The simplest things are the hardest

Now that I have 7 gazettes running (how long for, I do not know - they're all automatically generated), I looked into retweeting them. As many people already know I have quite a few Twitter accounts. It would seem a simple process to have an online retweeter that would copy all the Tweets coming from @valkyrie_2 with the words "published by" or whatever the words are then retweeting it from all the other Twitter accounts, thus reaching my 14,000 total followers. Sadly this does not seem to be so easy.

I looked at various sites offering free retweeting and the first kept coming up with an error 401 - whatever that means. That was obviously a broken site. I created an account in the hope that it would magically make the site work and it didn't. Oh well, guess I'll just get more spam in the email account used for registration! I looked at another site and it all seemed straightforward and easy until I tried to get it all set up. Then it all went pear shaped. I never could get roundteam to work. I've had several goes with that service over the years and never had any success.

This is the whole problem with the vast majority of computer systems - they're designed to be unintuitive. It's not a case of having to have training to learn to use a system. It's a case of the system should be designed in a clearer, more intuitive manner. The lower the cost of the system, the less intuitive it is. Roundteam and the other site were both free sites. They were probably put together by a hobbyist in their spare time so kudos to the hobbyist but it would be nice if more attention was paid to making things easier to use.

Why not use a paid service? My blogs, gazettes and Twitter accounts are part of my hobby and a hobby ceases to be fun when it starts costing money to maintain that hobby. Sure - photography costs money but with digital, that's a one-time expenditure. Once the camera has been purchased, there is no ongoing expense. I can put the camera down for months and it's not going to cost a bean. I might need extra storage every now and then but that's not often. With a paid site, it's money out every month and it's just not worth the expenditure if income does not exceed outgoings.

There's an old saying income 2 shillings and sixpence, outgoings two shillings. Result is happiness. Income 2 shillings and sixpence, outgoings 3 shillings. Result is misery. Many people that I have met have followed the misery route and ended up getting their property repossessed by lenders etc. Thus I am stuck fast at the moment, unable to promote my gazettes. Oh well, this is my standard problem with the internet - I never can get it to work for me.