Amplify

Isotoner Donating smarTouch Gloves to Charity via Twitter #giftoftouch

by Michael Sheehan on December 2, 2010

in Amplify, General, Social Media, Twitter

I wrote a review of the Isotoner smarTouch Gloves last month…definitely a great product. Today I learned about a pretty cool charity program that Isotoner is doing via Twitter that I thought, in the spirit of holiday giving, should be shared.

I also just learned that the donation window has been extended through the holidays.

The info below explains what you need to do to donate a pair of these gloves to Matthew 25: Ministries, but essentially you simply need to tweet that talks about the Isotoner smarTouch gloves and has the hashtag “#giftoftouch“; with just that single tweet, a pair of gloves will be donated.

So read on about this and take a few minutes to tweet about it!

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Want Windows 7 Windows Snap Feature on your Mac? Try Cinch!

by Michael Sheehan on December 1, 2010

in Amplify, Apple, General, Opinion, Software

It’s normally pretty rare for me to actually want a Windows feature on my Mac. There are only a few things that I wish I could do on my Mac (e.g., have a Mac version of Windows Live Writer, for example). Another one is being able to use the Windows 7 Snap feature that lets you drag a window to the sides of your monitor/screen to automatically scale your window to 1/2 size or drag to the top for a full screen. It’s a really handy feature in Windows 7 (see: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/snap).

Now, with the Mac you can use Cinch (for only $7) to do the same thing. I find it really helpful when I’m doing some blogging and need to have 1/2 of my screen on a webpage and one on my writing page.

Definitely check it out!

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“Where’s the Pause Button” – TweetDeck’s User Stream Preview is Real-time Web

by Michael Sheehan on August 2, 2010

in Amplify, Application, General, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter

I was lucky to be one of the first 5000 people to get access to test out a new version of TweetDeck called “User Stream Preview.” In this preview build is the ability to use Twitter’s new Streaming API which essentially turns the Twitter firehose on full blast.

In the past, you were at the mercy of Twitter’s API limits, which started pretty low but have been increasing over the past year or so. More recently, Twitter applications which use the Oath service (for authentication) were allowed higher API limits. For me, however, I continued to hit those limits, especially since I was checking my Twitter feeds from a variety of applications. “API limit exceeded” was something that I was really tired of seeing. Now, with TweetDeck coupled with the Streaming API, I never get to see that error message again, at least not in TweetDeck.

Contrary to what is mentioned in the TechCrunch article below, not everything has been enabled (or is working) for the Streaming API. You can see new Followers and @ Replies real-time, but things like Lists and Searches haven’t yet been super-charged I don’t believe.

When I first fired up the new version of TweetDeck, I was like a deer in the headlights watching the people I follow’s Tweets go flying by. If you scroll down on the column, you can actually pause the refresh (the tweets still come in but you can slowly catch up on what you are reading). As soon as you scroll back to the top of the column, then the real-time action starts again.

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As Promised, Apple Delivers iPhone 4 Case Program

by Michael Sheehan on July 23, 2010

in Amplify, Apple, Cellular, Consumer Electronics, Gadgets, Hardware, iPhone, Mobile, Tech News

For those of your lucky enough to have an iPhone 4, you can now get either a free iPhone 4 Bumper or a 3rd Party Case for FREEEEEE from Apple. Or, if you have already purchased a case from Apple (or even AT&T), you will get a refund. Be sure to check the Apple page about this program for all of the nitty gritty details.

What is innovative about this program is, they have created an App available in the iTunes App store (NOTE: you can only install this app if you have an iPhone 4 – I tried). The app is available now.

The 3rd Party cases, I’m told, are currently the Belkin Shield Micra, Griffin Motif, Griffin Reveal, Incase Snap Case, Speck Fitted and Speck PixelSkin HD.

Personally, I think that having a case to protect your investment is very important, antenna problem or not. I have been using an external battery solution since I seem to plow through power faster than expected.

I am glad to see Apple acting quickly on its words. And I wonder how long it took for the iPhone 4 Case Program app to get through the approval process (grin).

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HTD’s Tech News Snippets – July 22, 2010 (Flipboard, Google Voice, Router Hacks, Safari, AT&T & Twitter)

July 22, 2010

Some really interesting news floated by today. Flipboard is a pretty interesting iPad app. Be sure to check it out. But you may have some issues hooking up your Twitter and/or Facebook feeds. I’m still waiting…and waiting…and waiting for Google Voice to be approved. Is your home router hackable? Be sure to read the article [...]

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HTD’s Tech News Snippets – July 21, 2010 (Ford, Skype, Antennagate, Facebook, Apple & Blackberry)

July 21, 2010

Once again, scouring the web for the latest tech news that grabbed my attention. Below are some links to some Amplify.com posts. You can see the beginning of my commentary below. Clicking through the links gives you the rest of the commentary as well as the article that I snipped. I LOVE the NEW Ford [...]

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HTD’s Tech News Snippets – July 20, 2010

July 20, 2010

I’ve started commenting on some articles that I come across daily on my surfing of the Net. I post these using Amplify.com (you can see my Amplify posts here). I’m testing a RSS Digest aggregator that pulls in these items. Hopefully this will work well, so for starters, here are some things to read: Beta [...]

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