Brad Williams Blog» Rants

Twitter Follow Limits Are Jacked

Brad — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:51:13 +0000

By StrangeWork.com: Last week Jennifer Leggio of ZDNet posted an article about Twitter’s new anti-spam efforts and how royally jacked they are. I’m here to confirm that the Twitter follow limits are still jacked.

So what are the limits? Here is Twitter’s answer:

What are the limits?
We’re starting with a few limits based on various parameters, and we’ll be adding more as time goes on. We reveal some limits only when you reach them, and tell you about others in advance. Twitter applies limits to any person who reaches:

* 1,000 total updates per day, on any and all devices
* 250 total direct messages per day, on any and devices
* 100 API requests per hour
* Maximum number of follow attempts in a day

Follow limits are based on several things, one of which is our belief in a person’s good standing and intention. The behind-the-scenes portion of follow limiting varies by account, relationship, and changes over time. Based on current behavior in the Twitter community, we’ve concluded that this is both fair and reasonable. While we figure out what works best for everyone, the limits may change occasionally, but this is the nucleus and future limits will be based upon the success of these.

source: http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=242

None of the above follow limits apply to my situation. Twitter is blocking my ability to follow new people.

I’m currently following 2100 people on Twitter and I have 1451 people following me. So my current follow to following ratio is 1.44:1. So for every 1.44 people I follow 1 person follows me back.

Does this ratio strike you as ridiculously skewed to either side? Of course not. So why can’t the techs at Twitter see this? I’m sure Twitter looks at other stats to determine who to put a limit on, but posting about 10-15 tweets a day about random stuff shouldn’t trip their spam filter.

I submitted a couple support tickets to Twitter, but have not heard a response yet. There are a few posts on GetSatisfaction.com regarding this issue, but none seem to give a solid answer on the follow issue:
Can’t follow Twitter members since last week
What happens if i hit a Twitter limit

I just hope the Twitter techs can get this problem resolved so I can start following more interesting people on Twitter!

Know how I know this country is gay?

Brad — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:13:52 +0000

By StrangeWork.com: Know how I know this country is gay? It’s 2007 and we still can’t vote online! Actually it’s 2007 and we can’t even register to vote online! What is wrong with this country?

We spend millions upon millions of dollars for voting machines that are untrustworthy, rather than invest that money in technology that would allow anyone to vote from the privacy of their own home. Sure there are security risks involved, but there are security risks involved with banking and shopping online too. If we start investing in the technology today it would be ready in the next few years.

Want to get more young adults to vote? Let them vote for the next president on MySpace. Guaranteed to double voter turnout.

Favorite Technology Podcasts

Travelocity refuses to reimburse for unsafe/filthy hotel

Brad — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:24:53 +0000

By StrangeWork.com: After a recent trip to Charlotte, NC I can say that I will NEVER use Travelocity again. We made reservations to stay at the Ramada Inn next to the airport in Charlotte through Travelocity. The hotel had many flaws including moldiness, broken doors, stains everywhere, disgusting old sheets/blankets, and was located in an unsafe area of town. We asked for another room which had even more problems. After 5 minutes in our second room we decided to leave for another hotel.

After our trip my girlfriend contacted Travelocity for a refund, which they refused to give. Travelocity’s cancellation policy states:

“Once you have checked into a hotel you cannot cancel or receive credit for unused nights if you check out early”

So if you check in to a hotel and enter your room to find a rabid dog snacking on a fresh carcass it’s too late for Travelocity to issue you a refund on your reservation. That’s quality customer satisfaction with a smile isn’t it? That is why I have cancelled my Travelocity account and will NEVER use them again. End rant.

The Power of the Blog – Travelocity Listened

Stolen Blog Content

Brad — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:08:19 +0000

By StrangeWork.com: There is nothing in this world more frustrating then someone stealing your blog content. Even worse is when the site stealing your content also steals your search engine placement and you, the original author, gets bumped off the SERPs for duplicate content.

This happened to me recently for my post Free Motorola Q USB Device Drivers. This post was stolen by a site who has now bumped be off of Google for the search term “Motorola Q drivers”. Now instead of a user finding my article with the correct drivers they are looking for, they are taken to an adsense whored out site with no drivers on it.

Google and the other major search engines need to put a stop to this now! I was pulling in around 60 uniques a day from that post and now nothing. I have also received great feedback from people who really needed these drivers, but of course now they won’t be able to find them. This is where Mahalo.com has the right idea. User created results will always be more accurate then computer created results.

As a result I will now begin every blog post with “By StrangeWork.com”. I HATE thieves!

Digg.com spell check doesn’t recognize “blog”

Brad — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:11:34 +0000

I was posting an article to Digg.com and decided to try out the spell check. To my surprise the word “blog” was not recognized as a word.

I got a good laugh from this so I thought I would share!

Free Motorola Q USB Device Drivers

Brad — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:15:55 +0000

I learned an interesting fact the other day. Verizon does not allow their customers to download device drivers for their phones. Instead you have to pay $30 and purchase a “music essentials kit”, which includes drivers for your particular phone, some software, and a USB cord. $30!? WTF Verizon? Don’t you think the fact that I pay $50/month for EVDO is ENOUGH to warrant FREE drivers?

I’ve located the correct drivers for the Motorola Q and made them available to everyone for download. Enjoy!

Download FREE Motorola Q Drivers

Blue Screen of Death

Brad — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:49:32 +0000

Ok so lately my luck with ______ Screen of Death (fill in any color you would like) hasn’t been the greatest.
First my Xbox 360 fizzles with the RRoD and now my laptop fried with the BSoD! Yesterday at about 8:30am I received my first blue screen. After the initial lock up I received a blue screen about every 15 minutes.

I have a rule in these situations. If I can’t fix it in 2 hours then I have to format. I can’t afford to be down for long so I can’t waste too much time troubleshooting.

Overall I was impressed with my rebuild time. From start to finish I spent about 10 hours. I still have a few programs that need installed, but I can now get back to doing what I love: Working!

Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death

Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death

Brad — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:29:41 +0000

It was bound to happen. My Xbox 360 finally received the Red Ring of Death (RROD).

What makes it even more frustrating is the fact that I had NO problems leading up to this. My Xbox 360 was amazing and never froze, glitched, locked up, or acted funny in anyway. Then one day BAAM, and it’s down for the count. I’m glad Microsoft is owning up to this problem and extended the Xbox warranty to three years, but damn! Now I have to send it off for a few weeks to get fixed.

The Nintendo Wii is looking better and better! Playstation what?

Yahoo does NOT use sitemaps!

Brad — Thu, 31 May 2007 01:26:07 +0000

I don’t care WHAT Yahoo says, they do NOT use sitemaps. I’ve been pinging my sitemap to Yahoo for almost a month now and they’ve added about 10 links! I’m sending about 2000 links to Yahoo, with new ones added each day, but Yahoo seems to care less about that. I cant imagine so many developers are submitting sitemaps that they can’t get to mine in under 4 weeks. Catch up Yahoo and quit being lame!

I know I should be patient, but when you do EXACTLY what they say they want shouldn’t they show a little priority in spidering? I know I would!

09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0

Brad — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:26:19 +0000

09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0

Fuck You MPAA!