Geek Habitat

Like everyone who joins Twitter, I’m trying to optimize my usage of it and find the best way to mesh it into my life in a fun and productive manner. Sarah Dopp’s post, “More Twitter Tips,” had a terrific tip I’ve been needing.

Since I have unlimited Internet on my Blackberry, but a limited (~200/month) SMS messages, and I use at least 60 of those sending SMS to my non-Blackberry parents. Thankfully, both Justin and my brother are fellow BlackBerry users so I don’t rack up additional SMS talking to them.

Anyway,  I was under the impression it was best if I didn’t have Twitter send me anything to my cellphone ‘lest I blow past my 200 “free” SMS messages. This meant I’ve been relegated to surfing Twitter.com and, most recently, Quotably.com, in my web browser on the Blackberry (I use Opera, BTW, on the B’Berry.) Oh, and I use a third party email-to-Twitter app, but it’s a tad slow… like sending me tweets that are 15 hours old. All of this means that, invariably,  I miss a lot of tweet shouts to me until I get back to my laptop.

Sarah Dopp’s article, however, shows me there’s a better way. You can easily have Twitter only send your tweets that are to you or mention your twitter name sent to your phone using the steps she provides. It’s very easy and results in less noise on your cell even if you receive Twitter msgs via SMS, but would prefer to only get stuff that’s to you/about you.

I’m sure it’s “in the documentation” somewhere, by we all know no one reads anything online… least of all instructions!

Additional Twitter-related articles:
* http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/03/28/twitter-is-my-social-computer-how-it-could-extend-to-be-yours/

* http://www.thestar.com/living/article/350659