TweetDeck, The Story of a Maligned App

In today's technology and communication heavy world, it is important to have a presence in a wide range of social networks, from Facebook to Twitter to Tumblr to FourSquare and so on. If you want to submit a single message across all of these different networks (or even across multiple accounts on the same network) it is nice to only have to do it once. That is were a social media manager or dashboard can come in handy. There are several applications out there that can do that for you, but I want to talk about one in particular: TweetDeck.

As part of my job I have to manage the company's social network presence. I tried several apps, web-based and Windows-based. I tried HootSuite, Seesmic and others, but my favorite was TweetDeck. To put it simply TweetDeck had everything I wanted. It had among other features:

• the ability to look at multiple accounts across multiple networks
• use Bit.ly to shorten links
• a neat feature called Deck.ly that allowed users to post messages longer than 140 characters to Twitter

TweetDeck had a web version, an Adobe AIR version (which would run on PC, Mac or Linux) and a iOS version. All in all, I was very happy with it.

And then, Twitter bought it...

At first, I had great hopes for the purchase by Twitter. I expected great new feature to be added. I was wrong.

Shortly after purchase, Twitter released a new version of TweetDeck that was no longer written for Adobe AIR, but was now OS specific.(I imagine that this makes it harder to write.) This new version looked much plainer. This new version dropped support for LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Foursquare and MySpace and killed the Deck.ly feature.

I have the uneasy feeling that eventually, TweetDeck is going to be renamed the Twitter Manager (or something else with Twitter in the title). It's already been changed to TweetDeck by Twitter.

Even the logo has been changed to look more like Twitter.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm very unhappy that Twitter bought a program I like and messed it up. I wished they would have kept the features and improved them. But I get the feeling that Twitter is trying to boost their own product line to the detriment of some customers.

In the end, I still use TweetDeck, albeit, the pre-acquisition Adobe AIR version. The only thing that does not work is Deck.ly, so I'll need to find something else for that.

On another topic (but one very similar), Twitter has recently purchased another product that I use: the blogging platform Posterous. Twitter says they are not going to do anything to Posterous at the moment, but rumors are flying that they just bought Posterous for the talent. Lifehacker even had a article on how to switch your blog from Posterous. We'll see what happens next.

Thoughts on Amazon's New Kindle Fire Tablet

A couple of weeks ago, Amazon took the wrapping of its new and much discussed tablet. The new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet has been called an iPad-killer by some, but I have my doubts. Granted I have not actually used it yet (it will not be shipped until November 15), but I've read enough to form my own conclusions.

Operating System

One of my biggest concerns is the operating system. Amazon took the Android operating system and created their own version or fork. This creates two problems for me. One, Amazon's fork is not based on the latest version of Android (3.2.1). (Android 4.0 has just been released.) Instead, the fork is based on version 2.3. This seems to indicate to me that the Fire will not have all of the latest features you can with other Android based tablets. It almost seems that Amazon is handicapping itself before it even enters the ring.

The second concern that I have about the operating system is the apps store. Unlike other Android tablets, which use the official Android Market to purchase apps, to get apps for the Fire you have to go to the Amazon Appstore. There are not as many apps available in the Appstore than the Market and I did not see any apps written by Google. This makes me wonder if apps for the Fire need to be written differently than regular Android apps.

Browser

When Amazon modified the operating system, they also included their own web browser, which they call Silk. While it is based on Webkit, like the regular Android browser, it works like Opera Mini. When you request a page with the Silk browsers, it divides the work between the tablet and Amazon's servers. This means that besides your ISP knowing what you surf, Amazon knows (for their ad database). From what I read, even the government has questions about the security ramifications. Thankfully, it sounds like you can turn this feature off and render everything on the tablet.

Hardware

I don't know too much about the CPU in the Fire, so I won't comment on it (except that it is made by Texas Instrument, a company that is known for its calculators). There are a couple of things that bother me about the hardware configuration. There's no camera and no microphone. For me, this is a deal breaker. Every mobile device available has a camera and a microphone. The lack of both just makes it stand out from the pack, but not in a good way. Also, the Fire's screen is 7 inches, while most of the others are several inches larger. The one thing 

Final Thoughts

Amazon is making an effort to make a splash in the tablet market. With a price that is $100 less that the iPad, they will do just that. (Interestingly, Apple received a couple sample of a 7 inch "iPad mini". So far this is just a rumor. The late Steve Jobs said that 10 inches was the minimum size, but you never know. If the market demands it, they will probably make it.) To me, it almost seems like the Fire is more  of a beta, than a finished project. It may seem like a great deal for some, but I'd wait for the next version and hope they get around to adding a microphone and camera. Time will tell.

How to Search Your PC Instantly

    Have you ever been in a hurry to find a file?  Ten minutes minutes before the meeting and you need to find the video clip you were going to show.  If you use Windows, you would pull up Windows search, type in the title, and wait for it to search through all the files on your computer.  Depending on how many files that you have, this may take quite a while. 
    There is a small, powerful alternative to Windows Search that will find what you are looking for in a matter of minutes.  It is called Everything.  This program is less than 400 kilobytes in size.  It installs quickly and indexes you computer in a matter on minutes.  Whenever you create an new file, the index is complete.  It works on Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and 7.  (Since Vista and 7 have an improved search function build into the Start Menu, it is ideal for any pre-Vista Windows OS.
    One of the drawbacks of Everything is that it only searches the file and folder names, not their contents.  But if you remember a little bit of the title, you can probably find it.
    So, go ahead and use this tool.  You can download Everything here: http://www.voidtools.com/.