Would you like to learn something new?  I use twitter a lot to learn something new.

Since my background is in software development, I’m a programmer at heart, I wanted to learn some of the new programming stuff going on out there.  One new languages folks are using to create dynamic web stiff is jQuery.

Typically I would head over to Google and search for the keyword jQuery and that certainly still works, however, I’ve found myself going to guess where, TWITTER quite often for my search needs.

Twitter’s search mechanism is killer.  Let’s use my example and jQuery.  I’ll head over to twitter and type in “jquery tutorial” in the search box on the front page of twitter.com.  Here are the results, real-time, fresh and new.

First, at the top it tells us what we’re searching on and gives us the option to save the search to the sidebar for quick searching later.  But look at the results, if you can see them.  Recent results on folks talking about jQuery that I can follow and get into the conversation.  Most of them probably have a blog or website I can subscribe to if I like what they’re talking about.

Now, couple this with Google search results on jQuery as well as Google’s blog results and I’ll have more jQuery stuff than I bargained for.  So, I could also browse over to Amazon.com and search on a book for jQuery.  Find some newer jQuery books or jQuery books that are highly recommended (look at the reviews) and check out the table of contents.

That will give me a good structured way to start learning jQuery.  So when I go to some of these sites that I found on twitter, I have a clue of what to start looking for.

Twitter has such a rich field of data that you can practically find everything under the sun.

If this article helped you or you think it might help someone else, please retweet it using the retweet button below.  I appreciate all your support.  Thanx!!

Do you still use Google to search for things?  Why?  Google is so old search school.  Twitter Search provides everything for your searching needs in real-time and more targeted results.  Okay, I’m just kidding.  Google is essential and there’s away you can integrate both.

Greeasemonkey

Have you heard of the script engine Greasemonkey?  Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way webpages look and feel.  Greasemonkey is an icon that sits in the status bar of Firefox that you can turn on and off.

When turned on, Greasemonkey can run scripts that manipulate the webpage your on.  You find scripts at Userscripts.org.  There’s a ton of ‘em that do many things.  But for this article, we’re only interested in the scripts that help us with our twitter efforts.

So for example, today on the front page at Userscripts.org are two twitter-related scripts.  You can find them quicly if you use the find feature (typically Ctrl-F) on most browsers to search the homepage of Userscripts.org. Just search for the word twitter.

The first script is called Twitter Enhancements: Retweet This. What this script does is place a retweet icon to the right of a tweet on your twitter page. Now, this isn’t that big of a deal if you use one of the twitter clients because the client most likely has a retweet button. But, the main twitter page doesn’t. So you have to manually type in your retweet or do some copy and pasting, and adjusting.  After you install this script just hover your mouse over to the right of the tweet and you’ll see the retweet icon show up.

Another script called Twitter Friends Bio at a Glance, allows you to view your following and followers bio, following and follower count, and most recent tweet on those two pages – following, followers pages.  From your twitter home page, click on your following or followers to see the extra information that the Twitter Friends Bio script provides.

You can certainly try using the scripts mentioned above, which really help if you work with twitter at the main twitter page.

Google and Twitter Search Results

Another script called Twitter Search Results on Google, allows you to see not only the search results you’re searching for on Google, but this script will also place the top twitter search results on top of your Google search results page.  See an example below.

So there you go, a few scripts from Greasemonkey to help you enhance your daily twittering experience.  If you liked this article, please retweet it with the button below.  Also subscribe to DailyTwiTips so you don’t miss any tweetn’ tips.