Sanders Media

Today, I wanted to go over some of the various Twitter clients. Whether you use Windows, Mac or Linux, there is one for you.

1. Nambu: This is my personal favorite. However, it is Mac only. It sports a very clean interface, and almost has the look of Apple’s Mail application. It’s very easy to use, and it’s free.
2. TweetDeck: A few of my Windows friends like this one a lot. It is available in Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions. It sports some handy features including spam protection and Facebook updates. It’s also free.
3. Twitterrific: This client has two versions: free and paid. The free version is fully functional, but is ad supported. It is Mac only. The iPhone version is one of the App Store’s top Twitter related downloads.
4. Twhirl: This is another popular Twitter client. It is available for Mac OS X and Windows. It has some great features including English spell check and image posting.
5. TwitterFox: This is more of a plugin than a client, but it bears mentioning. It is platform agnostic because it is a plugin for the Firefox web browser. It displays a small icon near your status bar that tells you when there are new tweets to your account.

If you’re a Mac user, I would definitely give Nambu a try. Windows and Linux users should look into TweetDeck. Because of TweetDeck’s Facebook inclusion, I may eventually switch over. Since many of us are on multiple social networking services, this becomes increasingly useful.

Today, I’m here with a reminder to maintain your computer. There’s no reason you can’t get 3 to 4 very productive years out of your computer. Here are some things that will help.

1. Use compressed (canned) air to blow out your computer if you have a desktop. I would suggest you do this at least twice a year. Dust in your computer case has a nasty habit of causing computers to overheat and underperform.
2. If you leave your computer on all of the time, shut it down at least once a month.
3. Run virus and spyware cleanup software at least once a week.
4. Backup everything. I can never emphasize this enough. Yet again, I have a client who may lose her files because she didn’t back them up. External hard drive are inexpensive, and online services, like Mozy, provide unlimited space.
5. If you do all of these things, and you still have a problem, call me.

I’ve just finished a website for Jason Moore, a musician in Oklahoma. Among other things, he composes music for film and commercials. Naturally he wanted to showcase his work. I just needed to come up with a way for people to hear his compositions without being able to download the music. I needed a player.

Flash is usually a great option for players. After a short Google search, I found PremiumBeat.com. They provide Flash music players that are free with their logo embedded. This turned out to be exactly what I needed. The installation was very easy.

If you’d like to showcase your compositions, surf over to PremiumBeat.com. It’s an elegant and efficient solution. Also, if you need high quality music for a project, consider contacting Jason. His email address is jasonmooremusic@gmail.com. You’ll be glad you did.

There has been a surge of lawsuits involving intellectual property and patent infringement recently. Many of them cross the border into the absurd. Here are a few examples.

1. A company called Psion filed suit against any company using the term “netbook”. Despite “netbook” being a generic term referring to small, very mobile laptops, Psion felt its trademarked “netBook” was being infringed. Never mind that their “netBook” was a completely different product. They had also ceased to manufacture their device several years ago.
2. A company in Texas is suing at least 20 companies for storing consumer payment information and allowing either stored value payments or one-click payments on their sites. Apple, MasterCard, Visa and Walmart are among the companies being sued. The company bringing the suit is a notorious patent hoarder. Their only form of income seems to come from lawsuits.
3. A very popular iTunes app store game, EDGE, has been forced out by a patent infringement lawsuit. The man bringing the suit has a history of bullying game developers with his numerous lawsuits. He claims to have the trademark on any software using the word “edge”.

These lawsuits may be merely an annoyance to larger companies, but they threaten to stifle the innovation that smaller companies have long provided. Another consequence is higher prices. How else do companies like Apple and Walmart make up for the millions paid out in these suits?