OutTwit Installation and Setup
Installation and setup of OutTwit couldn’t be simpler. With the latest release, they have added a quick start guide.
After accepting the licensing agreement and accepting the default install directory, if you have Outlook running, you’ll be reminded to shut down before continuing:
Once Outlook is shut down, installation should complete:
The quick start guide will launch and take you to this web page to continue setup instructions:
http://www.techhit.com/OutTwit/quickstart.html
Note: The Quick Start guide has not been updated for the new release, so you it as an example only.
The steps:
Step 1 - Enter your Twitter user name and password.
Step 2 - Create and select a new Outlook folder for new Twitter messages, so that they do not clutter your Inbox.
Note: As detailed before, I’ve actually taken this a step further and created a separate pst file to capture and organize twitter updates.
Step 3 (Recommended) - Enable new tweet preview on the OutTwit Outlook toolbar.
Step 4 (Optional) - Check out some of the other options, such as playing a sounds for new tweets, sorting tweets into subfolders based on the sender, playing a sounds when new tweets arrive, etc.
Step 5 (Optional) - Do not forget to checkout the "Search/Track Keywords" feature.
Step 6 (Optional) - Look through the FAQ to learn about some of OutTwit's "hidden" features.
Step 7 (Mandatory) - Have fun!
Once OutTwit is installed and Outlook is launched, you’ll have a new toolbar:
This is where you’ll do some text entry, and configure the OutTwit settings. Before you click the OutTwit menu and start setting the options, this is where you can create a completely separate pst file to store your data. Before we go further, I should probably state I’m running Outlook 2007, so some settings may be different.
On the Account tab, you’ll need your Twitter User Name and Twitter Password, the same username and password used to log in to Twitter. In Outlook, select File, New, Outlook data file. I’ve called mine twitter.pst so I know what and where.
On the Receiving tab, this is where you control where the new messages go. In my case you can see that I have a folder called Twitter. Just click the select Folder option, then New, and find the pst you want to put them in, then create the Twitter folder. Note that if you don’t do this, all your messages from Twitter will be dropped in your Inbox. You can also assign categories (I don’t use them), and set your receiving options, which tells OutTwit how often to check Twitter, and what to fetch when it checks. I’ll left the default to pull friends (following), replies, and direct messages.
On the Sending tab, you can set options to use tinyurl (more on this later), warn if you exceed 140 characters (Twitter is limited to 140 characters + username because SMS is limited to 160 characters), and a very interesting feature, save sent messages (they will show up anyway but if you want copies that can be found easily, select the folder and check the box to save sent messages).
On the UI tab, you can select to be notified by sound (I don’t), display previews of new tweets , and assign shortcuts for the new tweet window. I’ll go in to this later.
Click OK, and that’s it. In come the tweets (messages) from Twitter.
The next series will cover how I use it to filter, find, and reply quickly to those I’m following.