all I need.

BerryWeather

Yes, I paid $10 for a weather app.  Deal with it.  BerryWeather while all it does is inform of the weather, it does so in a very…well developed-worthy of $10 dollar type of way.  There are plenty of free weather apps out there that serve their purpose, but BerryWeather to me is worth the little premium.

Google Voice

The number I give out to the general public is my Google Voice number.  I’ve received many cold calls by people and have had great conversations.  I’ve also had bad ones.  The Google Voice app lets me dial out, and send SMS messages from my Google Voice number.

Poynt

Easily one of the most useful apps I have.  With Poynt, I can search for businesses with more accurate results than Google.  With Poynt (while I’ve never had to) can search local White Pages.  With Poynt finding movie times and locations is a breeze especially with GPS turned on.  There are other apps that do what Poynt does, but no one displays the results as nicely as Poynt.

Bolt

I used bolt on my old Berry when the native browser just didn’t get it done.  With my new phone however, the browser is much improved and I haven’t needed an alternative yet…but it’s nice to have.  Even though you’re using Firefox…you don’t uninstall IE.

FML

The FML is great for killing time.  I’m a huge fan of the site, and the app is very well made.

Audible

I’m a huge audio book listener, and use Audible to purchase my books.  The audible app on Blackberry lets me stream the books, or download them and play them locally.  While the app could really have been made better, it does what it’s supposed to.

VLCRemoteControl

There are times when I forget to record certain shows, or movies and want to watch them later.  I *magically* retrieve them on my computer and play them through VLC Player.  My bed is in a place that allows a pretty good view of my decent sized monitor, so many times I do watch as I go to sleep.  The VLCRemoteControl extends playback features to my Blackberry and sends the signal over the wireless network.  So I don’t have to get up while I’m trying to go to sleep to turn down the volume, or pause/play.  The app even allows me to browse my hard drive and queue up videos in the play list.

Google Sync

Google sync allows a two way sync from my phone and google account.  This has made emailing and calendar sharing amazing.  It does it all automatically and best of all wirelessly.

Google Talk/AIM/Live Messenger

I actively use these messaging application from my phone.  They are developed by RIM themselves.

Dictionary.com

The Dictionary app saves a few seconds of time by not having to open up the browser and go to the website to search for a word.  The app even has a thesaurus and “Word of the Day” tab, which is always…interesting.

Facebook

Eh, I don’t really use Facebook.  I have an account…I think.  Either way, the app is there installed with the icon in a place that doesn’t bug me.

Loopt

I have a handful of friends on Loopt.  It’s a worthless service if you ask me.  I guess I just haven’t gotten around to actually uninstalling it.

Honorable Mentions

These are apps that I guess I’m obligated to keep on my phone, but really don’t use them actively.  I’m sure I’ve used them all at some point for the geek factor, but…eh, I don’t know.

• edocrab – Barcode reader
• Blackberry App World – I don’t really ‘browse’ apps.  I know what I want.
• Google Mobile App
• Slydial
• I Love Blackberry – Keeps track of my usage.
• Brickbreaker

These are just all the non native apps I use.  The native Blackberry apps are great as well.  Everything from the Clock to the browser.  If you have a Blackberry, you should definitely check out everyone of the apps I listed above.

While this is a pretty long list of apps, there are plenty of others out there.  So don’t rule RIM and Blackberry out of the race just yet.  The 9700 is a solid device.

Don’t forget that app is short for application.

DNS servers act like the white pages of the internet.  They turn your text address (iblizz.net) into the numerical IP address that website is located at.  That text to number conversion is called resolution.

How long does resolution take?  Not even .1 of a second.  So immediately you can dismiss everyone telling you OpenDNS is faster than ISP, or Google is faster than OpenDNS.  You, a human being, won’t notice any difference in speed what so ever.  If you spent time thinking about, and changing DNS because of speed.  You might as well research every phone directory in your area to find the one with the least amount of garbage pages.  Yeah, on paper you have the most efficient book.  However, it’ll still take you the same amount of time to find the number to the mental institute as it would with any other book.

The only reason why you should question your current DNS server, and the only reason why I switched to Google, is because of DNS hijacking.  If you type in a domain that doesn’t exist, in turn not having a numerical IP, it can’t resolve.  Different DNS providers do different things at this point.  My ISP, Mediacom, took my browser to their search engine, which I didn’t like.  I tried OpenDNS, but again, it took me to their search engine.  Google’s Public DNS is the only one that I know of that lets my browser do what it’s supposed to do when I mistype a domain name.

If you don’t care about what happens if you mistype a domain name, then again, you have no reason to even think about your DNS situation.

In conclusion, if you had never heard about DNS until recently, go back to being ignorant.  I’ve heard it’s bliss, and in this case you’ll be fine.

Sidenote

Yes, you may hear of some ‘vulnerabilities’ in the current DNS system and may have been convinced that your system may be at risk.  In all honesty, these security holes get fixed before they cause any problems…by ALL DNS providers.  So don’t change because of security issues.

I also realize that OpenDNS extends the protocol and provides some features that may be useful to many people.  Including, content filtering, parental control, and a few shiny graphs.  These are legit reasons to switch to OpenDNS.

Now that we’ve made GMail our hub, we need to setup our BIS account to receive and send email for all of our addresses. In order to find out where to login to your BIS account, give your carrier a call.

Once logged in, click on “Setup Account” and enter in your GMail credentials. Once this goes through, you’re Blackberry will start receiving all your mail, including the ones sent to your other accounts thanks to the forwarder we setup earlier.

Only thing left to do now is enable our Blackberry to send email through our different email accounts. Again, go through the “Setup Account”, same as we did for the GMail login. This time you’ll need the login information for your other email accounts on your server. Again, if you don’t have this information, get in touch with who ever manages the email server.

There is one little tweak we need to do once you setup all your accounts. In order to stop receiving duplicate emails on your device, and still enjoy the spam protection from GMail, we need to setup a filter.

From the main BIS page, go into the filter menu for each of the email addresses, except GMail, and setup a filter not to deliver messages intended for that address. This works because we all those messages via the GMail account.

There you have it. You now have a nice, central, web client for all your email with basically unlimited storage. Also are now under the great Google spam umbrella.

Case

My openTRAY.com email address is out there.  It’s been posted on forums, blogs, and various other places spam bots condemn the address.  I get around 20-30 spam emails every day.  Having all this pushed to my Blackberry is simply annoying.  While I do have a spam filter setup on the openTRAY.com email server, it doesn’t quite cut it, and I don’t want to spend money on some elaborate corporate filter.

This is where GMail comes in handy with its super ninja spam filter.

Solution

Turning GMail Into A Client

Sign up for a GMail account.  The user name is not important as you won’t actually be sending emails from this address, nor will you need to give out that address to your correspondents.

Once signed up and logged in, we need throw all of our emails into GMail.  The best way to do this is by using a simple forwarder.  You may need to get in touch with the person that handles your email server to figure out how to do this.  We have cPanel installed on our server, so I’m going to log into my email there and forward all my email to my new GMail account.

Once I got my @opentray.com forwarder set up, I no longer read those emails like I usually do.  I now log into GMail and recieve all the mail there.  Now we need to set up sending mail from gmail.com so that it sends as iblizz@opentray.com.  Go into your account settings, and looking inside the “Accounts and Import” tab.  You see see a button on that page somewhere that reads, “Send mail from another address.”  Go about setting up the email address in GMail, you will have to check a verification email (which should arrive in your GMail inbox if the forwarder was setup correctly).  Once verified, you will now be able to send mail from gmail.com, completely eliminating your previous email client.

There is just one last thing to do in order to fix outgoing emails when pressing the ‘Reply’ button.  Go back into the “Accounts and Import” tab in GMail settings and make sure “Reply from the same address the message was sent to” is checked under the “When recieving email” setting.

You can now safely ditch your old email client and use gmail.com as your primary email tool.  This has many advantages, the biggest is the amazing spam filter.  However, if you’re a fan of the cloud, this is the way to go as opposed to a desktop client like Outlook or Thunderbird.  Google also provides what is essentially unlimited email storage, meaning you’ll never have to delete an email…ever.  Just rinse and repeat this process for all your email accounts, and you’ll have a nice hub for your messages online.