After a sixteen year run in Seattle, I’ve moved myself and my company to Asbury Park, NJ. I’m still in the process of settling in, but am open for business. Same great personalized service … in a new location.

My new address is:

710 6th Ave Unit 207
Asbury Park NJ 07712

My new phone number is 732-910-5254.

For my current clients, please update your address book and phones. I have ported my old 206-850-5135 phone number to Google Voice. So even if you call the old number you will still reach me. But it is better to just use the new number.

I look forward to meeting and supporting new Mac, iPhone and iPad users and businesses in my new east coast metropolitan location as well as continuing to support my wonderful west coast clients.

Pastebot is a powerful clipboard manager by Tapbots that stores text & images copied from your iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad (compatible though not universal yet.). You can organize, apply filters to, and copy clippings to be pasted or sent to other apps, or even to your Mac.

Have you ever gone to a website on your iPhone and it was the type of site that would read much better on a full screen? Or maybe the site is Flash based? With Pastebot and a few “touches” you can paste that long ungodly URL directly to your Mac’s browser. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used this little utility already.

Pastebot, the “little utility that could”, and does, is only $3.99 on the iTunes App Store. Combine that with the free Pastebot Sync from the Tapbots website and you have a very handy and useful combo.On the iPhone, Pastebot will keep track of every item you cut or copy. It will automatically save 99 items in its “clipboard”. You can name and file any of those items into folders for later use. I have copied all my eMail signatures into a folder in Pastebot, and now I can easily copy any of those back to the iPhone clipboard to paste into eMail I compose on the iPhone.

Saw a site on your iPhone you’d like to see on your Mac? Use Pastebot Sync to be able to paste that URL directly from you iPhone into the Safari URL field. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done that. Want to quickly paste a snippet from a document on your iPhone to a document on your Mac? It’s so easy.

And now that iOS 4 has multitasking, it’s easier than ever to switch back and forth from Pastebot and any other application. On my iPhone this has been one of my most used apps. It’s become indispensable.

Now a day later … Thursday June 12th … I was again working on my computer, when the whole 24″ display went black! No warning. No dying wheeze. Nothing. Blackness. Wow … the screen went to sleep? No. The MacBook Pro screen was NOT black. Panic time!

I reached deeply into my troubleshooting repertoire and tried everything within my powers to resuscitate it … but it was DEAD JIM! I tried zapping the PRAM (holding the “Command”, “Option”, “P” and “R” keys while restarting) 4 to 5 times. Nothing. I searched the Apple Support site and Apple Discussions. Some similar issues, but not results, other than replacement. I tried starting up from one of my multi-partitioned external USB drives which have clean installs of both OS 10.5 and OS 10.6. No go. Still blackness. I reached into the depths of my Library folder and trashed the Users/xxxxx/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.xxxxx.plist and did a restart. Still nothingness.

It was time to admit the problem. My 16 month old, our of warranty, no AppleCare extended warranty, 24″ LED Cinema Display was gone. History! After about 10 minutes of shock, anger, and grieving, I went online to the website of the Seattle University Village Apple Store and made an appointment with a Genius.

Fast forward to my appointment. The Genius hooks up the display to his MacBook …. and … nothing! Black! He tells me it’s out of warranty and that it will cost $600.00 to replace the LCD panel. Though he will wave the $160.00 per hour labor fee. WTF!!!! More Shock (anger) and not much awe! I grabbed my display and went home. I WAS PISSED!!!!!!!

After only 16 month of use on a $899.00 display, and that’s it? I expected much more. Oh … like a replacement, and an apology? This isn’t the Apple I knew and loved. I was angry and depressed. After dinner that night, I cleared my desk, and reorganized it to work without the 24″ display. I was ready to move on.

Friday morning I woke up and was pretty much resigned to my fate. Not having enough money to repair or replace the display, I had to make due without it. So I started my morning ritual. Start the MacBook Pro & check mail. Wouldn’t you know …. a survey from Apple. “How did we do?” Oh boy … I get to unload! Of course there were the rate-us-questions. Fail! Fail! Fail! And finally, do you have any comments? With razor tongue I was ready to slice, dice and julienne! But then I had a “What Would Chris Do” moment. Chris being my partner, and the more business savvy person in this relationship. I heard him say, “…leave the anger and emotion behind. Give the facts. And don’t berate.” So I composed a letter.

In the letter I spoke of my disappointment that Apple didn’t stand behind a product that was only 16 months old. I spoke of how I had been purchasing and using Mac computers since 1986 and expected longevity in all their products. I stated that I was Mac consultant and would now have to think twice before recommending Apple displays without the caveat of buying AppleCare on all Apple products, because they don’t last as long as they once did. I also commented that I would have thought Apple would have replaced the display without even a second thought. That was the Apple I knew and loved.

At the end of the survey, I was asked if I would like someone from Apple to call. So I left my number etc. And sure enough … I got a call from Kelii Moreau, the Senior Manager of the University Village Apple Store just a few hours later. He told me that he read my eMail and I was right. Apple should have replaced my display. And if I stopped in later today, they would! It was music to my ears! I was told to box up my old one, and ask for a manager when I entered the store. A brand new fully (1 year) warrantied display would be waiting for me to swap for my old one.

After finishing my morning errands, I was at the Apple store with my defective and boxed display. I asked for a manager, handed the greeter the eMail from Kelli … to eliminate repeated explanation. Within a minute I was greeted by a salesperson and he went off to retrieve my new display. The entire team had already been briefed. Another manager Jennifer Dance came out to greet me and thank me for my letter. She said (and I paraphrase) ” you are a bit of a celebrity here. Everyone on the team got to read your letter. It reminded us all of what Apple has been and what we need to strive to be. You made an impression! And you did it without getting angry. Thanks you for that too.” Really? Wow! Cool! Thank you!

And that was that. I got my display replaced and went home to set it up.

Thank you Apple. And thanks to all the Apple managers and staff at the University Village Apple Store, for stepping up, and doing the right thing.

The moral of this story …. be the squeaky wheel! Use all the avenues available to obtain what you think is a fair result. No anger. No animus. Just honesty and fact. Leave hyperbole home. You may end up getting more than you bargained for.

Thanks again to everyone at Apple who helped achieve this result!

Q:

A: YOU CAN’T!

It’s another mystery of life. Why in the world can’t you create a folder in the iPhone Mail app!!?? You can move an eMail message, or a group of messages from one folder to another, but you can’t create a Mail folder on the iPhone. It’s just another of the glaring oddities of the iPhone.

I can understand not being able to do this with a POP account, because iPhone Mail doesn’t sync the mail messages themselves via iTunes. So it would follow, you couldn’t sync newly created folders with moved messages from the iPhone.

One would think though, it could be done with an IMAP eMail account. But it’s just not so.

It’s an enigma wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a burrito …

My only suggestion to all offended and incredulous iPhone user, is to make your voice heard with Apple. Go to the Apple Support Forum and suggest they add folder creation ability there. You can also contact Apple directly and give them iPhone Feedback. Be polite and to the point. Ranting might make you feel good, but anything past “WTF” might be ignored by readers. You can get more folders with honey … if that’s what you’re looking for. Leave a comment here if you care to.

I’ve seen Google send so many people to my blog looking for an answer to this question, I figured I owed it to those folks to give a quick and probably unsatisfying  answer.

Even with its flaws, the iPhone is still my only phone. Don’t think I would want to use another.

With so many rumors flying, no one knew what to expect. Would Steve start with something innocuous, the new iPhone OS (which didn’t happen) or a new iPhone (which also didn’t happen) and then at the last moment …. oh … just one more thing. No. He launched straight away into setting up and introducing the new iPad.

There will be those that will rip it apart for what it doesn’t do. No phone. No Camera. No Verizon. No multitasking. But as a consultant, I need to talk about what it does do. And the possibilities it brings. Oh. And the joy!

Hello iPad: Let’s start with the obvious. It looks like a large iPhone. But it’s not. You can’t make a call from it even with the Wi-Fi and 3G package (unless you have Wi-Fi & use Skype … but that’s just theoretical … I digress). Looking at the icons on the front screen, it looks very much like an “exploded” or “expanded view of the iPhone desktop. Only four icons across, and four in the dock. If more will fit in the dock, will remain to be seen when the first Wi-Fi versions of the iPad ship in 60 days. Though 60 days from today Wednesday January 27, 2010 is Sunday, March 28, 2010. So maybe the 29th? Guess we’ll have to wait for the official date from Apple. Who knows what version of the OS it will finally ship with … iPhone/iPad OS 4.0?

Apple Inside: Apple has taken a bold step in it’s evolution with the iPad. It runs a new 1 Ghz Apple A4 processor. Apple’s chip also includes onboard video processing. No Intel inside. No Qualcomm inside. No NVIDIA inside either. Apple bought P.A. Semi back in 2008. It’s the first time they have used their own silicon in an Apple device.

eBooks: We wanted them. We got them! Plus a new iPad application called iBooks. Like iTunes you can buy eBooks directly from Apple via iBooks. The interface is simple, slick, and well designed. There have been other iPhone books apps that have looked similar, but Apple is not one to shy away from “quoting” another programmers work & calling it their own.

Apple announced partnerships with five major publishing houses, including Penguin, Macmillan, and Simon & Shuster. With more to come. All books on the iPad will be in ePub format, which is the most used open book format in the world. So in theory, any ePub book can be read on the iPad. iBooks is going to be yet another cash cow for Apple … and the publishers. Look out Kindle and Nook.

Mail: Mail on iPad has been redesigned. It’s use of popup contextual menus is well designed. The virtual touch keyboard for composing new eMail looks almost like a real keyboard. It seems that big too. Turning the iPad in landscape gives you a screen with your Inbox and folders on the left. select a piece of mail and flip iPad to portrait, and the inbox goes away and you eMail fills the screen. Sadly I can’t tell you much more than what I’ve gleaned from photos and the iPad Video on the Apple website.

iPod: Dream alert! Imagine if you will, an iPad landscape car dock. Now imagine if you will the ability to use iPad with my car stereo. I could use iPod.app for the first time in iPod history, to see album images on the screen large enough, that I could use as my music interface for my car. In landscape, I would imagine, iPad’s version of iPod.app uses cover stream. No more searching on a single line of text on my “iPod compatible” car stereo for songs buried deep within a playlist somewhere. I may have to build this thing myself if I have to!

It will also be nice to see what iPad developers do with the new screen real estate … all 9.7 diagonal inches. Plus the new iPhone SDK that will give them access to all the new menuing and other iPad specific features. It will be another summer of exciting new iPhone and iPad apps! As of now all current iPhone apps will run on the iPad AS IS. No updating needed. Plus you can run the current iPhone apps in “double” pixel” mode, which makes then fill the entire screen. Pretty thoughtful on Apple’s part!

I could go on about each redesign of each app, but Apple.com has done it best. Whether it’s Safari, Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Maps … they all have been redesigned … and they look and function great.

Now I can’t wait to get my hands on one to test for myself. Apple did a great job of making the entry level 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad only $499.00. I’m like a kid waiting for early Christmas! Oh gee …. is it 60 days yet???!!!

There are some quirks involved with setting up IMAP mail on the iPhone. Especially for those ISPs or mail providers who don’t support SSL (secure sockets layer). The default for iPhone is to create any account with SSL on. Some of the biggest confusion for first time users is how long it takes SSL to be negotiated the first time the IMAP account is set up, especially if your are doing it over Edge or 3G and not a Wi-Fi connection. But even with Wi-Fi the wait can seem like an eternity! And all the confusing error dialogs that are popped up for you to act upon. Hopefully I’ve documented all those situations.

Things you will need:
> Your iPhone
> A working eMail account set up with your hosting company.
> Your eMail account settings written down.
> Patients.

So here we go ….

1. Select “Settings”.

2. Select “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”.

3. Select “Add Account…”.

4. Select “Other”.

5. Select “Add Mail Account”.

6. Fill in account info & save”.

TIP: With most eMail providers, your username will always be your FULL eMail address, unless otherwise noted.

Select the IMAP tab.

Here’s where the “tricky bits” start.

Be certain to enter all information correctly.

Be sure the Host Name for both Incoming Mail Server (IMAP) and Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) do not contain the “@” symbol and instead use a period “.” as in: imap.yourdomain.com or smtp.yourdomain.com.

Once all information entry is complete select the Save button.

Now wait for iPhone Mail to negotiate your IMAP and SMTP settings with the mail server, depending on the network connection speed … this may take a while.

If your mail provider does not do SLS you will get two error dialogs. One for IMAP and one for SMTP. PLEASE WAIT FOR EACH. No matter how long they take. See steps 8 and 9.

If your mail provider does do SLS, you will get no errors. Unless you’ve typing errors. Move to step 10.

7. Fill in all eMail account information.

8. Error 1: IMAP SSL Certificate error. Press Continue.

9. Error 2: SMTP SSL Certificate error. Press Continue.

Okay. So now there is a new IMAP account on your iPhone. But the fun doesn’t stop there. Depending on your situation there are a few steps that you may or may not need to do. Those will be covered in the next few section.

We will need to also check that the IMAP folders are correctly associated with the iPhone folders for Drafts Mailbox, Sent Mailbox, and Deleted Mailbox.

If your mail provider does not support SSL follow from step 11.

If you mail provider (gMail) does support SSL jump to step 15.

10. Your completed IMAP account.

11. Select your new account.

12. Scroll and select Advanced.

13. Set Use SSL to OFF. Go back one screen.

14. Scroll and select Drafts Mailbox.

15. Select your new SMTP server.

16. Set Use SLS to OFF. Go back one screen.

17. Select Drafts Mailbox.

18. Select your Drafts folder on the server. Go back one screen.

19. Select Sent Mailbox.

20. Select your Sent folder on the server. Go back one screen.

21. Select Deleted Mailbox.

22. Select your Trash or Deleted Items folder on the server. Go back one screen.

When matching up folders on the server, your folder names may not be the same as my folders … but I think you’ll know which are which.

There are only a few other items you can set. But I won’t go into great detail. You can select how long to hold onto delete items. On my Mac, I empty the Deleted Items when I quit Mail.app. On the iPhone I have mine set for 1 day. This way I don’t end up with thousands of eMails taking up space in the Trash on the server.

One other issue you may face. If when you launch iPhone Mail and you don’t see your folder hierarchy you may need to go to the Advanced settings of your account (on your iPhone) and in the field for “IMAP Path Prefix” enter the word INBOX in caps. That should allow you to see all your folders.

Other than that … you’re done! Press the physical Home button on your iPhone and launch iPhone Mail. That’s it.

Finally. You can only have one signature for your iPhone Mail, even if you have several eMail accounts. Hopefully Apple will address this in s future release. But until then, there are some great utilities out there that can get you through. Two of my faves are Pastebot from Tapbots LLC & TextExpander Touch from Smile on My Mac. I may do posts on some of these at a later date.

For now …. go send some mail from your iPhone! Have fun!

Okay. That may be a little harsh … but you would think after paying for a system upgrade, that was supposed to be rewritten from the ground up … a major bug like the IMAP/PHP bug would have been fixed. I know this problem is still effecting people. They are still logging complaints at Apple’s Discussion Groups. I was hoping … but no go!

This post is no more than what it is. Another mile marker showing that this bug has driven me and other crazy through Mac OS X 10.5 and now 10.6.

I’ve already documented the entire thing in three other posts:
A process to a kill
Mail.app & IMAP Process Update
Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update (No IMAP Fix)

There is nothing more that I can do. None of the Mac blogs out there have picked up the story. Not TUAW. Not MacWorld. Not MacNN. No one.

So unless something else breaks … oh like Apple’s resolve NOT to fix this problem. Or one of the Mac news sites reports on the problem or fix … I think I’m done here. Well at least with this issue.

Good luck!

Do I still feel that way? I’d be a blind zealot if I said yes. There have always been questionable calls on Apple’s part throughout the years. But at some point Apple stepped up to the plate, took responsibility and made things right. No matter what the cost. Financial or otherwise. It seems this concept gets harder and harder for Apple. For whatever reason.

It started June 25th with my post “Apple Developer {dis} Connection or … How My Apple ID Was Hijacked“. I explained how my Apple ID was hijacked by someone, after I logged into the Apple Developers Connection website. The hijacker took over my Apple ID by changing the username and password. Then they ever so kindly logged into my iTunes account and charged two $50.00 iTunes cards to my my attached debit card. For all the gory details I suggest reading the original post and coming back. It’s quite long and has several updates.

It’s almost a month later, and I finally heard back from Apple Developers Connection, Apple Inc and the Attorney General’s Office of Washington state. The Apple’s Developer Connection eMailed me yesterday July 22nd. After nearly a month this is what they had to say:

Subject: Re: Website Inquiries/Feedback
From: devprograms@apple.com
Date: July 22, 2009 10:30:37 AM PDT
To: ejo@go2jo.com

Follow-up: xxxxxxxxx

Re: Website Inquiries/Feedback

Hello Joe,

Thank you for contacting the Apple Developer Connection.

We are currently reviewing your inquiry and will get back to you very soon. We appreciate your patience.

Best regards,

Michele Owens
Apple Developer Connection
Worldwide Developer Relations

That’s it? A month to tell me they are looking at my inquiry? Now I don’t want to seem like a whiny whiny boy man. (I’ve already been accused of this in a comment on the original post. Which of course I deleted. My blog. My prerogative.) But … a month for an eMail telling me they are reviewing my inquiry? No results yet? Okay. I’ll give the the benefit of the doubt. Tap tap tap. Waiting waiting waiting.

On the same day I got this eMail from the AGO’s office.

Joseph Streno
13303 15th AVE NE
Seattle, WA 98125

RE:    Apple Computer
File #:    xxxxxxx

Dear Joseph Streno:

Our office has received the attached written response from Apple Computer.  Although they have offered to make a partial adjustment, they decline to make full adjustment of your complaint for the reasons outlined.

We realize you may disagree with their position. However, our office does not have the authority under the law to force the parties to resolve their dispute. We regret that we are unable to provide further assistance to you in this situation.

We do not have the legal authority to represent individuals as their attorney, nor may we act as a judge or arbiter in individual disputes.  If you wish to pursue the matter, you should consider either contacting an attorney or suing in Small Claims Court. You can obtain additional information about Small Claims court at:

<<<http://www.courts.wa.gov/newsinfo/resources/?altMenu=smal&fa=newsinfo_jury.scc>>>

For referrals to attorneys in King County:    206-623-2551 or 211

If you cannot afford an attorney, you may qualify for assistance from the NW Justice Project’s CLEAR Coordinated Legal Advice.  They may be reached Toll Free at 1-888-201-1014 or online at the following website:

<<http://www.nwjustice.org/about_njp/clear.html>>

In addition, if you are 60 or over, you may call CLEAR SR. at 1-888-387-7111 regardless of income.

You may also wish to contact the Dispute Resolution Center nearest you to see if they can assist in mediating your dispute.  You can obtain additional information at these websites:

<<<http://www.courts.wa.gov/court_dir/?fa=court_dir.dispute>>>

<<<http://www.resolutionwa.org/>>>.

Please be aware that the Dispute Resolution Centers do not provide attorney referrals or legal advice.

We appreciate your bringing this matter to our attention.  Your complaint will remain a part of our public record of this firm’s business practices.

DAVID FERRIS
Complaint Analyst
Consumer Protection Division

This was the fax sent to the AGO from Apple:

To which I responded back to the AGO’s office:

Subject: Re: xxxxx : A notice from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office
From: ejo@go2jo.com
Date: July 22, 2009 1:43:37 PM PDT
To: xxxxx@atg.wa.gov

Dear Mr McKenna …

Thank you for being so prompt. I did get the attached PDF of Apple’s response.

Of course Apple skirted their own security issue(s) with the iTunes Store and The Apple Developers Connection website. My identity was “stolen” because of the ease one can change a password for an Apple ID.

They have outright avoided answering the question put before them. How did someone get access to my iTunes account? How, and at what time was the Apple ID changed? And in what manner was it changed, via a phone call, eMail, or the Apple website form?

The hijacker did not steal my identity to use my debit card, but stole my Apple ID and was able to log into iTunes which had my debit card attached to make purchases. There is a huge difference. And puts the onus on Apple to answer how that happened, not the credit card company. My iTunes account could have had ANY card attached to it, the responsibility is Apple’s because someone was able to hijack my Apple ID and log into iTunes at all. Without that step none of this would have happened.

That and only that is the issue! How did that happen? Apple has not answered that question at all.

I wasn’t concerned with getting the charges credited back. They were. The debit card was canceled and a new one issued. I was more concerned that no one has legally called Apple’s security issues to task. Apple’s “Apple ID” is the only way to log into ANY of Apple’s (supposedly) secure websites, or any of their electronic stores (to make a purchase.)

If this type of thing does not fall under the purvey of the AGO, I guess it’s time to try to start a class action suit against Apple.

If you have any further comments please send them along.

Thank you for all your help.

Joe Streno

And that pretty much says it all. Apple won’t admit there is a problem with their security in respect to changing a password for their Apple ID. This one item, the Apple ID is used to sign into any Apple related website, and to purchase anything on the iTunes and Apple Store. Apple could solve the entire issue by devising another more secure way to change a password and gain access to another person’s account. It’s a problem that has gone on for years, yet Apple turns a (not so) blind eye and let’s the problem continue. The other piece of the unsolved puzzle is … are there hackers out there that are intercepting an Apple ID as one is logging into a Developers Connection account? Or is it when someone is joining an Apple website for the first time. All unanswered questions seemingly unimportant to Apple.

So Apple …. is Apple ID security bulletproof? I think not! So the question remains … what to do next. I’ll wait to see what Apple reports back.

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!