Whether you use Twitter for social purposes, professional networking, or corporate outreach, there’s a good chance that you’ve ended up following hundreds of people on your account.  Keeping up with all of their tweets can be difficult, and sometimes it can seem like the only way out is to unfollow the noisiest users on your stream; risking offending those users in the process.

The good news is, you don’t have to do that.  The following tips will help you to clean up your Twitter feed without losing friends in the process.

Divide Your Account into Lists

Lists are a valuable tool for managing your Twitter stream.  If you follow a lot of people then it might take a while to move everyone into lists, but it’s a task you’ll only need to do once and it will save you a lot of time in the long run.

Some active Twitter users create public lists which other users can follow, but it is possible to create private lists that only you can see.  Exactly how you manage your lists is up to you.  One good option would be to have lists for colleagues, industry leaders, customers, conference attendees, and journalists.  In addition to those lists, I create one called “phone” which contains only a handful of people whose tweets I do not want to miss even if I am travelling and have limited internet access.  That list is set as my main column on TweetDeck for my Android phone.

Clean Up Your Account

Scan your account using a free service such as TheTwitCleaner.com and consider unfollowing some of the accounts that it highlights as being dormant, a possible spammer, or a “low interaction” account.

Don’t Follow Everyone Who Follows You

You aren’t obligated to follow every person that follows you on Twitter.  Once you have your Twitter feed streamlined, make an effort to keep it that way.  If you do decide to follow someone new, be sure to add them to the correct list when you follow them.  It only takes a couple of mouse clicks to add someone to a list, and it’s easier to do it while you’re adding a contact than it is to try and sort through a pile of uncategorized accounts at a later date.

Use the Right Tools for The Job

There are dozens of good Twitter clients out there.  If you’re still using the Twitter website as your primary method of interacting with the Twitter social network, you’ll be amazed at how flexible and useful a good client can be.

Popular Twitter clients include HootSuite (a browser based client that you can access from any modern Windows or OS X based computer that has an internet connection), as well as Seesmic and TweetDeck.

You can use these clients to set up lists, search Twitter, keep an eye on several Twitter hashtags at once, and even schedule tweets.

So, after a week off to let my toe recover, I went back to training.  Tineladia had to skip this week because of their broken little toe, but they’re planning to get back on the mat soon.

This lesson focused on balance breaking work.  We did a bit of ne-waza and randori at the end.  I’m struggling to get in close enough for my throws to actually work (funny that, same distance issue in Karate), but I’m getting there, gradually.

Apparently my long hair gets in the way during randori and annoys my partners.  I’ll have to try putting it up in a bun next week, see if it stays in place.

Lesson 3 of Judo involved an interesting warmup (with lots of plyometric pushups!), front breakfalls, and a couple of new throws.  When it came to drilling Ko-Uchi-Gari, Tineladia went in for the sweep a little too wide, and caught their little toe on my shin (or at least the wiry bit at the front of my foot).  Their little toe snapped almost completely in two – it was pointing out at an extreme angle.

So, they had to sit out the rest of the lesson, while I enjoyed more throwing practice, and a decent randori session.  Then we took a trip to the walk-in to get the toe looked at.  Four hours later, and it’s a hobble home (via the pub for a meal and a beer!) on crutches…

Tineladia is out for, according to the doctor, 12 weeks now.  I doubt that will actually happen though!  We both need to get a lot of extra training in before we miss sessions for E3 Expo.

Today was our second Judo lesson.  This time, the class was busier than the one we had last week, and there were a couple of extra instructors, so there was someone to take us through ukemi today.  After working through some slow falls (from kneeling), we started on throws.  We covered O Soto Otoshi and how to follow up by putting on a Kesa Gatame.  We also learned how to roll someone over into Kesa Gatame. Then, since the higher grades were working on something related to it, we covered Taio Otoshi, and a simple roll-over to a choke, which I don’t remember the name of.

From kneeling, the breakfalls were pretty easy, but I’m finding it difficult to relax in a real throw.  It’s easy enough when you’re being thrown fast, but gently, by a black belt, but when you’re working through it slowly it’s hard to resist the instinct to try to stay upright.  Stiffening up just before you go over leads to some rather painful landings.

We had one round of randori.  It mostly consisted of being thrown, lots, but it was still fun.  I’m looking forward to more once I have a bit more confidence, and have a bit more practice with these throws.

The Giko Lightweight Karate Gi is a decent, inexpensive gi for beginners.  I purchased one of these a little over to years ago, and it has survived pretty well.  I started out training once a week, and gradually expanded to 2-3 lessons per week, with gradings and competitions on weekends.  This means that the gi has had to cope with being used, washed, tumble dried, and used the next day.  It’s still going strong.

I’m 1M 53CM tall and very slender, and I purchased a 160 size gi.  At the time of purchase, the legs were a good fit (the waistband is elasticated, and stays up fine – the elastic is still in good condition), and the arms of the gi top were a little too long.

I wash the gi on the “synthetics” setting on the washing machine (since that’s a fairly low temperature), and occasionally treat the knees and the collar of the top with vanish.  I tumble dry the gi every time it’s worn.  Most people say that tumble drying gis is a bad idea, but I’ve not had any problems.  The trousers shrank slightly in the legs on the first wash, but the gi top is still roughly the same size (and the arms are still a little too long!).

The gi is very, very light, which makes it nice for use during the summer.  It’s also pretty easy to iron.  It certainly de-wrinkles more quickly than Tineladia’s Black Eagle gi. Sadly, it’s a little floppy, so it’s not good for kata competitors.  I find it hard to get the “snap” that people with heavyweight gis can produce from fast movements.  In addition, since it’s a very light gi, even small movements show up.   This is great for emphasizing good stances, but it also highlights bad ones.

Since this is a very lightweight karate gi, it’s not suitable for any grappling work.  In my chosen style of karate, this isn’t an issue since beginners don’t do any grappling.  Most people buy a heavyweight gi when they’re approaching black belt level.

In conclusion, this is a great beginner’s gi.  It’s well made for what it is, and it’s easy to wash, dry, and iron.  It should last a beginner for a long time, and it’s pretty inexpensive.  I paid £25 for it two years ago.  I gather the price has increased recently, but if your club has a Cimac trade account you should be able to get one of these gis for a reasonable price, and it will serve you well during your early Kyu grades.

On Saturday we took our first Judo lesson. We’d been planning on trying Judo for a while.  Our BJJ instructor says that a grounding in Judo is important for learning breakfalls and throws that you can use to supplement your BJJ.

I haven’t been able to train much lately because of a chest problem, but I’m on the road to recovery, so off to Judo we went.  I’d expected the first lesson to be lots of ukemi, but with it being the school holidays, it was a quiet class.  Some of the people at the class had a competition coming up, so the class focused on ne-waza and a few competition tricks.  I assume we’ll do ukemi next week.

There were a lot of drills involving rolling and crawling, and I’ve ended up with some nice gi/mat rash on my elbows.  Tineladia has some impressive mat rash on both of his feet, too:

Somehow, I ended up damaging my toe.  I think I got it caught either between some mats, or in someone’s gi, when we were practicing rolling people over from the turtled position.  It started hurting early in the lesson.  I couldn’t see anything wrong at the time, and there was still no visible damage when I was getting changed after the lesson, but it looked pretty nasty and swollen when I got home.  It looks a bit like Tineladia’s toe did when it got broken, so I’ll be staying off it for a few days.

Another angle

Thanks to the school holidays, Karate is canceled on Wednesday, so there should be enough time to heal up (hopefully the toe won’t need weeks of healing) and get rid of all the new aches and pains in time for our next training session.

So, yesterday Tineladia wrote up their impressions of the Spring tournament.  Today it’s my turn.  I entered both the brown belt and under Kata, and the women’s open Kumite.  The women’s division is usually small, so there’s no junior grade section.  This time it attracted nine entrants, which surprised me.

For my two kata, I did Rohai, and Niseishi.  I felt tense during Rohai, and while I don’t think it looks too bad in the video (certainly not as bad as it seemed in my head), it didn’t get a very good score.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Niseishi is a new kata for me (I only started training it a few weeks before the competition), and I wasn’t sure if I should attempt it, but I’d been told by several of the club’s Dan grades that Niseishi is a good kata to do in a competition.  My only other choice was Jiin, and apparently Jiin is a hard kata to score well with.  I love Jiin, but after my nervous, tense Rohai showing, I didn’t fancy the pressure of having to do a perfect Jiin, so I figured it was worth a shot at doing Niseishi under pressure – if nothing else it’s practice for the grading.

The judges liked my Niseishi, and it scored well enough to net me third place in the Kata tournament.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

My Kumite didn’t go well at all.  Nine entrants is a big number for the women’s tournament, and the usual repechage system didn’t work for scheduling bouts.  So, instead of everyone getting at least two bouts, the choices were round robin (8 bouts each), or one chance – if you lose, you’re out.  The tournament was already running late, so they went with an elimination system.

I thought that the bouts were Sanbon, but they weren’t – they were only two points.  It takes me a while to “wake up” when I’m sparring, so I was slow and sloppy, and because I didn’t have a sense of urgency when my opponent was up to 1.5 points, I lost  my first and only bout.  Lesson learned for next time!  Looking at the video, it seems I have a big problem with  judging distance too…

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

It was a long day, but it was a lot of fun.  I’ve picked up some good kata tips, and know what I need to work on in sparring now.  I’m looking forward to the winter tournament.

This was one long day.

Started at 8am get up, iron the gi’s then head out for food and a lot of travel.

We arrive early as usual which gives us time to register, change and warm up, then practice some stuff.

First event for me was Brown belt and under kata; I get to go first, yay thanks :<

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Ok, so I remember advice I got earlier for a Sensei and when judge asks me to start the kata I take a few deep breathes then launch into it when I was ready.

So I nail Rohai and get some nice scores, which is awesome since I’m not really one to do pretty kata’s.

Get called up again later this time I decide to try a new kata I am learning for my next grading. I have ran through it quiet a few times but for some reason I locked up after a few moves, I was doing really well as well. Oh well I manage to convice my leg to move again and get through the kata but I already know its not going to do well.

At least now I have done Niseishi under pressure.

After kata is over it is a long wait for my next event, I found it hard to keep warmed up and keep everything stretched out.

Finally the brown belt and under kumite starts, we get told the rules and everyone gets to fight twice.

I get to go up in the first round again, this tournament was unusual as there was so few people entering this kumite.

Few seconds of feeling out each other then I start feeling confident and start unleashing some moves.

Things start out well then as happens in kumite a move misses, i ended up striking my opponent in the face with my forearm since he lunged in as i started a back fist. Oops. I apologise but he’s ok about it.

Shame the camera failed to work correctly for this bout since I scored with an awesome move, I managed to grab my opponents guard and pull him onto a sidekick. Probably one of the best sidekicks I have done, ok so as we were warming up at the start I practiced this on Etali.

I won my first fight so get a short rest until i fight again.

The camera did pick up about 11 seconds of this fight, missed the sidekick but captured this cool reverse punch.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Ok remember i said there was not many people entering, my second fight was the final :>

This fight started out pretty badly for me as my opponent scored a few times.

Then things clicked and i fired back and got some points myself.

I managed to win this fight and pick up first place :>

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

More waiting and still struggling to keep stretched and warm.

Then the mens open starts, this is where things generally hurt.

First fight I had, I lost but managed to score once.

These guys charge in and are in your face so fast.

Second fight I threw more moves and tried to put up a fight.

Lost that one as well, but I did enjoy entering and this time at least I walked away without an injury.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

After all the events finished I helped carry out the mats and i managed to make it back to the hall in time to get my trophy.

Now to practice for December when the next tournament is held, however if the Sensei’s plans for my karate all fall into place I wont be able to enter brown belt and under anymore since I should have a black belt. Now that is a scary thought.

Apparently, this is what you get if you combine geek culture with bros and Internet memes. It’s pretty funny (and I might steal the pushups for powerpoint slides thing), all it’s missing is an "About three fiddy" joke.

I think I’ll stick to Pro, and save the Bro for elsewhere

On a geek front, I’ve decided that I want to get into Metro app development.  I’d already tested Windows 8 developer preview in a VM and found it to be slick and stable (even if I hate the interface).  So, now that the consumer preview of Windows 8 is available and NVidia have drivers for Windows 8 on offer, I’ve decided to give Windows 8 a chance as a full time OS.

Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 was a smooth process, but when we tried it on a Vista machine (Which had a GeForce 580), it was a little flakey.  It got most of the way through the installer, but the part where you have to answer some questions and set up your user profile didn’t work – all that showed up was a black screen.

Fortunately, the fix was simple enough.  It looks like the installer doesn’t have drivers for a 580.  Switching over to on-board graphics caused the installer to roll back to the older version of windows, and then allowed us to retry the installation, successfully this time.  Once it was finished, it was possible to go back to the Geforce 580, install the right drivers, and continue as normal.

Windows 8 certainly has some quirks.  I hate the full-screen-only thing for Metro apps, and the lack of a proper start menu is annoying.  Sure, the tablet thing is “neat”, but when you have a ton of applications installed it doesn’t work well, and makes finding what you want to launch slow and annoying.

The rest of the OS looks OK, though.  It’s fast and seems pretty stable, and so far everything I’ve tried game wise has worked with it.  I’ll post updates if anything serious comes up incompatibility wise.