I now have both personal {@joestreno} and work {@emacconsulting} accounts for Twitter, blogs for personal {go2jo.com} and work {emacconsulting.com} thoughts … not to mention personal accounts with Facebook, MySpace, Blip.fm, and Ping.com. Though Ping.com is a site that lets me simultaneously update my Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace … plus any other social media sites I might need to update my status on.

Sometimes it feels like I’m teetering on the abyss of info overload! Or maybe “sharing” overload. I can share my thoughts, my photos, my musical tastes, my recipes, my current location and possibly more information than anyone would need to, or even care to know.

What’s a self-promoting egotist entrepreneur computer consultant like myself going to do? Too little time? Too much to share? Enter Blogo …

Blogo is a Macintosh application that I happened to stumble upon by Googling “twitter clients mac“. I found this great article … Micro-Blogging: 26 Twitter Desktop Clients For Mac. In this article was a small review for Blogo. I went to the Brainjuice website and downloaded the “21-day free trial”.

Once I fired up this great little app I got more than I bargained for. The first surprise is being greeted by bespectacled bunny that looks like something out of “Donnie Darko”. I not only found a way to update all my social media sites via Ping.fm support, I got something else that I’ve been looking for for quite a long time. A dedicated Mac application that I could blog from, without having to have an Internet connection, and be logged into my WordPress account to write a new post. I’m using Blogo right now to write this post. Hell … I didn’t even pay the very worthwhile fee of $25.00 yet and it’s uncrippled and allows me to post to any of my blogs or social media sites.

To be fair, and accurate, you do need a web connection to set up Blogo and have it set up your WordPress template. But after that … you can even preview new posts without a connection. You can even save files of your posts to your hard drive. Pretty cool features if you ask me!

Blogo lets me see my input in rich text format, and with the click of a button, I can also edit the html directly. I can post photos, edit the size location, and alignment. I can add basic formatting, block quotes, lists and links, all from a nicely designed buttons to the right of the text editing field.

Below the text editing field, I can also add keywords & by adding a hashmark I get #categories. Nice touch! Below that is a list of any images I have added. The list of nice touches goes on. The coolest thing other than full screen mode, is the previewing of the post. Blogo can download the needed elements from a WordPress blog. I get to see my post preview as if I were previewing it from within WordPress … all within another Blogo window. Slick slick slick!

I’m sure as I use it more I’ll discover more as I use it. And I have a feeling it will become a huge part of my writing/blogging arsenal. Once I post this … I may hop on over to Brainjuice and pony up my $25.00 USD.

I’ll leave you with a little Blogo wish list. I wish the developers would …

1. Allow larger viewing font sizes in both editors (old eyes).
2. Allow me to add rel=”lightbox” tags to images easily. *
3. Add the “more” tag to the button pallet. *
4. Add text color button to the pallet.

I’m sure I will come up with more features I’d like to see … but those are the ones that jump out at me right now. All in all … color me impressed with my new fave blogging tool … Blogo. Go Brainjuice!

* Update: 07.20.09

I eMailed Brainjuice this morning after posting my article and I was informed by Ben via eMail that items 2 and 3 already exist.e said, “P.S. You can turn on lightbox in the account options, and insert a more separator from the Format > Insert menu.” Thanks Ben!

“Tweetboard is a fun and engaging micro-forum type application for your website. It pulls your Twitter stream in near real-time (max 1 min delay), reformatting tweets into threaded conversations with unlimited nesting. Conversations that spun off the original conversation are also threaded in-line, giving your site visitors full perspective of what’s being discussed.

Tweetboard is also a powerful viral tool that engages your website visitors. Each time someone posts (or replies) via your board, a link back to the corresponding conversation is appended to their tweet, creating a viral stream of Twitter traffic to your website.”

Written by the folks at 140ware, this little piece of java heaven is a little tab that resides on the left side of your site. When there are new Tweets to be read the tab color becomes red and displays the number of new tweets since your last visit. When first opened you are presented with only the new tweets, with another tab to see all tweets. These tweets will be any that the website owner has entered in you their Twitter account, or those who have visited the Tweetboard and left a message. Forum users must have a Twitter account and be logged in to post to Twitter via Tweetboard. If they don’t at least they can read the threads.

The Alpha version of Tweetboard has only been up and open to public use within the past few days. You must go to the Tweetboard website and ask for an invitation. Once you get a reply tweet, you paste a snippet of java code which can be found on their support page into your website or blog, log into your Twitter account through Tweetboard, and wait for Twitter stream to populate Tweetboard for the first time. That’s it. One piece of advise, you also have to include your Twitter username in the pasted code. Make sure you do not use the @ symbol. Your username should look like yourusername, not @yourusername.

Since it’s Alpha release 140ware has been busy tweaking the java code (that is the heart of this app) continuously. Yesterday, it had “issues” with Microsoft IE7, or more rightly IE7 had issues rendering standards based java and HTML. On Sunday 6.29.09 it was announced that Tweetboard had become IE7 compatible. Pretty amazing to see such fast turn around. I also had asked some questions on the tweetboard.com support page and got prompt answers. Several of them.

One of the current drawbacks of Tweetboard is not being able to see friend’s feeds. But in reply to a question on the Tweetboard website, “You will be able to moderate your friends post early this week, it’s our next update!” So it seems that fixes and feature will be headed our way.

If I had a feature wish list this is what I’d ask TweetaClaus for:

1. URL shortening button.
2. Add image button.
3. An “Expanded” button on the All tab.
4. Seeing my entire Twitter stream, including replies outside of Tweetboard, as an option.
5. A friends tab, so you don’t have to leave Tweetboard.

That’s it for now. If you have any thing you’d like to see in upcoming versions of Tweetboard, leave a message, or use my installed Tweetboard. Either way it would be interesting to hear your views. Happy Tweeting!

You have to love these guys. They are modern day heros. Now Apple might think contrary, but you have to admire the Dev-Team’s vibrato. Their stamina. Their commitment. This disparate group of programmers, hackers, telecom industry workers, et al, from all over the world, doing what Apple should have done all along. Make the iPhone open to any and all GSM networks around the world. There might be those who would brand them thieves and hacker-thugs. But I commend them.

Having been an early adopter of hacking my iPhone, I am in awe of these guys. They have taken the task and turned it into an art form. They’ve taken the time to find the vulnerabilities of the iPhone and the OS to deliver their payload through any available vector. And then they wrap what use to be a terminal command line nightmare, into the slickest Mac and Windows applications I have seen so far, to accomplish the task. Thank you all for the hard work you do. And thanks to Apple for not trying to rain on the Dev-Teams achievements.

I spent maybe 30 minutes total this morning using PwnageTool and iTunes to get my custom 3.0 .ipsw file built and onto my iPhone. Once that happened, the Pwnage payload did its “magic” on the iPhone by auto configuring itself. While this was going on I Tweeted about it. (Okay I’ve become a TwitterNerd or perhaps a TwitWit now). Then I did a restore from the backup I did before starting all this, like a good little iPhone citizen should do. While that was happening I made my Peet’s coffee and breakfast. I knew it would take a bit of time to load all my iPhone apps, music, etc back on the phone.

The next step is to get all my Cydia apps and hacks loaded … WinterBoard, Five Icon Dock, Open SSH, BossTools, TMobile Carrier Logos, etc. These things are the icing on the iPhone cake. So now it’s time for me to SSH into my iPhone and load my custom desktop, and dock I’ve created. It’s a job … but someone has to do it.

I know. I know. It’s just a phone. Get a life! But hey at least … I pwn it!

There has been a huge ramp-up for the release, starting long before last weeks “World Wide Developers Conference” (WWDC). The fan-boy blogs and the Twitter-verse has been on fire. But Apple has also been pushing hard too. This is their cash cow, their baby. That and all the iPhone apps that will now have to be updated and OS 3.0 compatible by the OS 3.0 release date tomorrow? We’ll see.

Well actually I have seen. I Tweeted earlier tonight in two separate tweets :

Those #iPhone #apps are just pouring out. I got 4 just today. Seems like everyone is trying to get their apps 3.0 ready. Keep ‘em coming. 10:19:19 PM June 16, 2009 from Tweetie


#app #iphone updates:
iTV http://bit.ly/xiL4J
Amazon http://bit.ly/158j1y
Twitterific P http://bit.ly/VBHkG
Trip Cubby http://bit.ly/o9BS8
10:16:14 PM June 16, 2009 from Tweetie

@MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev-Team did a live broadcast and demo of “UltraSnow” the new iPhone OS 3.0 jailbreak. You have to love these guys! The software isn’t officially released and already they have a jailbreak written and ready to go for the new OS. You can find out all the particulars on the Dev-Team Blog.

So I’m ready with my 1st-gen iPhone for the Dev-Team to deliver PwnageTool and QuickPwn their two wonderful jailbreak apps … for the rest of us. Oh how I’d love a new shinny iPhone 3G S … but alas … I’m poor. And seeing how I use T-mobile I can’t get a subsidized iPhone from AT&T. I paid full price for my original one. Not again. But then again I’ve heard that before too. I’ll just take a wait and see attitude. I know I’ll get enough of the new OS benefits. But will they be enough? Only time will tell.

So iPhone enthusiasts, fanboys/fangirls & the uninitiated … start your engines! 3.0 is coming! 3.0 is coming!