What's Your Twitter Follow Philosophy?

You can also "Block" stalkers
if you notice any unusual interactions.

There are various trains of thoughts and philosophies regarding whom to follow and whom not to follow on Twitter. These are called "Follow Philosophies."

Here are just a few FPs (Follow Philosophies):

• Follow people and wait for a few weeks to see if they follow you back. If they don't, unfollow them.
• Follow everyone who follows you out of sheer courtesy.
• Follow those people who belong to your niche.
• Follow them if you like their faces.
• Follow them if you like their bios.
• Follow them if you like their sites.
• Follow them if you like their tweets.
  

...and the list goes on.

Twellow
Twellow is a cool application that lets you put into practice your FP. It taps into your Twitter account and neatly lays out all your Twitter associations by category. You can see the people linked to you through twitter. You can see their pictures, their profiles, their twitter page links, their followers, their URLs, their locations, their social links and their latest tweets.

Follow Indicator

There is one feature that I love on Twellow. It is the follow status indicator (that's what I call it). This little indicator will show you a rounded rectangular loop made by two arrows. If you are following someone and they aren't following you (non-mutuals), only half of the loop will be green. The remaining half will be red, indicating a one way association. If the entire loop is green it indicates a two way association (mutuals), meaning that the person you are following is following you back. This is an important visual cue that helps you sort out those who are not following you back and put your FP into practice.

Above this loop is a green "Remove" button, which you can use to remove someone from your following list with one click. The result will be reflected on your twitter page.

Cleaning the Clutter
I recently began to sort out my following. I logged into Twellow with my Twitter username and ID and began to look at the follow status indicator. I saw a bunch of one sided associations. I clicked on the "More Info" button to see some more details, and removed many from my list accordingly. Yes, I kept some important people who did not follow me back such as Dr. Wayne Dyer, and some other prominent personalities. However, I removed most celebrities without any hesitation. After all, they may have hired some ghostwriter to write their tweets.

I'm not done yet. It may take some time before I sort out all my following. Those whom I can't unfollow...what's the harm in letting them hang around?

Security

What's the harm? This brings me to an important issue- Security. You can "Protect" your tweets if you do not want anyone to read them, except for the ones you approve. Just go to the "Settings" option on the top right of your Twitter page and the rest is self explanatory. You can also "Block" stalkers if you notice any unusual interactions. Just go to your followers list and do the needful.

Spam

Another cool feature of Twellow is that you can browse through different categories and follow people from your niche. However, I must warn you about one of the side effects of doing this- Spam! But then, off course, you can block them by going to your Twitter follower list.

So, whatever your FP may be, it is much convenient to implement it at Twellow than at Twitter.

Happy Following!

This Could Happen to You!

We have become so dependent on our pointing devices that should they disappear one day, we may be left high and dry.

No Mouse?

What if you were to wake up one fine day and find your computer pointing device gone or rendered inoperable? Imagine starting up your desktop or laptop without your mouse. Not a difficult task, is it? Most of us would be able to do this. But what next? How about reading your emails or checking out your social networking sites. Would that be an easy task for most of us? I guess not!

How would life be without your computer trackpads, trackballs, joysticks, light pens and mice? Would you have to go back to the early MS DOS days, when you had to learn certain commands in order to go to a particular directory, open a program, change a directory or print some matter?

Not really. Microsoft Windows enables you to use a number of shortcuts to work with your Operating System, Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Browser and Email Client without using the mouse. However, very few of us know these shortcuts. We have become so dependent on our pointing devices that should they disappear one day, we may be left high and dry.

It Happened to Me!

One morning this is exactly what happened to me. My computer refused to co-operate with my mouse. Actually, there was some problem with the driver. I had a freelance assignment to complete, and I couldn’t wait. Fortunately I knew some keyboard shortcuts as I had been using the Windows operating system for the last 10 years (used MS DOS and Win 3.1 before that...yuck!).

Shortcuts Came to the Rescue
How did I get about? I used some Operating System shortcuts; so I could open "Windows Explorer" by using "Windows+E." Then I used the Tab and Arrow keys to navigate around, and finally hit Enter to open my Microsoft Word document.

I knew how to close Microsoft Word using the "Alt+F4" keyboard shortcut. There are other ways to close a Word document, but I loved the "Alt+F4" shortcut, and rarely use the mouse for this action even today.

Another favorite shortcut that I always use even today is "Alt+Tab." It is so convenient to switch between all my open “windows” using this combination, rather than pointing my mouse to the taskbar and clicking on the required window.

Being able to navigate through the Start Menu without using the mouse is also very important, since most of the programs and documents can be accessed through the Start Menu. You can also Shut Down your computer using “Turn Off Computer…” on the Start Menu. However, I love to use "Alt+F4" to shut down my PC.

Once I open a Word or an Excel Document, I can get around without using the mouse for some basic operations. However, I’m not an expert at Word Keyboard Shortcuts or Excel Keyboard Shortcuts. Therefore I end up using the mouse for selecting text color, aligning text, copy formatting, inserting header and footer and other actions.

There are a whole range of Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts too. I just use the basic ones for navigating around a page and for switching tabs. My favorite ones here are F5 for refreshing a page and "Ctrl/Shift+Tab" for changing browser tabs.

What about Blogger Keyboard Shortcuts? Blogger has them too, although very few. Despite the fact that the blogger posts get autosaved, I frequently find myself using the Ctrl+S to save my posts.

The Indispensable Mouse
No matter how well you know your shortcuts, computer pointing and tracking devices have become indispensable. If you don't believe me, try doing the following without a mouse or a trackpad:
- Opening a link on a website
- Opening your Blogger or WordPress Dashboard
- Dragging and Dropping

...don’t work yourself up trying to learn all the keyboard shortcuts. It’s not worth it.

If you think about it, there are tons of things that a mouse can do with ease, and therefore we do not bother to use shortcuts. If you are good at touch typing, like me, you will appreciate some keyboard shortcuts. However, don’t work yourself up trying to learn all the keyboard shortcuts. It’s not worth it. The highly versatile computer trackpads and mice are here to stay till touch screen technology takes over. Until then, don't let your mouse go away :)