I got this idea of this article after me and JavaJunky talking and given a tutorial of how Twitter works to a couple of our friends at my birthday party.  When they went home, 3 people were on Twitter.  I guess me and JavaJunky did a good job on the sales pitch.

Twitter started out as a very simple idea: “What are you doing?”  At first, I wasn’t sold on the idea that I want to tell my friends where I am at, what I’m eating, sleeping etc… I see no point and productivity, a waste of time and add more junk to the web.  One day I was visiting NPR (National Public Radio) website and I saw them that they are on Twitter.  So I started to follow them.  That day on, I saw the light. Instead of popping out your emails, open up your RSS reader, or going through a website just to search news those are interesting to you, they are delivered to you almost instantly with a short description and a link.  As you follow more people on the topic that you are interested in, the more news you can get.  Because I sit in front of a computer most of the time and as many of the web nerds are, I have TweetDeck or Twhirl open pretty much all the time.  I honestly learn more new things in the past 2 months using Twitter as a news service than waiting for my subscription emails to arrive once a week or once a month.

Before Tweeting, I highly recommend using LastPass.  You will never have to remember another password but one password – it is accessible anywhere, and can randomly generates strong passwords for you. Even you don’t know the passwords, so won’t the hackers… I hope :P

Twitter from anywhere

If you don’t have a fancy iPhone or Internet access, well, you don’t have to.  If you are in the U.S. you can just send a text message to 40404.  If you are outside of the U.S. you can find out the number:

Keeping your wanted tweets and filter out the ones that you don’t want!

Twitter to Blogs:

Note: Since I am a WordPress user, I can only say what I know of WordPress.  I don’t know about other blog services.  Just throwing out an idea…

Now you got all of these new information, you’ll probably get overwhelmed by all the information that you are NOT interested in.  But how do you keep the ones you that you want and filter out other junk?  The easiest is to set up a blog such as WordPress and add on a plugin called Twitter Tools (although it is dated for WP 2.7.1., but still works in WP 2.8.1.) – RT (retweet) the tweets that you like, and tell the plugin to do a daily or weekly digest of your tweets.   It’ll grab all of your tweets.  You can also set it to not grab any tweet with @ at the beginning, so very flexible.  Voila!  You now have a daily journal basically.

Bookmarking with Delicious (http://delicious.com/)

Of course, the traditional way is to bookmark your links.  I prefer and highly recommend Delicious that because it comes with a very simple to use yet powerful FireFox addon. With one click, you can save your bookmark, tag them and find them again extremely fast and easy.  But hey, if you prefer Digg, StumleUpon… by all mean.

The Power of Twitter

Tweecious is a FireFox addon that automatically grabs the past 1000 tweets and separate them in tags.  I doubt that is helpful because not all of them you want to keep, and there are repeated tweets, or just down right to useless tweets.  You’ll end up getting more junk than quality information.  The get quality tweets you just have to screen them yourself.  No easy way out.

Twitter to Evernote (http://www.evernote.com/)

I just started to use Evernote for a few weeks, and I don’t know how I could live without it now.  Evernote is a powerful software that allow you to create Notebooks from writing down your diary, doing research, grocery list, backup your mp3, videos, files, or to keeping bookmarks.  Although, I don’t like it keeping my bookmarks, it’s a waste just to insert a link.  You can then later access the exact same information on the web, on another computer that has Evernote installed, or even a SandDish U3 thumb drive.  Evernote can be also shared with other people, publicly or friends for collaborations such as working on a project.  Lastly, you can “web clip” anything on your screen, or highlight text on a page then send to Evernote as a new note.  Powerful research tool.  You can also use your cell phone, take a picture, and email directly to Evernote as storage or whatever you want.

Now, back to Twitter.  Twitter can also send a quick note via Twitter simply by following myEN, then every time you have a link or tweet that you want to keep, just add @myEN anywhere inside the tweet, it’ll be automatically send to your Evernote account.  The bad thing about is that you can’t tag, and it can only be sent to Evernote’s default notebook.  You’ll have go back to add tags and move the note to the category you want.

Twitter to Remember the Milk (http://rememberthemilk.com/)

Remember the Milk is an online tasks service, and get reminders for tasks.  Great for grocery shopping lists ;-)   The thing is, RTM uses Twitter as an input service also.  All you have to do is to follow @rtm (http://twitter.com/rtm), and everytime you want to add a new task. All you have to do is send it a DM (Direct Message) by typing: “d rtm have lunch with mom on Sun @ 1pm”.  Scary enough that RTM knows to add that task as:

Task: have lunch with mom

When: Sunday @ 1:00pm

But it’ll only send to your “Inbox”, and you cannot add tags and locations to the task.  Although, you can apply these commands. I personally like to sit down at home and add all of my grocery, and then grab the list through Twitter on the phone when I’m at the store.  Or add something quick to remind me later through my phone or Twitter desktop app such as TwitterDeck, Twirl etc… it can also send you a DM through Twitter to remind you of your tasks also.

Twitter to GCal through TwitterCal: http://twittercal.com/

Just like RTM and myEN, all you have to do is to follow GCal, then just send a direct message to GCal to add a new event to your GCal.  The problem is, it doesn’t seem to be working because GCal did not follow me back after I followed them, and you cannot DM someone unless they’re following you also.  GCal finally followed me back, it is pretty slick!  You can add What, when, where, and who.  But only What and when are necessary.  Visit twittercal.com for full instructions!

Saving the best for last: Mashup

Dial2Do (http://dial2do.com/)

I just discovered this service a few days ago and boy, it is awesome!  Dial2Do is a “mashup” tool.  You can tweet, send pictures, voice clips, pictures to Evernote, or add a task to your RTM, add a new event to your choice of calendar service, all by just dialing their given number.

Currently, it is in Beta and it is all FREE to use!  They did state that eventually they’ll charge something, but it probably worth it.  Jott is another similar service, they charge reasonable prices for the services.  I have not tried them because I’m broke, and I got Dial2Do :)

Conclusion

The problem of using Mashup service or Twitter to do other tasks that you cannot tag your items, and add them to certain category.  Are hashtags (Example: #tag1, #firefox) really that hard to implement?  But nonetheless, these are very useful tools when you’re not around a computer but with a mobile phone.

How are you using Twitter to organize your life?  Are there more useful tools that you want to share?

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