If youʼve never used Twitter, itʼs like the headline scrawl across the bottom of your favorite news channel, except that these headlines are written by you and me. Follow someone on Twitter and youʼll receive their latest mini-messages, and you can send mini-messages of your own.

Businesses are using Twitter to keep in contact with customers, advertise events, promote special offers, and grow relationships. Skeptics might doubt that one can do business via Twitter, but my direct experience says it works.

Here’s how you can start using Twitter in just a few easy steps.

1. Sign up for Twitter
Your Twitter name is your identity, so choose wisely. Also make sure you are using strong passwords that are not in use on any other site (especially financial sites or other social media sites like Facebook). Twitter has some nice resources to get you started including Twitter Basics for beginners.

2. Find people to follow
What are you interested in? Most news outlets have Twitter feeds, as do many newspapers, periodicals, television channels… anyone who offers content is offering it on Twitter. Some of your friends and colleagues are using it, too. As you start using Twitter, you’ll gravitate toward people with like interests. For example, a news outlet might retweet a link you like from a blogger, and you might decide to follow the blogger on Twitter for more of the same kind of content. To follow someone, go to their Twitter page and click the Follow button.

3. Send your first tweet
Remember: relevant, concise, and interesting. When in doubt a good quote always works. Retweets that you find interesting also work, but remember, posting too often is as bad as not posting often enough.

Some examples of tweets (sent by yours truly):

4. Invite people to follow you

Start with people you know personally, then the people they are following. You’re most likely to get followers in small trickles rather than big waves. And don’t forget to interact with your followers! Twitter isn’t just headlines, but a multi-way conversation. A conversation might go like this:

5. More Help With Twitter
Here are some additional resources if you need help with Twitter.

Tech Tips articles on Twitter
Search for keyword Twitter and you’ll find my previous articles on the topic.

Twitter Help Center

Chris Brogan: 50 Ideas On Using Twitter For Business

How are you using Twitter for your business? Share in the comments!

The article isn’t available online, so I’ll give you the gist of it:

Pretend you have a Windows 2000 computer that never goes on the Internet. Using it is like traveling through time, ten years into the past. There are plenty of old friends installed: Microsoft Office 2000, Acrobat 5, Internet Explorer 6, programs that were standards at the time but have long since been replaced with newer versions.

You might think you could continue to use this computer in isolation, maybe for basic word processing. It doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t connect to anything, right?

But, let’s pretend your printer dies. No point in word processing if you can’t print. The new printer says that it’s not really Windows 2000 compatible, but you might be able to find some software on the Internet. You try to log on but poor Internet Explorer 6 can’t handle a modern web site. And, behind the scenes, a virus just snuck through holes in IE6 to infect your computer.

Unaware of the virus, you decide to use your Windows 7 laptop to download the printer software to a USB flash drive. Another virus hitches a ride from the laptop to the desktop, a virus that can’t run under Windows 7 but is more than happy to infect Windows 2000. The Windows 2000 computer is now a hotbed of virus activity, and the only symptom is that it’s increasingly slower.

Other viruses join the party, and pretty soon that Windows 2000 computer is spewing all sorts of junk that infects your Windows 7 laptop, your smartphone, your iPad… then your email and Facebook accounts get hijacked and suddenly your bank is calling about missing funds.

I’ve received a few responses from folks with older computers, disagreeing with my opinion. Most of the responses included the observation: “I’ve been running this version of Windows for umpteen years and I’ve never had a virus.” If I may add… that you know of.

In fairness to these folks, yes, I do know people who use Windows 98 or Windows 2000 without the world grinding to an earth-shattering halt. Most of them are retirees or others who don’t use their computers often. In such cases we try to keep the computer functional for as long as we can. But there are others who – in my opinion – are doing absolutely lunatic things with ancient computers. Like trying to run a business with them: payroll, marketing, the works. And that gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies because there are SO many ways it can go disastrously wrong for both you and your business.

Most viruses and malware show absolutely no signs of their presence. It doesn’t matter if a Win98 or Win2000 computer has antivirus installed or not, because any antivirus capable of running under those versions of Windows is incapable of detecting new threats. It’s like taking a police officer from 1912, dropping him into 2012, and expecting him to cope with modern problems for which he has no frame of reference.

Friends, I’m saying these things to help, not to hinder. I think one reason many people are reluctant to change is because it truly is difficult to get used to a computer with a different interface. Like when we moved from DOS to Windows 95, or Windows XP to Windows Vista and 7. A new interface puts us on edge, even old salts like me. It’s annoying to spend half your morning trying to figure out how you used to do something, but that’s technology, and the only thing you can do is adapt.

You may find it easier if you keep in mind that computers haven’t really changed all that much since the 1980s. Saving a file, typing a document, finding a contact’s address, these things are still the same. It’s the look-and-feel of the computer that has changed, plus the ability to access more information faster. Even the Internet is pretty close to what it was when I started using it twenty years ago. Today I’m using RSS feeds and Facebook chat instead of Usenet news and UNIX talk, but the fundamentals remain.

What do you think? Is there life to be had in old computers, or are the security risks too great?

First, the basics: recommendations on security software. These are all reliable vendors in the security arena and have mobile products available for a variety of platforms.

• Kapersky Mobile Security
  http://usa.kaspersky.com/products-services/home-computer-security/mobile-security
• ESET Mobile Security
  http://www.eset.com/us/products/mobileantivirus.php/
• Webroot Mobile Security For Consumers
  http://www.webroot.com/En_US/consumer-products-mobile-security.html
• Intego VirusBarrier iOS (Apple iOS only)
  http://www.intego.com/virusbarrierios/
• Trend Micro Mobile Security (Android only)
  http://us.trendmicro.com/us/products/personal/mobile-security-for-android/

Next, I wanted to expand on what I said about using mobile technology to keep up with the latest threats. One of the best ways to do this is to subscribe to technology-related RSS feeds. I’ve talked about RSS before. It’s like getting regular headlines automatically updated to your computer or mobile device. There are a wide variety of RSS apps, but you’ll find most of them will require you to use either Google Reader or their own cloud-based technology to sync your feeds. And speaking of feeds, here are some to try.

• Triona’s Tech Tips RSS Feed
  • You can also subscribe via email by clicking here or sending a message to techtips-request@guidryconsulting.com, subject subscribe.
• Security Feeds For Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and US-CERT. Note that these might change as this post ages.
  • http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/rss/bulletin
  • http://rss.lists.apple.com/security-announce.rss
  • http://blogs.adobe.com/psirt/feed/atom
  • http://www.us-cert.gov/channels/alerts.rdf
• Sophos Naked Security
  • http://feeds.feedburner.com/NakedSecurity

One last piece of advice. Go into the settings of your mobile device and turn off any sharing that you’re not using. Periodically monitor your privacy settings on mobile devices and online sites, because they won’t necessarily stay the way you set them (thanks a lot, Facebook).

Computer glitches have a tendency to build up until you’re ready to toss your machine in the trash, but fixing small problems can prevent larger ones later on…

One of the things I mention in the article is taking control of your startup programs, all those little icons that show up in the lower right corner (Windows) or upper right corner (Mac). Some of these are vital, like your antivirus, but others can be removed in order to free up memory and reduce program conflicts.

You can disable these one by one, but how about an easier way? Windows XP users can use msconfig by going to Start, Run and typing “msconfig” (without quotes). Microsoft has some additional advice for Windows 7 users here. You can also use the free Microsoft utility AutoRuns which works on Windows XP and up.

Mac users will find startup programs in System Preferences, Accounts, Login Items. You can also manipulate login items via Terminal, but I don’t advise you to do that unless you’re familiar with UNIX because there’s potential to seriously screw up your machine.

I’m a big fan of programs running only when I need them, so I like a minimum of startup items. But you want to make sure you’re not disabling too much. Obviously your antivirus has to stay. Program updaters also need to stay because it’s the best way for you to keep your computer patched and secure. Before disabling a program, write down its name so you remember what it was in case you need to re-enable it later.

“I think there was a lot of expectation – anybody’s in a difficult situation to follow Steve – but I think it was pretty lackluster,” said Triona Guidry, a freelance technology writer and owner of Guidry Consulting in Cary. “In my head, I was trying to compare it to the season finale of a TV series* – every season finale has to be bigger and bigger until it gets to the point that you can’t do it anymore.”

“For whatever reason, they decided not to do an iPhone 5, and the initial reaction is that’s a big mistake,” Guidry said. “As one person said, they could have quite easily put it in a different shiny case, and none of us would be the wiser. But that’s not what they decided to do.”

What struck me most about Apple’s unannouncement was how bummed everyone was. It’s hard for Apple to keep topping last year’s Biggest Event Ever, but you can’t alienate the masses, either. By failing to deliver (or to manage expectations ahead of time) Apple has lost ground. With no boost from iPhone 5 sales it may be a bitter holiday season, especially with the Amazon Kindle Fire on the iPad’s heels.

If, at their next event, Apple can pull off something so crazy-stupid-awesome we all forget about what happened yesterday, they might regain some of the ground they’ve lost. But I don’t think this is necessarily indicative of Apple without Steve Jobs. As I said to the Northwest Herald:

“The question is why they would do it that way, especially with so much expectation on this,” she said. “But then again, Apple’s smart. Maybe there’s something behind the scenes going on that we don’t know about. That’s the only thing that’s going to turn this around for them.”

Apple does make mistakes** but I’ve learned not to underestimate them. For all we know they did this simply so they can sit back and chuckle while the rumor mill REALLY goes into overdrive.

* Like whether a second Big Bang tops a bomb that will destroy all of reality. I won’t even get into what happened this season.

** Let’s hear it for the Newton, the Lisa, the Mac IIvx, and all of Apple’s less-beloved products.

Now, think about poor Windows XP. Itʼs 10 years old, so the criminals have had ample opportunity to discover and exploit its weaknesses. Antivirus programs arenʼt as effective as their counterparts for Windows Vista and 7 because Windows XP canʼt run the newer features.

Vital new versions of programs such as Internet Explorer arenʼt available for Windows XP, and to make matters worse, just having the old version of the program on your computer renders you even more vulnerable to viruses.

Yet weʼre using this ancient, bug-riddled system to share all sorts of personal information. Itʼs like leaving your brand-new iPhone on the seat of a beat-up car with broken locks. The forced upgrade cycle is true for any computer system, including Macs, tablets, smart phones and other devices. Technological advances result in new security risks, which in turn result in eventual obsolescence.

When you don’t plan your computer expenses, you end up buying whatever’s on the shelf and paying more than you might have otherwise. Usually it’s because your existing computer has crashed and you’re in a crisis, which is not the best time to be making decisions about big expenditures. What if you watched the sales, waiting for the right computer at the right price? What if you planned your computer upgrade instead of having it forced on you when you least expect it? We all get into firefighting mode when it comes to our computers and sometimes it doesn’t occur to us that there might be an easier, less stressful way.

I think the best time to do an upgrade is during your least busy season. If it’s a big upgrade you might even want to consider telling your customers your office is closed for a short time. It’s far easier to focus on your computer infrastructure if you’re not fielding calls, and the time saved in reduced computer problems will more than make up for any lost productivity.

If you’re a consumer, the most important message to take home is this: An old computer is a dangerous computer. Don’t let cybercriminals ruin your life by stealing your identity, and make it harder for them to hurt others by keeping your own computer protections in place.

I think one of the things that caught me is that iCloud will be on by default. I wonder if people will know where their information is, and if they care… The landscape is going to alter more toward continued mobility and communication from mobile devices. We’ve really blurred the line at this point between entertainment and communication and news and TV and music. It’s all mixed together.

Which made me wonder: Where is all my data now? My first thought was, “On my server and its backup devices.” But then I got to thinking about the music and TV shows I’ve purchased, the blogs I’ve written, the remarks I’ve made on LinkedIn and Facebook… not to mention all the personal information about me and every other consumer that is lurking in various corporate databases worldwide…

Okay, not so simple an answer.

Cloud computing isn’t the future, it’s now. Does iCloud change things? Not really, although it does make them easier for the average person to use, which may be more important. Apple has a proven track record of providing wildly popular ways for consumers to use technology. As the Northwest Herald article points out, Microsoft is adding similar features to its popular Xbox game platform. I’ve talked before about my concerns about cloud computing for consumers, which boil down security and accessibility. Our ability to use this technology is progressing faster than our understanding of its risks, but as long as you go into it with that knowledge, feel free to explore. I’m already thinking about ways these new technologies might be helpful to me, and I’m sure you are too.

Subscribe free to Tech Tips and receive bonus tips, tricks and product reviews, plus notice of upcoming seminars and other events. Click here to subscribe or send email to techtips-request-at-guidryconsulting-dot-com, subject “subscribe”.

• Prepare
  If you save inspiring quotes and links to interesting articles in a file, you can quickly copy and paste them into your LinkedIn status. Your status can be anything as long as it’s concise and relevant to your industry.
• Schedule
  Make a five-minute window in your day. Dedicate that time only to LinkedIn and, other than that, forget about it.
• Prioritize
  Responding to invitations and messages should be first, posting new status updates second, and managing recommendations third. Don’t forget thank yous! They go a long way toward building relationships.
• Respond
  If John Smith posted that he has a new job, send congratulations. If Mary Jones shares a link to an article, respond with your viewpoint. It only takes a moment and it increases your visibility.
• Integrate
  Do you have a blog? If you’re manually posting updates to LinkedIn, you’re wasting time. You can integrate LinkedIn with blogs, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare and other social networking sites.
• Explore
  Take one minute out of your five to familiarize yourself with LinkedIn. Try searching for events, participating in group discussions, asking or answering questions in the Q&A forums. But don’t share too many personal details, because criminals use LinkedIn and other social networking sites to glean information about potential victims.
• Revise
  Every few months, expand your five minutes into a half hour and review your LinkedIn profile. The most important parts are your “headline” or title, your status, and your summary. We are all evolving as professionals, and your LinkedIn profile should evolve with you.
• Relax
  LinkedIn isn’t a contest. There’s no reward for getting 500 contacts or answering a million questions in the Q&A section. The way you reap the rewards of LinkedIn is by using it to expand your horizons.

Join me this Thursday for Leveraging LinkedIn, sponsored by the Cary Grove Chamber Of Commerce. More seminars on blogs and social networking available this summer, keep an eye on my Upcoming Events page or subscribe to the Tech Tips e-newsletter for details as they become available.

Leveraging LinkedIn
Cary Grove Chamber Of Commerce
Thursday, May 26, 2011, 12pm-1:30pm
Fox River Grove Village Hall, 305 Illinois St., Fox River Grove IL

Discover how to get the most out of LinkedIn. We’ll explore the features of LinkedIn and how you can best use them to market yourself or your business. To register, contact the Cary Grove Chamber Of Commerce at 847-639-2800.

Subscribe free to Tech Tips and receive bonus tips, tricks and product reviews, plus notice of upcoming seminars and other events. Click here to subscribe or send email to techtips-request-at-guidryconsulting-dot-com, subject “subscribe”.

The last thing you want is for customers to think you’re not around anymore, but that’s exactly the impression an outdated Web site gives. Many people let their sites lapse because they’re embarassed that they’ve forgotten how to access them. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Now is a great time to reassess your site, decide what you want to change, and document the account details and other relevant information so that the next time you consider a makeover, you’ll have the foundation laid.

Some people balk at the idea of redoing their Web sites. They figure they just had them done a few years ago so there’s nothing that needs to be changed. But have you ever visited a site that you could tell was old just by looking at it? As technology changes, so do the tools we use to build Web sites. Think of it like decorating your office lobby. You don’t necessarily need the latest styles, but you don’t want the place to look shabby either.

Other site snafus include “news” that’s dated years ago and incorrect contact information. You should also see if there is anything else you need to add or change. Have you introduced new products or services? Are you now affiliated with an organization that could give you a boost?

Make a point to reassess your Web site on a regular basis. If you have a site that needs fine-tuning, let me know how I can help.

Subscribe free to Tech Tips and receive bonus tips, tricks and product reviews. Click here to subscribe or send email to techtips-request-at-guidryconsulting-dot-com, subject “subscribe”.

Here are some recommendations on security software suites.

• Triona’s Tech Tips: New AVG 2011 And How To Choose Security Software

You’ll notice I didn’t mention Norton. While Norton is adequate, it doesn’t have the best detection rates, and it takes up a significant amount of memory especially on older computers. I wrote several years ago about the reasons why I started recommending alternatives to Norton. Although recent versions of Norton have fixed some of these issues, I still prefer the alternatives.

Here’s my guide to creating secure passwords:

• Triona’s Tech Tips: How To Create Secure Passwords

Plus, an article on what to do if your account is hijacked.

• Triona’s Tech Tips: What To Do If Your Email Account Is Hijacked

I mentioned several utilities that can help you keep your software up to date. For Windows, try Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector. Two possibilities for Mac users are AppFresh and Mac Informer.

If you’re interested I have a number of upcoming seminars including Blogs For Business, Leveraging LinkedIn, Social Networking, Expanding Your Online Presence and more. You can find my upcoming events schedule on my web site, or watch examples of my previous seminars.