This week's episode is all about getting the most out of Twitter. Take my 5-step love-it-or-hate-it twitter challenge, and I think you'll find lots to love about twitter within a week!

TWITTER QUICK START GUIDE:
1. Sign up for your free account at twitter.com

2. Find at least 5 people to "follow" - start with people you know, then branch out from there.

3. Tweet at least once a day, about whatever you are finding interesting that day. more than once is better, but try to do it at least once.

4. Use the tool that makes twittering most comfortable for you! you don't have to go to the twitter website every time you want to use it.

5. The more people you interact with, the more fun it is... so invite your friends, get to know new people, and have fun with it!!

And that's it! if you do those 5 simple one-minute-or-less things, you should have a pretty solid twitter experience after a week.

and, of course, you can always twitter me to say hello, ask questions, or let me know whether you are loving twitter or thinking it's a stupid waste of time.

http://twitter.com/shellyroche

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THIS WEEK'S WORST OF THE WEB:

the NSA, of course.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/25/tice_nsa_revelations/

THIS WEEK'S BEST OF THE WEB:

this week's best was a toss-up for me. eventually, i decided this week's winner had a slight edge in day-to-day usefulness, but it was a tough call.

anyway, i dropped my laptop last week on a tiled floor, and it ricocheted and bounced several times on the way down. miraculously, she's still computing away, but it really made me aware of how important backups are. I use a service called carbonite, which is less than $50 a year, and basically runs in the background on your computer, and automatically backs up your files in real time. Very easy to setup, much less expensive than hiring someone to try to restore your files after a hard drive crash, and you never have to worry about losing your data again.

i love it. so, carbonite, you are my pick for this week's best byte.
http://carbonite.com

RUNNER UP:

robot meets spider-man...
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/01/23/t34_net_robot/

Thanks for watching! Look for Episode 3 on Tuesday, Feb 3rd!

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UPDATES ON LAST WEEK'S BEST & WORST:

Worst (Chinese Government):
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/604/1050604/china-pretends-w...

Best (Nine Inch Nails / Creative Commons):
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090123/0753573504.shtml

*****

CREDITS:

Thanks, david b. thayer!
* http://thempi.org
* http://twitter.com/dbthayer
* http://singingrevolution.com

YouTube clips used: