James Cochran’s Blog

I’ve had many friends ask me what a Retweet is and we’ll get to that but first… what is Twitter?

Twitter is a social website that I’ve been using for a few years and it’s a place where you can tell the entire world (wide web) what you are doing, as long as it’s 140 characters or less.  To the left there you’ll see my twitter updates.  Examples of things you might post here is “Working on my website”, “Cooking dinner”, or “Cashing my tax refund and heading to Frys”

That’s about as basic of an explanation as you can get.  People use it for all sorts of other things like promoting their blog or putting out some great information.  Sometimes when another user finds some information they think would be great to share they aren’t sure the best way to do so.  That’s where Retweeting comes in.  It’s not polite to just steal someones tweet and post it as your own so instead you should prefix the tweet and give props back to the original poster.  Here’s what you do:

Copy the tweet you want to retweet.  Start a new tweet and type RT @jamescochran and then paste the original tweet.  Of course replace my user name with the name of the original twitterer.

You may ask why you should go through all the trouble? It’s because you have your list of friends but all your friends may not be following the same people you are or have the same followers.  As a matter of fact the chances are very good you don’t.  Essentially this allows you to share information from one network with your network.  And then someone from your network my share that information with all the people on their network.

It’s all about word of mouth.  I, for one, always pay more attention to tweets that have been Retweeted because I know it’s information that at least two people thought was important or worth reading.  So if you found this link on Twitter make sure you go back and Retweet this!

Recently I tried to run an automatic upgrade on this here blog but ran into some problems.  Specifically it was kicking back this error:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare pclziputilpathreduction() (previously declared in */JAMESCOCHRAN.ORG/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/lib/pclzip.lib.php:5421) in */JAMESCOCHRAN.ORG/wp-admin/includes/class-pclzip.php on line 5498

It turns out this is due to the fact that I was using the old WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin which is apparently no longer needed in WordPress 2.7.  This is an easy fix, all you need to do is disable that old plugin and go back and run the upgrade again.

I’ve been asked by some people what iPhone/iPod Touch apps I like to use on a regular basis.  First off, you must understand I’ve jailbroken my iPhone 3g and am happy I did.  The extra non approved Apple apps I get are worth it plus I like the customization. Like being able to have five icons in my dock instead of four.  Very nice.  When there is an app that requires jailbreaking I’ll let you know.  So here it is, my list of my most used iPhone apps (all free of course):

• Twitterific – I use this all the time on my iPhone as well as on my mac.  Sure I could fire up a browser and go to Twitter.com but were is the fun in that?
• Facebook/Myspace – If you are on these sites and have an iPhone you already have these installed.  ’Nuff said.
• Bible – There are a lot of free bible apps out there but this one hooks up the web so you can have the NIV for free which I like.  This is one of the first ones I grabbed and it gets the job done.  Special Bonus: you can set it for viewing in the dark which changes the background color to black.  Very nice since I’m usually reading in bed before I go to sleep.
• Macman – You’ll have to be jailbroken for this one but it’s a pretty nice pacman clone that you steer using the accelerometer.  It’s fun and it’s free!
• Aurora Feint – Another one of those apps that I downloaded on day 1.  It’s a game along the lines of all the other games where you match three like items in a row and they disappear.  It has some cool functionality to it.  I consider this a must have.  It’s easy to get into and it saves your progress so it’s easy to stop and come back to later.  Perfect for when you’re standing in line.
• MotionX Dice – This isn’t so much a game as it is a way to roll up to 5 dice.  You can use it to play dice games but there is no actual “game” that comes with it.  Still it’s fun and handy if you are into games with dice like “High Five”.
• Klick – If you use Flickr you should have this app installed.  Even if you are on the touch this is still useful for looking at friends photos and commenting and what not.  With an iPhone you can of course take and upload geotagged photos to your account.  This is one that is not popular on iTunes but I think is the best next to the alternatives like Exposure.
• Last.fm – For streaming music over the internet Last.fm is the way to go.  I’ve been using it for years and I can go back and tell you what album I listed to the most on a particular day or week 17 months ago.  This is the portable app of that site and it’s awesome.  It’s one hundred times better than Pandora.
• Remote – How could I wait so long to get to this app?  I love this thing.  Basically it uses my wireless connection to hook into my PC with my iTunes library.  From there I can control what song or playlist to play, volume, etc… I also have an Airport Express with airtunes so I can tell it which speakers to output to.  So my iPhone hooks up to my PC and iTunes which streams music across my house to my sound system.  If that sounds awesome to you then believe me, it is!
• iPhone Modem – There used to be an app on the app store called Netshare that let you share your iPhone’s data connection with your computer.  After a day or so they took it down.  Probably because it’s against your agreement with AT&T.  Never fear!  Jailbreak your phone and download this app.  It’s tethering bliss.
• WinterBoard – Like it’s older cousin SummerBoard this is a way to theme your device.  Nothing much to say here other than it changes the look of your interface.  If you are into that then this is the best option but again this requires jailbreaking.
• WootWatch – This is an app that I actually just started using today.  There is a Woot Off so I needed to be able to keep up on what is being sold.  If you use Woot then this is a handy tool to keep in your pocket.

This has gotten me pretty excited. There is a website out there called spreeder.com that allows you to copy and paste text into it and it will display it one word at a time. Only really fast. When I first heard about it I thought it sounded neat but hearing about it is nothing compared to actually trying it.  So without hesitation go here and get the bookmarklet, highlight the rest of the text in this post and press “spreed!”

I started by opening up a blog from a friend of mine and trying out some of the articles he wrote recently. I was blown away at how fast I was able to consume the information. I read a lot of blogs and tend to have to skim through most of them because I read slower than what I’d like to. With this you don’t have time to focus on a single word and stare at it too long. You see it, your brain processes it, and then you are on to the next word with no distractions.  

For the ultimate test I decided to try out a Project Gutenberg Ebook The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  I pressed ctrl-a and then hit the bookmarklet, within a minute or so it loaded the entirety of the book and I was on my way going through several paragraphs.

This is something you should definitely check out.  It’s so hard to describe that when I first heard of it I waited a week to try it but I wish that I didn’t