Twitter - Orangescale.NET / Thomas Arie Setiawan

I'm a blogger and web designer from Jogjakarta, Indonesia. See my other blog in Bahasa Indonesia. I love photography. Currently, I live in Jakarta.

I'm @thomasarie on @alderina ampun deh.. Ga mudeng soal gituan.. Ngliat nomor2 brush saja dah pusing.. :P #replytelat § 11 mins ago

Flickr Photo Upload using Gravity? This is good!

I have Gravity installed on my Nokia 5800 XM mobile phone, and so far this is one of my favorite application. If you’re not familiar with Gravity, it’s a Twitter client for S60 platform. It also support Foursquare, Facebook and also Google Reader. Very nice! It’s not free, but it’s not expensive also — I bought it for less than US$10. You only need to purchase a license once.

Today, Jan Ole Suhr (Gravity developer) tweeted an update and he put a link to his Flickr photo page. Right now, I’m using Gravity version 1.30 build 6501. Gravity already support direct photo upload to some services like Twitpic, MobyPicture, Yfrog and also img.ly. But, seeing the screenshot above, it will support Flickr also. Yes, this is good since I use Flickr. Now, waiting for an update.

Nokia Messaging for Social Networks Beta: First Impression

Two days ago, I gave Nokia Messaging for Social Networks Beta a try on my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. This application will help Nokia users to keep update with the social media services — in this case Facebook and Twitter. Of course, it’s still in beta so I should not expect too much.

The installation process was easy and I didn’t have any problems. Everything was smooth. This early preview is available on the Nokia N97, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 5530, Nokia 5800, and the Nokia X6 devices. Go to messaging.nokia.com if you want to see applications from Nokia Messenging for your device.

After having this application installed, I used it right away. When running the application for the first time, I got this welcome screen:

I use Twitter more than Facebook. First, I use the Twitter feature. Here’s the login sreen:

I’m not sure whether I will use this tool called Unfollow All or not, but right now, I don’t have plan to unfollow Twitter users I’m following. But, if I — or an account I maintain — need to do this, this tool should help me do the dirty job.

What is Unfollow All?

This tool will automatically unfollow everybody you’re following. There will be no further confirmation. Please be patient as this may take some time, depending on how many people you are following. After completion, unfollows may take some time to take affect.

(via)

Posterous as Media Sharing Service

Few weeks ago, I posted a question about media/image sharing provider as Twitter companion. I asked about the better solution between TwitPic or TweetPhoto. Andre Siregar (@dregar) mentioned about using Posterous as the image sharing provider. Right now, I’m enjoying Posterous. Posterous offers many features that are easy to use, especially — of course — when it has something to do with email.

When we share media files (photos/videos) — related to Twitter — the idea is to put the image somewhere in the internet, and broadcast the URL to our Twitter account. Most services offers similar mechanism. And, most of them also have ‘post by email’ feature. Now, I think I will use my Posterous account as my primary service to do this. The main reason is that I like using ‘send by email’ feature.

Other reason is about personal preference. Posterous has flexibility on the design. I have made some modifications for my Posterous page. It’s still simple, anyway. Also, Posterous can handle multiple media formats so that it’s not limited to photos/image only, but audio, audio or any other files. If I want to share to Twitter — for example — I can do it easily using Autopost feature, or send it to a certain email address. Nice!

Get millions of Twitter followers

Just in case you want to get millions of Twitter followers. :) (via The Next Web)

Jogtug Celebrated 64th Anniversary of Indonesia’s Independence

Few days ago, I joined @jogtug (Jogjakarta Twitter User Group) to celebrate 64th anniversary of Indonesia’s independence day. The community gathered in an event called #pitulasanTU (the word ‘pitulas‘ means “seventeen” in English). Why seventeen? Because Indonesia celebrates its independence day on Agustus 17.

#pitulasanTU took place at Gedung Agung, Malioboro, Yogyakarta. The idea was simple. We wanted to share something about Indonesia to tourists. And, we chose “gasing“, a traditional toy as the medium. We also handed some gifts to them. When we found tourists there, we talked to them, gave them the some souvenirs (pin and stickers), and asked them whether they wanted to play gasing with us.

Beware of those ‘get more followers’ services!

Recently, I see many updates in my Twitter timeline containing updates about that so called “get more free followers”. The idea is to encourage you to join a service that will boost your number of followers. Sounds familiar? A simple question: what does those number mean (for me)? What do I want to prove by having hundreds or thousand followers? Nothing.

If you try to find service like this, you will find many. They share some common characteristics:

Ask you to login to their websites, it means you give your Twitter username and password.
Sometime, they ask you to follow more people and give you new followers.
And then… the worst part is that they will send updates from your account.

If you’re aware that there’s something wrong with this practice, you can stop doing this. But, if you don’t check Twitter regularly, don’t be surprised if you flood your timeline with those rubbish. Also, you will flood people with useless updates, too. This happens usually because you don’t know when and how those services updates your account. Remember, you gave them permission to access your account when you started using them.

Few weeks ago, I saw one one people I follow used a service like this. His account sent updates few times a day. Not sure about the frequency, but he had more than ten updates promoting the service. And, it seemed that he did not login to his account during that time. What happened next? He got his Twitter account suspended. OK, probably I had a wrong conclusion, but I couldn’t find any other reasons about the suspension.

Personally, I always spend few minutes reading about the service using Twitter login mechanism. I try to get some basic information, e.g:

Login method — Twitter already has a standard secure recommendation. Your login information will not be stored to services’ server.
Privacy statement — Even they don’t have lengthy paragraph about this, but you should read and understand it.
Read more about the service. How the services deal with your login? What will they do with it?
Last but not least — well, it’s my personal preference — do you really need the service?

UPDATE (added later):

Here are some websites that you provide what so called “get more followers” AND you’d better be careful!

tweeterfollow.com and tweeteradder.com — Both are using the same rules. They will ask you to follow other users first, and will give you new followers as “reward”. Here’s what a user experienced:

tweeterfollow.com was sending messages from my username, so I closed my account with them and then changed my Twitter password. Now I’m locked out of Twitter…it tells me I am trying to login too many times with the wrong password. I assume this is because tweeterfollow is still trying to tweet on my account?! Ugh!! (story source)

There is another story about tweeteradder.com, and from Twitter’s Get Satisfaction forum.

There are another services here twitter-train.com and twittertrain.info, but their websites are suspended by the hosting provider already.

Hey, Twitter will gain entry in dictionary?

Twitter‘s popularity increases very fast among the other microblogging application these days. You already know that in 2004, Merriam-Webster dictionary included the word “blog” as Merriam-Webster’s #1 Word of the Year for 2004. Blog is defined as:

[short for Weblog] (1999) : a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer

Back to Twitter, it has gained academic respectability with inclusion in the Collins English Dictionary:

The entry under noun will read: “a website where people can post short messages about their current activities” and under verb it will read: “to write short messages on the Twitter website”.

The word Twitterati, referring to users of the website, will also be entered, as will Twitterverse, which defines the website and its users.

News source: Telegraph

How to get your suspended Twitter account back?

Today, I got my Twitter account suspended. I’m still not sure why, but it seemed because Twitter mistakenly suspended my account. I was a little bit panic, but I believed that there was a solution for this situation. I just hoped that Twitter listened and did something on my issue. Of course, I was only one of hundreds, or thousands, or maybe millions of users who got such problem (at that moment).

To make the story short, I finally got my account un-suspended in two hours or less. So, what did I do to get my account back?

Being suspended, it does not mean that you don’t have access to your Twitter account. When my status was suspended, I could still login to Twitter. I could see the timeline updates from people I follow. Being suspended means that I can’t change any data, it’s like being in “read-only” mode. If you think you don’t do any illegal activities (see Twitter rules), and you want to have your account back, just do the standard procedure.

The first thing I did was filling a ticket, explaining the situation. I also mentioned about the situation I wrote in my blog. I was not sure whether the information was useful or not, but at least I provide more details.

Few minutes after that, I was happy because my ticket status marked as “Solved”. Here, “solved” does not mean “Hurray, I get my account back!”. “Solved” also means “assigned to staff”, or “someone had been notified about the issue”.

I did not want to flood the staff by updating my tickets, asking for an emergency actions. It was around 1 AM (my time), and I could wait until morning, if needed. I was not sure about my ticket status. I also was not sure whether Twitter staff reviewed my request or not. I did not know what happened exactly with account. I just waited for feedback/action from Twitter staff.

I reloaded Twitter page randomly, just to check the status. Suspended, still. And then — after around 2 hours — I had my Twitter account back to normal. I was happy, and checked my ticket status, nothing changed. No comments, no feedbacks, … nothing. I was fine with that. Twitter was probably busy with other issues. The most important thing is that Twitter did something from there. Even if the machine did this, I’m still happy. :)

Lessons learned: it’s fine to be panic but the next things are: don’t panic, follow the procedure, and be patient.

My Twitter Account Was Suspended

Few minutes ago, Twitter got a problem. Not sure about the real problem, but when I opened Twiter website, it said something about “Over Capacity”. I waited. Probably this was the best thing I could do. Usually, Twitter heals its problem in minutes. And, Twitter was back.

Was the problem solved? I thought so. But, I got a bigger problem. My account was suspended. I was logged in to my account at that time and got a warning message.

OK, my account was suspended and I got this message (this is a notification for suspended account):

This account is currently suspended and is being investigated due to strange activity. If we have suspended your account mistakenly, please let us know. See Suspended Accounts for more information.

Strange activity? Well, I think I do no strange activities using my Twitter account, and I think my followers know this. Maybe, Twitter suspended my account by mistake. Maybe, the system did it. I’m just unlucky right now. I’ll contact the staff now, and let see how it goes.

Update 2:40 AM: My Twitter is un-suspended. Yay! I’m not sure the exact time, but it took less than two hours to have my issue resolved. Thank you Twitter staff! Will post about this experience later.

Seesmic Web-Based Twitter Client

There are many tools and applications to work with Twitter, but right now, I use Twitterfox as my primary tool to interact with my Twitter account. I also have some applications installed like Seesmic desktop, DestroyTwitter, and TweetDeck. But, when I start working with my browsers, I rarely open other Twitter desktop client(s).

Seesmic introduced its web-based Twitter client. If you’re using the desktop version, it’s very similar. The web-based version recreates the desktop application. I tried it, and it looks good. The main reason using Twitterfox is because it offers simplicity with very basic features (updates, checking replies/mentioned, and direct message).

So far, my favorite feature of Seeismic (web-based version) is the Gmail-like style. Simple. And, it’s auto-updated, too.

Of course, if you have wide-screen monitor, you can switch to multi-column interface.

Flickr Email Upload and Send to Twitter

Today, I tried another Flickr feature. It’s similar to what they have right now — upload by email. The difference is that after the photo uploaded, it will send a notification to Twitter, send an update status. If you’re familiar with Flickr’s Upload by Email, it should not be difficult at all.

First, you have to link your Flickr and Twitter account. Add your Twitter account into your Flickr profile, and do the next authentication process. After that, you should see the integration status (see image below).

You will have a special email address. Any photos sent to that address will be uploaded to your Flickr and a status update will be broadcasted to your Twitter status. The email address is similar to your regular email you use to upload photos to Flickr (by email). For example, if your private email address is something21rate@photos.flickr.com, your other email will be: something21rate2twitter@photos.flickr.com.

I tried it, and it works without any problem. The photo address will be shorten. (see image below)

I’m not actively using this upload-by-email feature, but it’s something useful and glad Flickr has it.

ø June 28th, 2009, 3:50 am
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VIVAnews Deleted Its Twitter Account. A Smart Move?

Not following VIVAnews doesn’t make me stop reading people’s comments about it. There are some blogs brought this Twitter account into discussion. Today, I noticed that @vivanews_com account had been deleted by the account holder. Maybe, it’s because the Twitter users’ (especially in Indonesia and its followers) responses.

Now, the question: Is it — deleting its Twitter — a smart move? Is it the best option? I think, it’s not. Let’s figure out why the account was closed.

VIVAnews wanted to get another account, and announce it as its official account. When it was published, I couldn’t find any link of it at their site, or something mentioned that it was official.
They (people at VIVAnews?) want to do it better in the future.
They want to “remove” people’s comment.

I think, rather than closing/deactivated its account, the account holder should stop the auto-update and show that they’re listening. They can do it by removing its feed(s) from Twitterfeed. Then, they give respond also via Twitter. Why? Because it’s the medium. They can ask for feedback, and how they can make it better next time.

It can be a better counter for the negative comments on Twitter. If they think that closing account will remove the negative comments, they’re wrong. It’s still accessible in Twitter database, unless people who wrote tweets delete them. See these screenshots: one and two. Those screenshots were taken, even the referenced account has been deleted.

Now, will they join Twitter again? I’m curious.

Topify, A Much Better Twitter Notification Email System

I think I forgot when I joined (got invitation) to try Topify and started using it. Until now, Topify is really useful. It’s a timesaver! Topify is a simple service that will send notification (by email), and it’s related to Twitter. Two important keywords: Twitter and email account.

Sometime, we got notification from Twitter when other Twitter users start following us. Or, if we receive direct message. Is it good? It is. But, what can we do with the email we receive? What’s next?

Previously Twitter sends email notification in flat text. The notification only provides some basic details like Twitter username, real name, and link to Twitter profile page. The last thing is a link to our Twitter dashboard page to modify the notification settings.

Recently, Twitter provides more details, and it’s in HTML format. It includes these following details when we have a new follower:

Link to new follower’s Twitter profile page,
Number of followers,
Number of updates, and
How many people our new follower follows

When we receive a direct message, we will also get information about the sender and link to reply. I use Topify to handle my Twitter-related email notification. And, I’m satisfied. How?

SuperNews! Twouble with Twitters — A young man struggles against the pressure to Twitter his life away [video]