I’ve written several post here on how to hack your Apple TV to allow FTP access and open up a wide range of useful and fun apps. Back then, the process was more complicated and involved several steps. But things have changed.

There is now a very easy way to hack your Apple TV and not only allow FTP access, but also give you the ability to watch TV from Hulu. This is quite cool.

The first thing you do is download atvusb-creator from this site: http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/ The instructions on this page are simple and easy. This software will create all the necessary installation files onto a 1GB or larger USB flash drive.

Once your flash drive is created, you simply plug it into the USB port on the back of your Apple TV and reboot. The installation takes a few minutes. Then you reboot the Apple TV again.

One of the many things that are installed is Boxee. As their site says: “on a laptop or connected to an HDTV, boxee gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from services like Netflix, MTV, Pandora and flickr.”

I highly recommend this hack and Boxee.

While you may have an opinion about the relative value or benefit of Twitter in the social networking sphere (see this funny spoof of Twitter), there’s no denying that “tweets” are quickly becoming a major form of online communication.

On some level, it makes perfect sense. In our multi-tasking, multi-communication world, the pace continues to quicken. Why wade through several multi-paragraphed blog posts each day when you can get the gist of the matter with a brief 140-character-or-less tweet? And better yet, you don’t even have to be at your computer to get them.

The new blogging is micro-blogging, Twitter style.

I’ve had many family and friends ask me about how to use Twitter. So, putting the interesting social and anthropological discussions aside for now, I will share the tools that I currently use to broadcast and receive the millions of tweets in the Twittersphere.

Twitterific
If you want a great, lightweight app that helps conserve screen real estate, you may like Twitterific. The interface is simple, easy to use, and lets you both read and publish tweets.

Twitterific Interface

Twitterific also has an iPhone/iTouch app that gives you essentially the same interface. Twitterific has both free and paid versions for the Mac and iPhone/iTouch apps ($14.95 and $9.99 respectively).

TweetDeck
Twitterific is great for simply reading and publishing tweets, but it doesn’t do much in the way of filtering or organizing your Twitter world. For that, I use TweetDeck, which runs on Mac, Windows and Linux platforms.

TweetDeck’s strength is in it’s ability to filter, organize, read and publish tweets and manage FaceBook contacts all in one application. And, it’s free!

TweeDeck interface

Twittelator
Right now, my favorite iPhone/iTouch Twitter app is Twittelator. It cost $3.99 at the iTunes App Store.

This app packs a lot of features into a simple, easy-to-use app.

Twittelator interface

Twittelator landscape

Twittelator lets you easily send pictures, show your current geo-location, add 100s of dingbats to your message, and much more. The landscape option for publishing new tweets is especially nice.

Twitter Related Sites
There are a number of very interesting sites related to the world of Twitter.

TwitterFall
One of my favorites is called TwitterFall. TwitterFall lets you filter the tweets of the world according to your predefined keywords. In the left bar, you can define keywords that show up in tweets around the world. Then, TwitterFall begins streaming those tweets as they come in (they fall, one on top of the next; hence TwitterFall). Some of the more popular keywords come fast and furious, so TwitterFall allows you to control the rate at which they fall onto the main page.

In this example, I’ve set the keyword to “Mac” and the speed to a .5 second interval between each tweet:

TwitterFall main page

TwitterFall is a great tool for getting a window into the kinds of activity occurring in the larger twittershpere.

Twitterholic
If you want to get a quick tally of the top 100 Twitter user based on number of followers, go to Twitterholic. You can even enter your own twitter account and see where you rank in the grand scheme.

TweetStats
If you’re interested in knowing how much and when you use Twitter, go to TweetStats and check your numbers.

These are a few of the Twitter related apps and sites that I use on a regular basis. But the Twitter world is evolving quickly, and there are likely to be new and innovative ways to extend Twitter and other twitter-like apps.

One relatively new and related idea is 12SecondsTV. It’s like Twitter, only with video. Check it out.

I’m weeks away from finishing my first eBook!

I haven’t yet decided on the title. They (the expert eBook marketing folks) tell me that much thought should go into the title. There are two important reasons for that:

1. You want the title to be alluring and catchy to increase sales.
2. You want the title to accurately communicate what the reader can expect to find inside.

I’ve put several months of work in creating this eBook. I think most small business folks who want to create and maintain their own websites in an easy way will find this eBook quite valuable.

It’s loaded with screenshots and graphics, because many folks are very visual in their learning mode. Once I’ve got this finished, I will begin working on a companion video series that will work nicely with the eBook.

Stay tuned… we’re close!

Every once in a while, someone comes up with a tool that makes you wonder what you ever did before using it. For me, Coda is that tool.

If you work on websites, you should take a close look at Coda. Coda has these tools built in: text editor, file transfer, source control system, terminal (SSH), website preview, and resource library for HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP.

The interface is clean and doesn’t get in the way of doing work. In Edit mode, the code is color-coded for easy identification.

There’s a very cool CSS editor built in that allows you to quickly add and change your style sheets with a very nicely designed visual editor.

When you need to preview your work, there’s no need to fire up a browser. Coda provides a built-in preview tab.

If you need to SSH into your server, Coda provides that too.

And if you’ve forgotten that bit of PHP or CSS or Javascript, Coda provides a built-in reference library. You can even add more of your own.

Working with Coda on site development is like a dream within a dream!

There is also a good collection of third party plugins that extend Coda’s functionality. Check out their site at: http://www.panic.com/coda/

I expected a change in mood for this year’s MacWorld, and that is what I found.

First came the news that this would be a Steve-less MacWorld. Then, Apple announced that this would be their last year at the event. This double sucker punch to Mac fans couldn’t help but change the normally happy and excited event to a somber and dour chore.

Well, ok, it wasn’t quite that bad, but the crowds were way down this year. The MacWorld Expo folks tried to minimize the poor turnout by cleverly pushing in the dividing curtains on either side of both halls to make it seem fuller. Many vendors were saying that booth sales were sharply down.

I’m hoping that these changes are merely signs of an Apple evolution. Perhaps now, with so many Apple Stores around the country, Apple no longer needs the exposure and display area that MacWorld once provided. Maybe Apple no longer needs the MacWorld events to showcase new product announcements. And just maybe, Apple will be announcing their new products more frquently.

I’m still waiting for the new, more powerful Mac Mini, a new AppleTV, and the Kindle-killing large iPod-like device for reading electronic books.

As for MacWorld 2010, if enough vendors sign on to showcase their cool products, I’ll be there.