Gotta love it when big companies embrace practical technology!

Papa John’s now lets you order by text message! Cool!

And Domino’s lets you order via cell phones with internet connections.

I think Papa John’s wins that showdown, but at least they’ve both done something, as opposed to the one that shall remain nameless.

Hmm… and then there are the companies who make things difficult and user unfriendly, like Yahoo! I tried taking direct links to the companies mentioned in order to see if they are promoting their new options on their websites (Papa John’s is, Domino’s is not) , and all Yahoo would do is give me a pop-up box that I actually have to navigate through! And as if that weren’t pain-in-the-ass enough, once I finally click on a link, they don’t accept my decision. I still have to close that pop-up window manually! Come on, Yahoo!

Well, two thumbs up for Papa John’s, anyway.

So you’ve heard me talk and talk about Twitter. And my  daily list of “What I’m doing” comes from my posts there, of course.  Well, it just got even better.

Through a series of Twitter-based web mash-ups, I learned that I can automate a group of local Twitterers! So I had to, of course.

So if you live in Michiana (southwest Michigan or northwest Indiana), go follow Michiana Tweets on Twitter! You don’t need to do anything to be included by us, except have your location set through Twitter (in your profile, or by sending it through the system). Your tweets will be picked up by us without us having to follow you.

Not sure who else will find it useful, but I know I will. Been curious about local Twitter-ers for the longest time. Now I can find them

So a couple months ago I raved about a new service I got turned onto, called Twitter. The standard question is “What are you doing?”, and you’re supposed to text in with your answer whenever you’re doing anything noteworthy or whatever.

Then, bonus! I found a plug-in to add all my “Tweets” to my blog. Except I didn’t like at all the lack of clarity this brought, with the blog post just starting in with the beginning of my Tweet. I imagine most of you are not Twitterers / Tweeters / Tweet-peeps, certainly not any of my friends IRL, so I figured this must have been confusing.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that the plugin will take all my day’s tweets and put them into a single post that actually lets me name it! Don’t know how I missed that before! But anyway, it is all better now. And pay no mind to the two days earlier this week that have tweets twice, once by themselves and once in a digest. Consider it carnage. I’m so glad everything will be nice and clean now

Of course, if you really wanted up-to-the-minute updates on me, you’ll have to go sign up for Twitter yourself and then ‘follow’ me. If you dare.

In just 14 days I will have internet access from my cell phone. I can’t wait!!

Now, I realize it could get very dangerous, but wow- if I manage to stay focused, it is going to make life so much easier! And frankly, I don’t have the time to not be focused! So I’m really looking forward to this helping me in big ways.

1. Task lists all available from wherever I am because they are centrally created & organized online. **
2. Google Calendar - I can view my availability on the fly. (Which is especially handy for a witch like me! ) **
3. Gmail - Since my main Gmail account is not the same account I have for my Google calendar, I don’t have to keep signing in-and-out incessantly between Google Accounts to get the info I want!
4. POP Mail - I’ve been wanting for some time to have an email address that my clients/customers could send emergency support requests to (site down, etc), so I could provide better service being available (for real emergencies) even off-hours, without the hassle of providing my cell phone number in case they WERE to ever abuse it. (And no doubt someone eventually would. Not worth it!) So now, I can set up an email address which will come directly to my phone. Also, emails can be easily ignored and even banned if someone is misusing the privilege of instant access.
5. When I want to know what’s playing at the theater and when, but am not in front of my desk, I will no longer have to go through the (sometimes torturous) phone system and wait to hear all my choices and then remember the prompt for whichever movie it is that I choose to hear about. This process really does get quite time-consuming. In 14 days I will no longer be subject.

** : If you’ve been paying much attention at all, you are aware of the fact that I have been a Palm (PDA) owner for 7 years now, and currently even a Treo which is a hybrid Palm/Cell-phone. Yet while I still really dislike Pocket PC’s and therefore the corresponding Treo alternative, I have also come to find Palm’s OS quite unusable. I had a Sony Clie for a few years, which had a super-pimped interface for the Palm OS. To my great sorrow they stopped making them, though. And now I’m stuck with an outdated, never-updated-since-it’s-been-created, Palm interface. It’s not workin’ for me. Maybe I could buy Agendus, but I’d rather not spend the money on something that should just be better in the first place. I’d rather put that money towards a service that will do a lot more as well.

So there ya have it. I got the good news yesterday, and am officially in countdown mode. YAY!