If you not on it already, you should really check out Twitter a cool social media tool that is a quick and easy way to communicate with friends and colleagues. On Twitter, you can share ideas and information, post what you are up to, respond directly to contacts and more.

I recently received the latest Twitter update that prompted me to write this blog. Check out all of the cool ways people use Twitter. Here is an example.

Last weekend CNN lead with a big story about James Buck, a graduate student in journalism from the University of California-Berkeley who was arrested last month in Mahalla, Egypt while covering an anti-government protest. Thinking quickly, James was able to send a one-word Twitter update: "Arrested." His followers in Egypt and back in the US reacted by contacting the university and the consulate on his behalf. Before long, James was updating Twitter with another one-word message, "Free."

Around the Plexus offices, we use it to provide updates on what we're working on, give feedback of something we've tried out, toss around lunch ideas, etc. etc. It's also a great vehicle for finding out new information. In fact, a couple of months ago while on Twitter, I found out about a Twitter-friendly service, called Twhirl. Twhirl makes your Twitter available on your computer in an instant messaging type display, making it easier to follow your contacts.

Personally I think Twitter is cool because you can follow your friends and find out what they are up to as well as follow interesting people who are experts in their field and find out all kinds of great stuff. I have a couple of SEO gurus tied to my Twitter and have gathered all kinds of interesting search engine info as well as some social media insight.

So if you are not Twittering already, check it out and if you are really, brave go all out and Twhirl your Twitter!

Here is a link to a great project management system that the Plexus team uses and recommends.

After ordering some Christmas gifts from Lands' End, the company asked if they could showcase our logo in future promotions - low and behold they did.

Check out the latest catalog to see the Plexus featured logo. Thanks to Matt Forshee & Amanda Fields from Fayette County Development Authority for spotting it!

MSNBC just began offering embed capabilities for the video footage they post on their site. You can include a clip in your blog by clicking on the embed button and copying and pasting the code into your blog just like the clip below on breast cancer:

So we're upgrading to Rails 2.0 for our new sites, and I found a problem with the way Engines (even the latest version as of today) interacts with Rails 2.0.

First load of my Rails Engines page (in a development site):

[machine] Everything works great!

Second load:

[machine] A copy of ApplicationController has been removed from the module tree but is still active!

[me] Crap.

Enter some help from the interwebs: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/137733

[me] Hooray!

Basically, I just had to add this to the init.rb file in each Engines plugin:

load_paths.each do |path|
  Dependencies.load_once_paths.delete(path)
end