This is where Twitcleaner comes in. TwitCleaner will run a report of all the people you follow and find the aforementioned account types and return a full report that details the dodgy, spammy, or ill-fated accounts that are clogging your feed. I think of it as drano for your tweet stream. Once you clean out the rubbish, you spend less time reading tweets that don’t interest you.

The process is quite simple – navigate to thetwitcleaner.com/ and begin a scan of the people you follow. TwitCleaner will DM a report that details the rubbish accounts in your follow list. You now have the option of choosing which accounts to keep and which ones to discard. This is the one best feature of TwitCleaner – they will un-follow the accounts that you choose not to keep. This is a huge benefit and time-saver. No need to manually located and un-follow the rubbish twitter accounts it happens in minutes.

Thumbs up to this twitter app – it fills a gap that has always existed. I’ll definitely use this tool every few months to clean the crap out of my twitter feed. – Follow me on twitter – @ostinsfriend

1st VLOG of 2010

So you want your website/blog to look great on iPhone? Fear not – if you are running Wordpress as your website/blog portal – your site will look and perform great on the iPhone/iTouch safari browsers. If you’re new to blogging or simply want a site to appear on iphone – look no further than wordpress. Embedded video, images, links and text are instantly zoomable and hassle-free.

ostinsfriend.com on my iPhone

For a fee iphonemy.com will check your current URL and send a screenshot of what your site looks like on the iPhone (or you could just borrow a pals iPhone to have a quick look yourself). They will also optimize your site with a plugin – which makes the content of your blog appear somewhat in the manner of an RSS feed.

Being a Fan of Twitter and Apple computer kinda guy I wanted find a Twitter App that would tweet my current iTunes song. Introducing Tweet MiTunes – A Twitter App that posts your current playing iTunes track (song title, artist, album) as a Tweet on Twitter.

After googling my fingers blue, I found two other folks whom had the same idea. MacTipper created two versions of the Twit Tunes application that would tweet your current iTunes song; however it required the user to manually press a button for the Tweet to succeed. One is a true application that resides in the task bar while the other runs in the background.

My second find was an Applescript written by Leroux that required the user to update and then drop into the file structure on their mac – not to mention manually editing the script with user credentials in applescript. I found it to be a cumbersome process for day to day users who are not savvy in scripts and coding.

After trying out both – I found that I could do better. Tweet MiTunes simplifies both of the gentlemen’s efforts. Upon launching the application Tweet MiTunes requests the users Twitter login name and password (for authenticating posts to Twitter). Once you open iTunes – Tweet Mitunes will post the current playing Track with Song Title, Artist and Album. If iTunes is not playing – Tweet MiTunes will rest until the music is resumed.

This application runs on a Mac OS at this time. Version 1.0 is the initial release with hopes that additional functionality will be added in future versions. Feed back is very much requested.

DOWNLOAD Tweet MiTunes here!

Enjoy!

Gene Simmons in the lobby of the Fairmont Royal York

During the past few months millions of Americans have lost thousands of dollars in invested dollars with the slowing of the US economy. While I won’t go into all the driving factors I do want to note one problem that has yet to rise to the surface.

Being a financially sound citizen I have a 401k plan, an IRA, and both checking and savings accounts. I often keep track of my credit score which is in the the 700 range. I have a small amount of credit card debt that is totally manageable as well as a corporate credit card that is used for business expenses and travel.

A few weeks ago I considered purchasing a 2nd car and applied for a bank loan of which I was denied. Now earlier in the year I was already approved for this loan, but did not take advantage of it. At the time my credit score was lower – so what then has changed. The Credit Markets!

Not only have banks lost faith in the housing markets they have lost faith in consumers. They originally loaned gobs of money hand over fist to borrowers who could in no way afford the homes on the market – and in the end wound up foreclosing on a home and loan that should not have been bought in the 1st place. With the fall-out of this that banks have no way of identifying who is credit worthy and who is not. Your credit score is no longer any indication of your credit worthiness; it is bank independent – decisions being made by the same people who freely loaned money to unworthy borrowers.

I write this blog rant because the part that bothers me is this – my name and credit worthiness were in good enough shape for you to loan me money 9 months ago and the only thing that is changed in my backyard is that I’m now even more stable and worthy today and I’ve been declined. I’m certain that an inquiry will be entered onto my credit report for other lenders to reference when I apply again in the future. The bank’s declining my good name is their own fault – not mine. The consumer should not have the suffer because the the banking industries inability to properly manage and regulate it’s own inflated ego. In addition – credit inquiries during this slowed economy should be carefully noted and identified by Equifax, Transunion and Experian that the declining of credit on behalf of the bank was due to bank decision and not consumer credit worthiness.

The banking industry needs to be held under a microscope and held accountable for their poor decisions.