Use IFTTT to help ease your digital life

There is a great tool available which can ease your digital life. If This Then That allows you to create recipes which link web services together.

A recipe comprises a trigger, and an action to take when the trigger is set. The trigger is an event which you can define associated with the web service. In addition you can chose to be notified when the trigger has happened.

For example, I have a recipe which is set to automatically post to my FaceBook timeline whenever I publish a new post on my WordPress blog.

IFTTT Recipes

I could do it myself, I suppose, but as you can see, I also create a post on Tumblr, in addition I create a tweet. So, using IFTTT saves me a bit of time.

I also have a recipe which saves all email attachments I receive in my google account mailbox, and save them in a folder on OneDrive.

New services are being added to IFTTT regularly, just recently elements of Office 365 have been added – Outlook Email Calendar and Contacts, and OneDrive for Business.

So you could, if you wanted to, send a welcoming email to someone you created as a contact in Outlook.

If you want to try a recipe which isn’t related to work, you can set one up to email you any photographs you take on your android phone, or to add a music track to a spotify playlist.

IFTTT apps are also available for iOS, Android and WindowsPhone. On iOS and Android they are branded IF and DO.

Try it, at ifttt.com you might just like it

How I use Twitter, and why I won't be following 30,000 people either

There have been a lot of comments today about @MarkShaw performing a mass un-follow of many of the > 30,000 "friends" he has built up on Twitter. I thought I'd add my point of view.

Mark has been described as a Twitter guru, he offers advice to companies and individuals on how best to use Twitter.

I'm sure his advice will have changed over the time he has been using Twitter. He says himself, he started with a policy of automatically following anyone who followed him.

That may be a fine idea when you are trying to build a network of friends and followers, and trying to understand how people are using it. However, over time (if you are successfully using Twitter), as your reputation grows, your follower count will grow. If you autofollow, the stream of tweets that you are presented with each time you enter the site will become increasingly irrelevant, it will be difficult to engage with your network, and many of the benefits of Twitter will be lost to you.

Of course, I want to promote my business using Twitter, but I try to achieve that by adding value to my followers, and those whom I'm following. No one is going to walk up to Crittall Windows' reception and say, I was so impressed with John's tweets that I want to give you an order. I tweet links to news items, and to things I find of interest, I retweet requests for help, I engage in conversations about current issues, I enjoy some light banter, and where I have relevant knowledge or experience, I offer help and advice to anyone who needs it. In short, I am networking, as I would in the real world, but using a tool which provides me with the ability to reach more people, in a wider geographical area.

I'm also trying desperately to win a year's free pies from @HollandsPies!

My objective is to build a network of people with common interests, from whom I can learn, and with whom I can share my experience. If I follow too many people, then that just wouldn't be possible.