1. I decided to get a Twitter account to follow some people I followed another way before.

Because I liked to have real time  notification without web interface, I installed the Pidgin Plugin microblog-purple which runs well on Windows and Linux.

So I can search and follow people using the twitter.com web page and get the tweets popping up in my twitter plugin for Pidgin.

2. The RRS feeds Twitter offers is a well working way to be notified as well. But because I’m checking my RSS reader less often than my Pidgin IM, my opinion is that Tweets must be integrated into an instant messenger. This is because I don’t like to have yet another third party program open or  I don’t like to have yet another web page open that I manually need to check. I like to be notified using an IM window. This is because my IM is well integrated at my daily work and at home. So I’m just using the RSS reader as an backup option.

3. After a while I liked to subscribe to #hashtags as well and found out that this is no functionality I can do at the Twitter web page. Two links helped me getting the information about Twitter I have not been able to figure out myself before:

• http://www.suisse-emex.ch/de/live/twitter/
• http://www.contentious.com/2009/03/08/hashtags-on-twitter-how-do-you-follow-them/

4. Because microblog-purple and the Twitter web interface does not support #hashtags and I now know more about Twitter, I figured out that I can subscribe to #hashtags the following way:

• Save searches for the #hashtag I like to monitor.
• Install the Pidgin plugin prpltwtr.
  http://code.google.com/p/prpltwtr/

Mostly, this new plugin works and is updating but does not open a new chat window to notify me.  The Pidgin symbol in the status try is not updated as well. So I have to keep the chat window open.  To see updates automatically. But an advantage is that I have direct access to my saved searches and can execute them from inside Pidgin directly as if they would be a chat room.

This is a short summary about how it works in Java.

1. This is just a small example how it works to set flags in Java:

public class MyClass {
// Set debug log level:
private boolean DEBUG = false; // is set via constructor
private final long DEBUGtoNULL = 0×00; // no file
private final long DEBUGtoSTDOUT = 0×01; // STDOUT
private final long DEBUGtoLOGFILE = 0×02; // LOG
// which log files to write to?
private long DEBUGlevel = DEBUGtoNULL;
//private long DEBUGlevel = DEBUGtoLOGFILE;
//private long DEBUGlevel = DEBUGtoSTDOUT;
//private long DEBUGlevel = DEBUGtoLOGFILE | DEBUGtoSTDOUT;

MyClass()
{
if(DEBUGlevel != DEBUGtoNULL) DEBUG = true;
else DEBUG = false;
}

// only log if any debug output media is selected
private void logIncludingTimeStamp(String line) {
if(!DEBUG) return;
…

// If STDOUT debug is requested
if( (DEBUGlevel & DEBUGtoSTDOUT) != 0) System.out.println(timeStamp + line);
// If LOG debug is requested
if( (DEBUGlevel & DEBUGtoLOGFILE) != 0) log(timeStamp + line);
}

2. Why to always use flags in HEX notation?

Because it is the easiest way to set them without remembering strange decimal numbers. For the HEX notation 1,2,4,8 and 0 are moving and filled up by 0 if the bits become higher. This makes it very easy to read as well. Octal numbers would also be an option but than the resulting numbers are longer.

BIT1 = 0×0001 // decimal 1 — octal 1
BIT2 = 0×0002 // decimal 2 — octal 2
BIT3 = 0×0004 // decimal 4 — octal 4
BIT4 = 0×0008 // decimal 8 — octal 10
BIT5 = 0×0010 // decimal 16 — octal 20
BIT6 = 0×0020 // decimal 32 — octal 40
BIT7 = 0×0040 // decimal 64 — octal 100
BIT8 = 0×0080 // decimal 128 — octal 200
BIT9 = 0×0100 // decimal 256 — octal 400
BIT10 = 0×0200 // decimal 512 — octal 1000
BIT11 = 0×0400 // decimal 1024 — octal 2000
BIT12 = 0×0800 // decimal 2048 — octal 4000
BIT13 = 0×1000 // decimal 4096 — octal 10000
BIT14 = 0×2000 // decimal 8192 — octal 20000
BIT15 = 0×4000 // decimal 16384 — octal 40000
BIT16 = 0×8000 // decimal 32768 — octal 100000

2. How to set multiple bits?

long MYBITCONTAINER = 0×0 // cleans all bits
long MYBITCONTAINER = BIT11 // sets bit 11
long MYBITCONTAINER |= BIT6 | BIT14 // now bit 6, 11 and 14 are set

3. How to check whether a bit is set?

if( (MYBITCONTAINER & BIT6) != 0) { System.out.println(“BIT6 was set!”); }
else { System.out.println(“BIT6 was not set!”); }