I mentioned before that I'm on Twitter. I thought I'd mention what tools I use. I use Adobe AIR desktop application called tweetdeck from tweetdeck.com (screenshot). I have 4 columns that I keep track of. First column is the main twitter timeline with all the people in it that I'm following. The 2nd column is the essentially the same as the @mentions (or in this case, @webRat) link on the twitter website. So, anyone that talks directly to me or happens to mention my username, that tweet will show up there. The 3rd column is a simple search on the world "Railo." The 4th is pretty much everything CFML related (search: coldfusion OR cfml OR cfbuilder OR "coldfusion builder" OR cf9 OR cf8 -job -jobs) - I use this column for trying to assist people with regular cfml questions or trolling for haters ripping on cfml.

Until Tweetdeck gets their Android app up to speed, I just use the 'official' twitter app for Android.

If you're looking for a cause to help out the CFML community, Aaron West could use your help. Aaron and his family live in the Nashville area and if you haven't heard, Nashville got hit with a flash flood from a storm. If you can spare a buck or so, please donate and help Aaron and his family get back on their feet. There was been a big push on the twitter cfml community and so far, over $2800 has been raised within 24 hours. Not everyone is on twitter, so like Ray Camden, I figured I'd help to get word out.

The internet is vast with resources. With the assistance of Google, Bing or any other search engine, you can quickly find solutions to even the weirdest problems. One of the invaluable tools I've come across is Twitter. Invaluable because it allows me to keep in touch with my CFML peers. Pittsburgh isn't exactly known for being a hotbed of ColdFusion developers (there are some of us here, but the exact numbers are unknown).

Now, you may be thinking, bah, twitter is a waste of time. Just a bunch of noise. Perhaps. Perhaps it's not. I present the following as evidence that it's not.

• CFML search on twitter
• Railo search on twitter
• OpenBD search on twitter
• ColdFusion search on twitter

Non CFML related goodness:

• jQuery search on twitter
• MySQL search on twitter

Scan through those links and you'll find a couple of things:

• Relevant News
• People talking about problems
• People talking about solutions
• And, of course, there's always going to be junk spewed forth by bots, spammers, etc.

Also, Twitter recently came out with the concept of "lists" so you can tag people and put them in a list. I have a lot of CFML developers tagged in a list. Everyone on the Railo team is tagged as well (or, if you want it broken down further Railo Technologies and Volunteers). So, Twitter is good. Twitter can also bad at times. You sometimes have to weed out the junk to get to the good, but in my experience, people tend to be focused and respectful. Sometimes you'll get a big political / religious / opinionated debate between Twitter friends, but I either ignore it or watch from the side lines. If anything, you get to know your community a little better than you anticipated.

As a community manager for Railo, I tend to look out for new people talking about Railo and offer assistance. The one time I did assist someone, I got told via email later that I just proved to his boss that Twitter is a good thing because I was able to provide real time help just from a vague question on Twitter. I consider that a major win for the community.

So, before you block Twitter or dismiss it as useless garbage. Try it out for yourself. Go ahead and follow some lists from above and more importantly get involved and talk to people. The more we communicate about issues the faster we can get suggestions and resolutions.

Tweet tweet.