Today is Twitter’s fourth birthday, and to celebrate the occasion we asked our Twitter followers: “Let us know how Twitter changed your life – add hashtag #thankstwitter4 so we can find your tweet.”

We got thousands of responses — in fact, #thankstwitter4 has become a trending topic. As promised, we did our best to sift through the tweets and find 140 that represent the Twitter zeitgeist as we enter the social network’s fourth year. Below are our selections, split up into categories or sentiments that we noticed were particularly common.

Consider this Twitter’s birthday picture at age four. Is it cute or is it ugly? You decide!

Continue reading…

Teleport for Mac allows users to control multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse!

Have multiple mac based computers? Hate using multiple keyboards and mice? I have the solution!

I recently got a new iMac so I can have a dedicated work computer that I can dual-screen Adobe CS4 and increase productivity. Now I’m staring at 3 monitors: my iMac with dual screen and my older MacBook Pro.

After awhile using these computers, I found myself using my laptop keyboard to try and control my iMac and vice versa. Well obviously that doesn’t work.

I recently did a google search to see if there was a cure for my illness. Abyssoft has created a little program that helped me! It’s called Teleport for mac.

This preference pane app allows a user to control multiple macs with one keyboard and mouse! I just installed it so I’m still new to the whole concept, but I must say I can see it increasing my productivity!

Side note: I tried installing it but I kept getting an error saying, “Could not load teleport preference pane.” The solution to this problem (at least for me ) is:

1. Make sure you have the correct version. Right now there are 2 different versions available. One of them is for older PPC based macs (mine was running Tiger) and one is for newer macs (currently running snowleopard).
2. Try installing the preferencepane app (the right version) and then restart your computer and try re-installing. That worked for me!

It is about that time where college students become graduates. With graduation around the corner, are you ready to put your best foot forward in your next job interview?

I’m getting a lot of personal website requests from students worrying about getting their name out and making a good impression on their potential employers. Do you have a website that displays your best work and your resume? Well lets step back. Do you even have a resume? If not, I compiled a list of steps to keep up with with the latest tactics in landing your first job!

Step 1: Start with the basics. Create your paper resume. Remember that employers get piles and piles of these darn things, so keep it simple, well-written, and to the point. If you don’t have much to put down yet, don’t add fluff.
Great starting points- vault.com, about.com

Step 2: If you want a professional job, act the part. Get your thoughts organized. I posted a video on productivity. There are many resources on the internet about productivity. Also reading up on articles within your industry helps your keep in that mindset and stay focused. The power of Google!

Step 3: Start creating your online presence and networks. There are so many social networking sites. They are all free. By joining these social networks, you can expand your network and also create a web presence. Join these websites and keep your message consistent.

• LinkedIn – Social networking for professionals. Expand your network and also allows you to get recommendations from your fellow professionals! Here is a nice article on how to use it!
• Facebook – Social networking. Stay connected with your friends, family, and people you meet along the way!
• Flickr – Photo sharing website.
• Twitter – Share you thoughts in 140 words or less with others you know or just meet!
• Mashable – Social bookmarking
• Delicious – Social bookmarking
• StumbleUpon – Social bookmarking
• Tumblr – Easy blogging Tumbling!

Look at all the social networks there are!

Step 4: Create a business card. You can create free business cards at vistaprint. I personally would suggest investing in nice business cards once you have a good design in mind. You can also get them done at vistaprint. I’m sure you’ve all seen this video if you have been looking at making a business card.

Step 5: Create a website. Key things to have on your website are: resume, about you, your best work, way of contacting and connecting with you. Be sure to link all the social networks you joined! You can easily make a website yourself using such tools as google sites or weebly.

Step 6: Advertise yourself! Start passing out your business card, start talking up your twitter/social networking sites, start blogging, do whatever you need to do to get your name out there!

Let me know what you think! And be sure to follow my tweets @ryanscottlum

I’ve been running several analytic programs in order to figure out exactly what brings traffic. In the beginning of this experiment ( and in this experiment I used Twitter since you only have 140 words to create interest and bring action) I used literal key words.

i.e. “Learn how to use iGoogle to increase productivity”

What I found is this narrowed the audience because:
1) From this, they can assume what content will be behind the link. In this split second they can choose that their time would be spent better elsewhere.
2) The keywords are not of interest to them. Simple as that.

From this I decided to try more open ended titles such as:

“Learn something new today”
“This is the most funny thing ever!”

I found that by using more vague but interesting words, users were more interested and curious about what is behind the link.

Keep in mind that this way of naming and bringing users to your website is not the one and only way by any means. But next time you advertise your next big idea, try running analytics on your links and see what you kind to be the most successful and let me know!

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Great resources for running analytics:
Bit.ly Url Analytics/
Google Analytics
Google Webmaster Tools

This project has been completed within 2 weeks!