Tag: linkedin

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So, what is the best Twitter Client?

Not exactly a Twitter client, but tool to manage social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and more.
When I created my first Twitter account in 2006, there weren’t any applications for desktop or mobile. But, it’s 2011 and the service grows so fast. It’s around one billion tweets sent per week (according to March 2011 data). I love Twitter, and I also joined some other services. I don’t use all of them on daily basis, but more about learning how the service works, and how they’are designed. This is something I consider as something-I-like-to-do.
We are connected to each other using social media services. Many people want to be in the front row to get the latest news. They also want to know what is the latest information in the industry they’re involving with. I want to get the news shared by people I’m following on Twitter, or just to see what’s happening from my timeline.
At the same time, I want to share updates. These things seemed easy to be done. But, when it’s involving multiple social media accounts, I can be very busy. Not always, but sometime.
I have been trying and have some application installed on my gadgets — and also my MacBook Pro. I’m having Nokia N8, BlackBerry, and iPhone 4 now. Okey, don’t ask me why I need to have those gadgets. I just have them and don’t use them at the same time. But, I usually switch between those gadget — and of course, applications installed.
The thing is that not all applications works on every device I have with me, even they share similar features. Among many applications (free or paid) to manage my social media account. And these are some applications (including Twitter clients) I use — I switch between applications when I’m on my iPhone as my primary device right now.

I don’t have iPad and Android-based devices anyway. So, why bother having (too) many applications when I don’t use them all? Again, I like exploring how those things work. And, I like working on my account using its native application. For example like using Facebook for iPhone to explore Facebook, even HootSuite also works fine. Why? Switching between application is easy. Right?
I don’t have any other applications like TweetDeck, or Twitter for Mac on my Mac. For the web-based tool I sometime use HootSuite, CoTweet and Twitter website.
For the next post, I think I’ll write short reviews about those applications. From a end-user perspective. There are many tools/services that offer so many features. Probably, they works for businesses, not for personal use. Some are paid service, and some are free. When it comes into a simple question: “What is the best Twitter client?”, the answer should be simple: A client that works for you. Right?

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New design for this blog

I have been very busy in the last few weeks, many things to do. I needed to recharge my energy. And this is the result: a new design for my blog. I created this theme for fun, at least to keep my mood in balance, to bring my mood back to the other design work.
After upgrading to WordPress 2.7 few days ago, I wanted to have some changes here, especially by taking advantages from new features introduced in the latest WordPress, e.g. built-in threaded comment. Here are some notes on my new blog design.

Template tags

Still related to template tags, I try to take advantage from the way WordPress produces CSS selectors. Here is an example. Open index.php in default theme folder, you should see this for the entry loop:

<div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">

The code above will produce something like this:
<div class="post hentry category-services category-sites category-www category-webdev tag-htaccess tag-facebook tag-linkedin tag-service tag-twitter tag-url" id="post-1026">
Do you see the pattern? It will produce some post classes on the entry data (categories and tags). This function is called post_class(). By this, we can customize how each entry (inside the loop) should be displayed, just work with the stylesheet.
If you want to make you theme compatible well with WordPress 2.7, just head to Migrating Plugins and Themes to 2.7 article at WordPress Codex. There are some other useful information for theme designers — and also for you as bloggers.

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Short URLs to Social Services Using Own Domain and .htaccess Redirection

These days, there are many social services we use. I use some of them. Bloggers or websites also provide some links on their blogs/websites to those social service. If links to our profile is easy to remember, that should be great. For example, it’s easy to remember my Flickr photostream using http://flickr.com/orangescale, or Twitter account (http://twitter.com/thomasarie).
But, what about Facebook, Technorati, or LinkedIn? My Facebook profile page is located here: http://www.facebook.com/people/Thomas-Arie-Setiawan/695771665. There is a Facebook application to create more memorable Facebook profile, page or group. They will be something like profile.to/thomasarie or groups.to/AnyGroupName.
Few days ago, @mahadewa and @huda mentioned about this. Anyway, there is .htaccess for redirection. So, why not using it to produce more memorable URLs for our profile? It’s easy. Now, I can have https://thomasarie.com/facebook (Facebook profile), https://thomasarie.com/linkedin (LinkedIn profile), and more.
Since [added later: I have my own domain name,] my web hosting uses Apache and supports .htaccess, it’s very easy to do it. I just put these lines in my .htaccess (in the root folder).

Redirect 301 /facebook http://www.facebook.com/people/Thomas-Arie-Setiawan/695771665
Redirect 301 /flickr http://flickr.com/orangescale
Redirect 301 /linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasarie
Redirect 301 /openid http://openid.orangescale.com/thomasarie
Redirect 301 /technorati http://technorati.com/people/technorati/thomasarie

“Redirect 301” means permanent redirection. You can add as many redirection rules there. Just see the patterns there, pretty easy to understand, right? And, I think it’s easier to remember. It also nice if we use it for our business card :)

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WordPress Apps for LinkedIn

We can add WordPress application for LinkedIn now.

With the WordPress App, you can sync your WordPress blog posts with your LinkedIn profile, keeping everyone you know in the know. Once added, you can filter your posts with a special LinkedIn tag and even display your personal WordPress Gravatar (global avatar). Updates are automatically sent to your network for instant notifications and gratification. (WordPress Apps details)

This application is available for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.

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Those sites keep me busy!

Social networking sites raise everyday — well, not everyday actually — but there are many (too many!) services there. I joined some like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Friendster. When I had my friends invited me, I ignored most invitations. Sorry. It does not mean that I do not appreciate — or do not want to be connected — but, it’s more about me.
I only have 24 hours a day. Doing my works. Having my “real” social-life. And, I have a not-too-friendly internet access. Opening those social networking sites take time. What made it even worst is that I have to deal and spend my time checking the messages, friend requests, bulletin boards, applications.. you name them! When I joined those service, the first thing came up on my mind was that I want to connect with people I really know. Not just for a competition to have as many contacts as possible. There are some pending requests, messages, applications, etc. I just leave them. Most of them because I do not even know the people there. “Someone wants to be connected, but I don’t even know him/her”. So, what for?

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