Mining Twitters Hidden Treasures -free boost productivity tool

"Cranberry Snow" 2008 (Hasn't snowed in this part of Mississippi since 1984)-
free photo by William Thomas
"Rare Mississippi Snow 2008"-free photo by William Thomas


"Skies Reflected in Water" (My Front Yard) - free photo by Kathy Thomas

Hi from Kathy!

This is the first of "how to increase productivity" tips
for the ordinary blogger. I will post the things that work for me.

Subscribe to my posts (preview) to get all the tips free. I personally "Mine" Twitter.
I'm looking always looking for freebies, samples, sweepstakes, and other specific information.
Here is an easy way to find that stuff on Twitter.
***Use Keyword Tracking and Email Digest at Tweet Later

I track words (sweepstakes,free,sample,freebie,home school)
I set my Tweet Later to send me an email each day that has a list of
all the Tweets that day that I was looking for!
I can't read every Tweet but I CAN read every Tweet that interests me.
Try tracking "music" or "German Tweets"

Click Here To Start

Knowledge Is Power:
Set up alerts and track keywords in the public Twitter stream.
We will monitor the Twitter tweet stream and
periodically email you a digest of the tweets
that contain those keywords. It's similar in functionality to the
[defunct] Twitter track feature,
except that alerts are sent in an email digest format.

You can also use this to track your @replies.

Clean Tweet Stream:
Grab your own personal 140-character tweet scheduling engine and RSS feed.
You can schedule and publish tweets that don't go to Twitter
, they go to your personal tweet stream, which is available in RSS, XML and Javascript formats.
Grab this feed and do with it what you desire -- display them on your web site,
get friends or customers to subscribe to your feed,
pull them into another application that sends them to opted-in mobile phones... the sky is the limit.
Be as chatty as you want on Twitter, this personal tweet stream of yours doesn't contain
any of your Twitter tweets. As part of this enhancement, you can also schedule the same
tweet for all or some of your accounts with one click. Don't Miss A Tweet: Schedule tweets
and keep your Twitter stream ticking over with new tweets
even when you're not in front of your computer.
Publish tweets when your international followers are online and you're asleep.

Courtesy Costs Nothing:

Send automated thank you notes to new followers, and automatically follow new followers,
if you choose to do so. You can also ask us to periodically email you a digest of
the @replies you received.

Put Away Your Credit Card:
Add and manage as many Twitter accounts as you want.
It's free.

TweetLater's keyword tracking and tweet email digest is a very powerful way of mining
the wealth of knowledge that's hidden in the Twitter public tweet stream. To fully use
this feature to your advantage, use the Power Keyword Wizard that you open by clicking
the button "Open Power Keyword Wizard" on the page where you set up your keyword alerts.

You can even limit the selection of tweets for a specific keyword to a specific language only.
For example, if you want to receive only English tweets, or Dutch tweets, or German tweets, you can do that. I strongly recommend that you use the Wizard for building any keywords that are more complex than an single-word keyword. It will ensure that your keyword is in the correct format and can be understood by the search engine.

Click Here To Start

Stephen Grant and Jennifer Kukla -- exchanged notes hidden beneath lunch trays

Wife-killer Grant sent racy notes to mom who killed two kids

February 5, 2008

BY AMBER HUNT

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Two of Macomb County's most notorious killers -- Stephen Grant and Jennifer Kukla -- exchanged notes hidden beneath lunch trays during their overlapping time at the Macomb County Jail, the Free Press has learned.

In the notes, Grant, who is awaiting sentencing for strangling and dismembering his wife, flirts with the convicted child killer, gloats about his national notoriety and says he wishes the two could meet privately -- a suggestion punctuated with a smiley face.

"I still laugh when I remember your one note," Grant wrote in a note dated Oct. 1. "You asked 'are you scared of me?' (LOL). You are too nice to be scared of. I just wish we could arrange a rendezvous in the closet one of these days. (Smiley face.)"

The short letters were obtained Monday by the Free Press and its reporting partner, WDIV-TV Local 4. The Macomb County Prosecutor's Office is releasing the notes to the news media today. Come back to freep.com through the day to read more of them.

In the notes, which were sent back and forth over a span of several months, at least from June to October, Grant, 38, tells Kukla, 31, he started an antidepressant for anxiety and he updates her on his criminal case:

"Right now, I'm waiting to find out if they are going to admit my confession. If it stays in, I'm (expletive). If not, I might have a chance at something less than 1st."

That nearly four-hour confession was admitted and played in full for a jury during Grant's December trial. He was convicted of second-degree murder, not first-degree.

Kukla was convicted of killing daughters Alexandra, 8, and Ashley, 5. Her guilty verdict came with the caveat that she was mentally ill. She chased her girls down with a kitchen knife inside their Macomb Township trailer because, she told investigators, voices told her to do that. She stabbed both girls repeatedly in the throats.

In the notes, Grant offers sympathy: "I had no idea they were pushing 1st degree on you," he wrote. "From what I had read, I thought you had just lost it. Sorry about that."

Grant told Kukla that his celebrity insulates him from being mistreated in jail -- "I am the sheriff's re-election priority" and "if I have a black eye it will be on CNN."

Kukla turned the notes over to authorities in November, just as jury selection was beginning in Grant's trial. In a Nov. 29 interview with Macomb County Sheriff's Detectives Mark Grammatico and Jason Abro, she said she first wrote Grant pretending her name was Sarah because "everybody on our side wanted to find out what he would say about his crime or whatnot. We'd pass notes underneath the doorways and on the food court," she said.

On occasion, she ran into Grant when the two would get supplies from a closet -- which he twice references in his notes as good places to meet up.

Grant also wrote other women, including Crystal Conklin, a 27-year-old Warren woman charged with fatally beating her 2-year-old son, Sean Sowards.

In the notes, Grant told Kukla he didn't know Conklin but had heard she'd be on CNN. Soon after, he wrote to Conklin.

In one note to Conklin, he said he heard Conklin was put on lockdown and asked if she'd been "a naughty girl? (Smiley face.)"

Grant often wrote of missing his children -- he offered condolences to both Conklin and Kukla for the loss of theirs -- and he once wrote that he missed his wife, Tara, too: "She, for the last 13 years, has been the one I went to with my problems and now I don't have that person to ask for advice. (Sad face.)"

Grant repeatedly had mentioned to keep the missives private, but Kukla told investigators she'd given the notes to her father for safekeeping. At times, she said, the content made her uncomfortable enough that she considered turning them in to authorities. She handed them over when investigators told her that they heard rumors the two had corresponded.

Overall, she told detectives, she wasn't impressed with the wife killer.

"I hope he goes away for a long time," she said.