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

Cities mark Earth Hour today from 8 to 9 PM local time– a single hour of energy conservation.
Sydney, Australia, was among world’s first city to “go dark”:
First cities go dark for Earth Hour – CNN.com

Google‘s home page is black to mark the event, today, as well.
Google – Earth Hour

Anyone can do this… turn off all your lights from 8 to 9 PM. Light up some candles — pretend it’s a power outage! — turn on the camp lantern, play some scrabble or Monopoly, look at the stars (if it’s not cloudy) or make up stories about the people that lived where you are, thousands of years ago, etc.

Source: CNN
U.S. cities go dark for Earth Hour
From Rome’s Colosseum to the Sydney Opera House to the Sears Tower’s famous antennas in Chicago, floodlit icons of civilization have gone dark for Earth Hour, a worldwide campaign to highlight the waste of electricity and the threat of climate change. full story

Our A/C is dead — the compressor died and the coil is rusted. Justin’s there right now with the A/C guy, finding out what the $$ damage is going to be, but we’re relieved to hear there’s a no-interest payment plan so it isn’t the instant, lump sum financial drain we were (slowly) saving up for, but nowhere near meeting yet.

Our new system will be installed on Saturday…

Greeeat. Our air conditioner at the house died today. We knew it was coming, but not this soon. Bye bye cash savings/reserves, hello emergency withdrawal from funding sources we really, really hate dipping into.

To top it all off, we have to have our windows open tonight since the A/C system is dead. And guess who’s smoking pot at 11 PM? Our pothead neighbors. I don’t care what people do inside their own homes, within reason, but I am SO SICK of smelling pot smoke in my yard/garage/home.

Found via Twitter from Laughing Squid; coming October 2008 –

ABC3D

I’ll have to buy this, provided it’s not $50 or something (which, from the complexity and planning required for pop-up books, just might be the going rate; it’s not on Amazon yet.)

Reposted from my geekgal.vox.com blog

Clearly, someone doesn’t want a road for vehicle traffic here; just close the damned thing, and be done with it! http://tinyurl.com/36coke

Reposted from my geekgal.vox.com blog