Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

#AICPAENGAGE selfies

One benefit of being active and well-connected on social media is that people know who you are, despite spending little or no time with them in real life. Still, good professional relationships can grow when you share good content and help other people. A really fun thing happened at this year’s AICPA Engage conference – several people said, “I know who you are… can I take a selfie?”  It’s a great feeling to be treated like a celebrity for a brief moment, even though I know I am not. It’s kind of like the feeling I get when my six year-old, when asked what he wants to be when he grows up, responds that he wants to be a dad. It’s a fist pump moment. Here I am with Hubdoc, which fetches all my financial documents in one place, and makes my accounting so much more organized and easier: Allison Ball from Intuit said hi!  She’s a fun person to follow on Twitter, even if you’re not an accountant. Some friends at Receipt Bank asked for a selfie when I stopped by. The monster-sized phone for demonstrating their app is so clever! I saved the best for last: Here I am with the awesome time tracking software Tsheets after I won their drawing for an Apple Watch!  Thanks a ton Tsheets!

Social media fields in the QuickBooks 2012 Lead Center

I have been experimenting with the new features of QuickBooks 2012 and was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that the new Lead Center contains optional contact information fields for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Skype. Social Media in Lead Center Apparently, Intuit has recognized the value of these social media tools for marketing and added them as a means for QuickBooks users to connect with prospective customers.  It is cool to see accounting software become a little more social.

Sweet! I made it on the #pstech Tweetcloud

This week, I attended the AICPA TECH+ conference and used Twitter to share a few useful pieces of information with the hashtag #pstech. Below is a screenshot of the most common words used in tweets by everyone at the conference that included the hashtag.  The words with the larger letters were used more often than those with smaller letters.  I am honored to be in there, thanks to a few of my tweets being retweeted by others resulting in multiple mentions of my username.  Also listed are many other people worth following in the accounting profession.  Jason M. Blumer, whose name is in big letters, is an awesomely popular CPA dude. The words in the tweetcloud give hints to what the conference was all about: iPad, app, blogging, changing, management, mobile, and cloud (referring to information and applications on the Internet, not the puffy white things in the sky).

How I Created my own Twitter App with Visual Basic

Over the past few weeks, I have spent countless hours programming (and testing and reprogramming and testing and reprogramming, etc.) a Twitter app I created in Visual Basic.  It was the most fun project I could think of for a Visual Basic class I’m taking at UNLV.  In the end, the programming wasn’t so difficult.  It just took me a long time to find something that worked.  After many Google searches, I couldn’t find a straight-forward walkthrough, so hopefully this blog post will be helpful to some lost soul out there (maybe for another school project).  Below is a screen shot of my app.

Twitter App Created with Visual Basic

The only action my form does with Twitter is post an update when the “to Twitter” checkbox is checked.  The other buttons read, write, edit and delete tweets in a Microsoft Access database. First, I created the form above, including the labels, text boxes, and buttons.  I won’t go into the code behind each one of them, but the code for the label with the number of characters remaining was particularly fun to write.  I made its actions similar to what is on Twitter’s webpage.  When the number of characters in the status text box (rtbStatus) goes over 140, the text turns red and the “tweet” button is disabled.  The code is:

Private Sub rtbStatus_TextChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles rtbStatus.TextChanged lblTweetLength.Text = 140 – rtbStatus.TextLength If lblTweetLength.Text < 0 Then lblTweetLength.ForeColor = Color.Red End If If rtbStatus.TextLength = 0 Or rtbStatus.TextLength > 140 Then btnTweetToDatabase.Enabled = False Else btnTweetToDatabase.Enabled = True End If End Sub

Next, I went to the Twitter Developers webpage and registered my application (funny, I never thought I’d be a Twitter developer).  After filling out a form describing my app, I received a consumer key, consumer secret, access token, and access token secret.  These are needed to authorize your application to access your Twitter account. Then, I went to the TwitterVB webpage, which is an open source project with a .NET library that allows desktop and web applications to communicate with Twitter.  I downloaded the TwitterVB zip file.  The zip file contains many different files, but the only one I used was TwitterVB.dll.  In Visual Basic, I added the dll file as a reference. I included the namespace in my code file with the following:

Imports TwitterVB2

I then added the following code that I found from the TwitterVB webpage to the code that executes when the “tweet” button is clicked and the “to Twitter” checkbox is checked.  I replaced the consumer key, consumer secret, access token, and access token secret in the code with what I had received from the Twitter Developers webpage when I registered my application.

Dim TextToTweet As String TextToTweet=rtbStatus.Text Dim tw As New TwitterVB2.TwitterAPI tw.AuthenticateWith(“consumerkey”,“consumersecret”,“oauthtoken”,“tokensecret”) tw.Update(TextToTweet)

Then, I tested my app.

Testing my Twitter App

After I clicked the “tweet” button, I opened my Twitter timeline in my web browser and saw that my tweet successfully posted to Twitter!  It even shows that it posted via DustinVB, which is what I named my app when I registered it with Twitter.

My Test Tweet in a Web Browser

After I turn this project in to be graded, it will collect dust in my virtual bookshelf.  I don’t plan to use it again.  There are so many good Twitter programs out there that can do so much more than mine can. Still, I feel happy that I figured it out and can now call myself a Twitter developer (even though I’m a novice, at best).

Tweets on the Big Screen at the Growth and Profitability Summit

A few months ago in a blog post, I tried to answer the question, “why would a CPA want to use Twitter?” After attending Accounting Today’s Growth & Profitability Summit, I have another reason for a CPA to use Twitter.  Twitter is awesome at conferences! By adding the hashtag #GroPro (short for Growth & Profitability) to my tweets, I shared useful quotes with others at the conference.  I also added a column to my Tweetdeck Droid app using a search for #GroPro and was able to follow what other people were tweeting at the conference. In a conference setting, Twitter provides opportunities to share useful information and connect with others.  I was able to meet several people (in person) that I had followed on Twitter during the conference.  Twitter just breaks the ice.  I wasn’t disappointed – all of the people I met were just as cool as their tweets! Tweets with the hashtag #GroPro were displayed on a big TV screen in the hall just outside of the conference rooms.  I took a short video of it that you can see below.  It even includes one of my tweets (I’m blushing)!  You can recreate the tweets and visual effects on your computer by going to http://visibletweets.com/.

Why Would a CPA Want to Use Twitter?

I know several people that make fun of Twitter much like they make fun of a teenager that ends up in the news for sending thousands of text messages per month racking up a huge phone bill.  They certainly can make a good argument.  A recent study concluded that more than 40 percent of tweets are “pointless babble.”  If you look at the public timeline or trending topics on the Twitter webpage, you’ll see spam, self-promotion, and mundane tweets like “I’m having a ham sandwich for lunch.” I agree that Twitter has its problems, but I believe that it does have a business application as a powerful educational and collaborative tool.  As with any technology, any benefit you derive from Twitter depends on your use of it. If you’re looking for meaningful information on Twitter, you have to follow the right people.  If you’re a CPA or work in accounting, you could start with the Journal of Accountancy, the AICPA, and your state CPA society.  You can find most accounting software vendors on Twitter sharing good information.  There are hundreds of other CPAs and CPA firms that offer insight in the latest news, and many of them are among the brightest in the profession (I won’t list names here, but they’re not hard to find).  Hey, even the IRS is on Twitter. I’ve learned that there are many benefits to Twitter besides using it as a news feed.  I have asked questions on Twitter and received helpful responses, sometimes within a few minutes.  I’ve been able to get in contact with many of the leaders in the accounting profession who I wouldn’t have been able to meet otherwise.  By joining the conversation, a handful of people have been able to get to know me (sort of – well, at least they know that I’m a tech-savvy accountant that shares good information, and that’s a good start). About a year ago, when I began using Twitter, I asked myself, “why would a CPA want to use Twitter?”  The answer, at least for the first few weeks, was unclear while I tried to figure the whole Twitter thing out, but now I understand why.

Why It Took Me Months to Start Blogging

First, let me describe my background in regards to web design so you know where I’m coming from. I built my first web page in the year 2000 using Yahoo Geocities’ WYSIWYG site builder.  It was simple.  I just typed out some text and dragged it where I wanted it, and put pictures where I wanted them on the page.  It was fun and sparked an interest to learn more about web design. Shortly after that, I took a web page design class in college.  The course almost entirely focused on html code.  I enjoyed the course and felt proud to finally be a sophisticated “hard coder” creating web pages with Notepad.  I created several websites by just writing html code and CSS, including the website for my company, a Las Vegas CPA Firm. However, I soon discovered that creating a website this way has its problems.  For example, changing a navigation bar for all pages in the website required me to cut and paste new code to all of the twenty-or-so html documents that comprised each page of the website. My eyes were opened to a better way of managing a website at the AICPA Technology Conference in June 2009.  One of the speakers demonstrated how he used a content management system (CMS) to pull content from other sources on the Internet and automatically create html code.  Another session of the conference was entirely about “blogging, podcasting, and social networking” which covered how a blog can benefit a professional.  I left the conference with the resolve that I wanted to learn to use a CMS and become a blogger! It was a long journey from June to November 2009, when I posted my first article on my blog.  Why did it take so long?  Consider that I did all of the following:
  1. I carefully observed several other CPA bloggers and picked out things I liked and didn’t like from their blogs.
  2. I researched several CMSs and blogging platforms, including Joomla, Drupal, Blogger, and WordPress.  I finally settled on using self-hosted WordPress so I could have total control over my blog and customize it as much as I like.
  3. I purchased my domain and web hosting after a few hours of researching several web hosting services.
  4. I installed WordPress on my web server.
  5. Among more than one thousand themes (or general designs) on the wordpress.org website, I had to choose my favorite.  I then had to further customize my design so my blog wouldn’t look exactly like other blogs using the same theme.
  6. I installed several plugins and widgets (programs for backup, security, and sections of my blog, such as the Twitter and Google Reader feeds on the right sidebar).
  7. I started an account with Feedburner to create an RSS feed.
  8. I opened an account with Google Analytics and configured it to work with my blog, which I have discovered to be a great resource to see statistics of the traffic to my site.
  9. I also opened an account with Google Webmaster Tools to observe how Google indexes my blog.
  10. I created an “about me” page and a disclaimer (every blog should have one!)
  11. At this point, I started writing blog posts.  Every blog post has to catch the reader’s attention, be informative, and be entertaining.  I wouldn’t write anything I wouldn’t want to read myself!  It’s not easy.
This might all sound overwhelming to someone who has never created a website.  If you’re in this category, I have some good news.  It doesn’t have to take months to start blogging.  In fact, I created a simple blog using Blogger and finished it in about an hour.   This blog (dustinwheelercpa.com) took me so long because I created it the hard way, and I’ve learned a lot in the process.

Five Useful RSS Feeds I Follow That Are Not News or Blogs

I previously wrote a blog post about how I have been using RSS feeds to stay current on the news.  The majority of the feeds that I subscribe to are news and blogs, but there are a few that don’t fall under either of these categories that I have found to be useful.
  1. Tweets of a few individuals. I follow about 200 people on Twitter and I can’t log in to Twitter enough times to keep up with every single tweet of the people I follow every day.  However, there are those among the Twitter users I follow who share great information and I don’t want to miss any of their tweets.  It’s easy to add a Twitter timeline to Google Reader (which I use to read RSS feeds).  Copy the Twitter user’s URL (for example, http://twitter.com/whe97007), click on the “add a subscription” button and paste the URL in the box that appears.
  2. Twitter searches for certain words and hashtags. Using Twitter Advanced Search, I created RSS feeds for tweets from Las Vegas, Nevada, that include the words CPA, accountant, tax, or QuickBooks.  I have found a few interesting people to follow and some potential business opportunities.  For example, a tweet saying “next year I think I’ll have to invest in a good tax accountant” caught my attention and I contacted that Twitter user.  The only drawback to subscribing to these feeds is that I have to sift through a lot of unimportant tweets like “I just got my tax refund so now I can buy that HDTV!”
  3. LinkedIn Network Updates. LinkedIn is a great site for professional networking, but I don’t visit it daily.  I use RSS as a more efficient way to see what my connections are up to.  Occasionally, I notice that one of my connections connects to someone I know, who I then connect to as well.  You can get RSS feeds within the LinkedIn account settings.
  4. Notifications for new downloads. For example, I subscribe to the RSS feed of the CPA Technology Advisor to know when a new podcast is available for download.
  5. YouTube channels. In particular, I enjoy the YouTube channel for K2 Enterprises, which provides technology tips for CPAs.  Thanks to RSS, I am alerted when a new video is available to view.
If you have any ideas for using RSS feeds, please share them by leaving a comment in the box below.