Working From The Basement

Error Message's can be so cryptic?

A lot of people just don’t get Twitter and if you’re one of those people I would like to introduce you to the concept of using Twitter as a Search Engine.  Most of us have our favorite Search Engine’s Toolbar and home page somewhere nestled in our Internet Browser, but sometimes it fails us.  Recently I was greeted to the Error message that opens this post when trying to launch Microsoft Outlook, as you can see it wasn’t very informative. So I rebooted the PC and the Error still persisted even after running a repair on Microsoft Office.

I then turned to the Internet and Microsoft’s Bing search engine figuring that since this was a Microsoft program it might have an advantage over Google, but nothing specific came up.  Well that makes some sense since the error wasn’t very specific either.  I then figured out that this happened after one of the dreaded Tuesday Microsoft updates, so on a hunch I fired up TweetDeck (The Application I use to make sense of Twitter) and searched the exact message.  Well I may have been lucky, but I got a few hits and solved the problem fairly quickly.

This is what is known in the Industry as crowdsourcing which is defined as using the general public to do research or other work.  This was a relevant search considering that if my suspicion was correct and this error was caused by a Microsoft update other people would be having the same issue.  Search Engines take time to index lesser known sites, but Twitter is instantaneous, so if it is something common you can find it right away.

You don’t need a Twitter client like TweetDeck to search Twitter, just go to the website and type in your search and it will show results similar to a standard Search Engine. So even if you aren’t interested in Tweeting about your daily life you can still use Twitter to help you find quick answers to an immediate problem.  So when you can’t find the answer with a Search Engine give Twitter a shot and let us know if you were able to find it.

We are always looking for time saving tips so let us know what gets you through your day when Working From the Basement.

WFTB- Michael Lawson