Over the past weekend when I was on Twitter, I noticed that my tweets were the only ones to show up in my Twitter client Twhirl. I didn’t pay any attention until last night. I’m usually being bombarded with the same people tweeting about a bunch of junk. I lost all my followers and all the people I was following. I don’t know if it was a glitch or what was going on. Over in the help forums, there were a lot of other users that were experiencing the same problems.

Don’t get me wrong, Twitter has the potential to drive traffic to a site and a person can make money too. For instance, I sent out a tweet about giving away a Netbook and in about a ten-minute period, I had 200 new visitors to my site. I am sick of seeing the same tweets repeatedly from the same users. One tweet is see how Cathy turned her teeth from yellow to white in 30 days or something along those lines. I see this one from tons of my followers and from whom I am following.

Another is the one from sofa.tv. This one is annoying because there is one person that just uses the sofa.tv tweet and it’s tweeted about every three minutes. I know what you’re thinking, (why doesn’t he just block the tweeter). To be honest, I have not got around to deleting any of the followers.

I think that Twitter might be overrun with spammers trying to make a quick buck or two. I think I am going to create a new account strictly for the blog and delete my old one. This time I will not tolerate users who are spamming and push my tweets out of the way.

Is it time to get a new Twitter account? Should I just wait until my account gets fixed? Or, should Twitter be out of the question? I appreciate everyone’s feedback on this.

Today I was reading an article on the Washington Post about how the FTC has set endorsement rules for blogs.  The article goes on to talk about what these rules are.  Here is how the story goes and the guidelines we have to follow now.

From now on, bloggers are supposed to disclose to their readers/consumers if they are getting any compensation for doing a review of a certain product.  If bloggers do not follow this new rule, they are subject to an $11,000 penalty per violation.  For instance, if I do a review on a certain program and I am getting any compensation for doing this, I have to disclose it to my readers.

If you want to read the rest of the article, click HERE.

Today’s article is going to be on a program that I use to write all my blog posts. When I first started blogging I was using Microsoft Word to write my articles. Microsoft Word is a good product but I have been using one that has taken its place. The program is called Windows Live Writer. Windows Live Writer is easy to setup and best of all is free to use.

Windows Live Writer is a little program that is used to do multiple things with your blog. When Windows Live Writer is setup, it will look exactly like your blog page and it’s easy to see how your post will look when someone is reading it. It is also easy to add pictures, video, and keywords.  Windows Live Writer also has the ability to check for grammar and spelling errors, and the ability to check the word count of the article.  Here are the features of the program

• New border treatments (including Instant Photo)
• Crop and tilt photos
• Insert multiple photos
• Toolbar alignment commands enabled for images
• Insert and upload Windows Live photo albums
• Insert and publish video to YouTube
• Additional spell checking languages: Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, English (Australia), Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish, and Ukrainian
• Server-side tagging (for supported blogs)
• Type-down filtering in the Open dialog
• Twitter, Digg and Flickr Plug-ins
• Improved blog account setup
• Lightbox and Windows Live Spaces inline preview support
• Improved category control: adding categories, type-down filtering
• Tabbed view switching
• AutoLink glossary
• Smart quotes/typographic characters
• Word count
• Support for bidirectional languages (like Hebrew and Arabic)
• Tabs for view switching
• Updated look and feel

Windows Live Writer also has a ton of plug-ins that will help Live Writer be more efficient for you. I have been using Windows Live Writer for a few weeks now and have found it to be very useful when I want to publish a blog post. I am still in the process of downloading plug-ins that will fit my needs. This is a very good free program that I will definitely be using on a regular basis. If you are a dedicated blogger and likes to be able to publish posts quickly, then this is the program for you.  Windows Live Writer can be downloaded from HERE.

Twitter is near a deal with a group of investors that reportedly believe the social media network is worth $1 billion.  The deal is for as much as $100 million and is made by a group of investors that include a huge mutual fund manager named T. Rowe Price and a group of private equity firms and venture capital companies.  According to the Yahoo news article, the deal is supposed to close soon.

I had no idea that Twitter could be sold for that much.  There are always investors that are willing to pay top dollar for businesses or Websites.  Twitter has the potential to make entrepreneurs thousands of dollars due to the fact the short messages can reach thousands or people.

Twitters first prototype launched in March 2006 and then went public in August 2006.  Twitter has become a social media phenomenon and houses millions of Twitterer’s.

Besides my girlfriend, my most prized possession is my iPhone. The iPhone has truly revolutionized the telecommunications sector. If you own an iPhone, you probably can agree with this statement. Without my phone, I am literally lost. About a month ago, I jumped in a pool with my iPhone and did not realize it until five minutes later. The phone was completely water logged and I did everything I could to try and save it but could not get anything to work. I was completely devastated by this incident and had to resort to using a go phone. Luckily, I was due for an upgrade and was only without an iPhone for a week. I also put the waterlogged phone on Craigslist and sold it for $70. I only spent $30 and change to get a new iPhone.

Now I want to turn my attention to my three favorite paid iPhone apps to date. There is literally an app for everything you can think of, the ones I am going to discuss are the ones that I use the most on a daily basis.

1. Tweetie

When I created this blog, I had a Twitter account but never really used it. Twitter is a good way to send short status updates of what you are doing. In my opinion, Tweetie is the best Twitter iPhone app because it allows you to do multiple things when you are on the go. This app costs $2.99 and can be downloaded from the app store on the iPhone or through iTunes. Tweetie is made by atebits and has the following features; these features were taken from atebits Website.

• Handle multiple twitter accounts.
• View your timeline, replies, direct messages, and favorites.
• Browse your friends and followers.
• Post new tweets, retweet.
• Reply directly to tweets and send direct messages.
• Follow and unfollow people.
• Mark tweets as favorites.
• Navigate reply chains.
• Inline web browser.
• Post links with automatic link shrinking via bit.ly.
• Upload pictures to twitpic.com.
• Update your twitter location.
• View twitter trends and perform custom searches.
• Save your favorite searches.
• Implements the full twitter API.
• Uses secure connection (https).
• Go to User shortcut
• Nearby search
• Themes and adjustable font size
• Bookmarklet support

2. Photoscatter

Photoscatter comes in a close second in my favorite iPhone app list. Photoscatter is an app that lets you send a photo to multiple Websites like Facebook, Flikr, Shutterfly, Photobucket, Picasa, and Twitter. In order to send photos to these sites, you need to have a registered account with them. Photoscatter is developed by Unique Apps and the developers are working on adding more sites to add to the app. Photoscatter has a price tag of $1.99 and can be downloaded from the iPhone app store or through iTunes.

3. Awesome Note

Awesome Note is an app that allows you to organize notes into custom categories. I use this app to keep reminders of everything I do not want to forget. It really is like a little personal organizer. Here is a list of features directly from the Awesome Note Website.

Organize notes into folders
- Create, edit and save notes into categories like Work, Idea, Study.
- Customize folders with color-coded folders and unique icons
- Create, edit and delete folders

Customize notes with themes
- Provide a wide variety of note backgrounds
- Easily change out backgrounds just by tapping a menu
- Choose the display font and font size for each note
- Edit your own note title

Support Landscape mode
- Support both Landscape and Portrait modes in all views
- Easy to type with the wide keyboard

Provide Quick Memo
- 4 Post-it style memos
- Quickly access to memos
- Jot down ideas and to-dos
- Save as notes

Backup and Transfer
- Backup/Restore notes with Google Docs.
- Import/Export notes you select with Google Docs.

Passcode Protection
- Optional Passcode Protection feature for each folder.

Usability
- Search notes
- Access to all notes in All Note category
- Sort notes by name and date on a list
- Provides a button to close keyboard
- Share notes with friends by email
- Restores the last viewed note and folder
- Support Cut, Copy, Paste and Undo
- Thumbnail view mode
- Provides Quick-Add notes on the list screen
- Access the last-edited note on the main screen

Themes
- Natural beige
- Natural gray
- Modern zebra
- Soft blue
- Soft pink
- Vintage letter
- Vintage blackboard
- Retro travel
- Modern black
- Modern line

I use all these apps on a daily basis and they have made many things easier especially when I am on the go. If you are an avid Twitter user and have an iPhone, I think you should really consider Tweetie. The features of this little gem are truly amazing. If you like to upload your iPhone pictures to the various photo sharing sites, then Photoscatter is definitely for you. This app will definitely save you a lot of time when uploading photos to photo sharing sites. In my opinion, Awesome Note should be on every iPhone out there. Making reminders have never been easier with this app. I am constantly making reminders to myself with this app and I know that I will not forget anything. I hope you found this information helpful. These apps have saved me a lot of time and I am more efficient with them.