I’ve been really getting into Twitter lately, especially since I got my Helio Ocean; the first cell phone I’ve owned that wasn’t a total pain in the ass to text with. Twitter lets you send short text messages that people can subscribe to and you can subscribe to their twitter feeds (or ‘tweets’) as well - you can write or read on your computer, net-connected PDA, or phone.

Robert Scoble has said, the key to Twitter is not who’s following you - it’s who you follow. He’s right. There are a lot of interesting smart people on there. You start by following your friends, then you figure out who they are following and you go from there. It’s all free, of course.

If you want to follow me, go here..

The interesting thing about Twitter is that the way I’m using it, it’s pretty social and very ‘up to the minute’. If you follow the right people - people who are interested in the same kind of stuff you are - then you can learn a lot and keep up to date on all sorts of interesting stuff, from the minutia of people’s personal lives to the latest news.

I’ve been using a piece of software called Twhirl and I like it and now they’ve been bought and…oh, I’ll let DownloadSquad explain some of this…it’s kinda technical but you’ll see there are a few companies in this space doing interesting things.

Seesmic, which is in private beta, is basically a micro-video-blogging service, which allows users to record and share short videos and respond to videos from other users. Seesmic has often been described as Twitter for video chat. Today that comparison becomes a bit more apt, as Seesmic has acquired Twhirl, one of the most popular desktop clients for Twitter.

Twhirl is one of several Twitter clients built on Adobe AIR which use Twitter’s API to essentially make a web-page based service feel more like an instant messaging client. You can run Twhirl as a desktop application on your Windows, Mac, or Linux machine. When new messages come in, you get an alert, and you can sort messages by replies, directs, or personal and public timelines. Twhirl also recently added the ability to repost messages to other micrblogging services like Jaiku and Pownce.

Seesmic acquires Twhirl, will add videos to popular Twitter client - Download Squad

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It’s the Casio Exilim EX-F1 and I want one!

This is a very big deal for all kinds of film makers from action chop socky fiends to nature doc makers who want to make their own Koyaanisqatsi
I know it’s got limitations but as an artist or film maker it’s up to you to work around them. Check out Engadget for more…

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Read about MixWit.com, tried it and I was impressed - they had all of the songs I was looking for AND a Radio Shack label! Nice! They let you post everywhere, too.

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The Scansnap arrived one day earlier because NewEgg rocks - just like the best computer stuff mail order place on both price usually and shipping, always. It set up quickly and easily…and damn, it WORKS. Really well. It’s smaller than I though, very fast and whammo - hundreds of pieces of paper I’ve had laying around are already nice, neat digital files. Better than the orginal, because they take up no space, are search-able, index-able and can even be converted into text files quickly. I converted a big legal transcription in minutes and it’s ready to cut, paste, post, edit, whatever. I scanned old school evaluations, stuff my Mom wrote, bills, tax stuff, production forms, legal papers, anything I could. It works as advertised. Awesome.

I also cut my HBO, Showtime, etc - all the extra channels above 100 on my cable. We just don’t watch them anymore. Now it’s all YouTube and whatnot. Saving like $80 a month, too. More of the cutting as the week progresses.

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Many months ago, I starting talking about my ‘Digital Me’ project - where I’m trying to reduce clutter in my personal and professional life by digitizing as much analog stuff - paper, video tapes, photos - as possible. Because of my current 9 Day Weekend, I’ve got a big chunk of time to start doing it…so I am.

Plus hard drives have dropped even MORE in price - I paid $79 for a 500 Gig Hard Drive at Fry’s today. Amazing. So, I don’t quite have all the details worked out but I’m going to blog it as the week progresses. And my Scansnap scanner is on the way, too.

Also starting to clear out clutter and extra - just gave away an extra computer that’s running Edubuntu to someone from Craigslist.

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On the heels of Nine Inch Nails / Trent Reznor releasing his new Ghosts with an interesting business model, video game giant Electronic Arts is announcing the upcoming Battlefield Heroes will be free and will work on lower powered PCs…

Free sounds like a great deal to the consumer, but not for businesses. EA plans to make money mainly through advertising. For instance, whenever the game is loading, you’ll see ads. We saw two big banner ads for EA games that were released last year (keep in mind we saw the in-development version of Battlefield Heroes, so those were placeholders). EA says that there will not be any in-game advertising in the game itself, so you will not see any billboards or posters for the latest Hollywood movie or Detroit car while dodging bullets. A secondary source of income is microtransactions that are entirely optional, though EA didn’t really go into depth about what types of things you’ll be able to purchase.

Battlefield Heroes First Impression - PC News at GameSpot

Blogged with Flock

( h/t Shane)

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I made it using Wirenode.com - a free and awesome service.

Aim your mobile device at http://stranahan.wirenode.mobi

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Great video on the early 90s tip. Dancing straight outta Big Daddy Kane, Kid N’ Play, and (of course) Hammer. Yeah, that’s Justin.

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Business News and Opinion on The Huffington Post

Now that I’m getting busier with producing, I picked up a Helio Ocean and their $99 per month unlimited plan that actually means unlimited and so far I’m a really happy camper. The iPhone is neat but I like the typing on the Ocean better, the YouTube features on Helio are great, the Ocean is a video camera, and you can IM on Helio. I have got the pictures to send to Flickr but don’t have blogging enabled yet.

But then of course the day after I get it I read how the company is bleeding money. But whatever.

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One of my other recent obsessions, the open source Chumby is now out and Wired Labs has one….oh, I want one.

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