When you sign up for a Twitter account you need to choose a password and hopefully you picked one that isn’t easy to guess, like your name, or something really dumb like password or 123456, but did you know that Twitter has a list of banned passwords that you’re not allowed to use? Many of them make sense, like the aforementioned examples, and some of them are naughty words, but the list of 370 words also contains some words that have me baffled.

Here are some of the banned words and although they aren’t exactly smart passwords I wonder why they made the list. Perhaps they’ve just been used too many times.

access14, apples, bond007, canada, cocacola, coffee, dallas, einstein, ferrari, flower, gators, golfer, iloveyou, monster, ncc1701, startrek, steelers, success, twitter

So, according to Twitter, apples are bad but oranges are okay; Canada is bad but Mexico is okay; CocaCola is bad but Pepsi is okay; coffee is bad but tea is okay; Dallas is bad but Houston is okay; Einstein is bad but Hawking is okay; ILoveYou is bad but IHateYou is okay; Gators are bad but Seminoles are okay; Ferrari is bad but Maserati is okay; hooters are bad but boobs are okay; StarTrek is bad but CaptainKirk is okay; Steelers are bad but Patriots are okay; success is bad but failure is okay.

The one that surprised me the most? Twitter is bad but Facebook is okay.

Now I’m not trying to start anything here, I’m just sayin’.

To see the entire list of 370 words banned by Twitter as passwords just go to the sign up page, view source and search for “banned”.

Credit: TechCrunch

For those of you who don’t know, I own and operate a website called TwitterImage.com. When this whole crazy thing started a short time ago, we (Twitter Image) began by designing backgrounds for Twitter, but as we grew, we added more social networks and now design backgrounds and custom graphics not only for Twitter, but for Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Ning and every social network page that can be customized. This led us to begin searching for a way to segue to a new name that encompassed all that we do and not only Twitter specifically, so we registered and began using the domain, SocialIdentities.com.

Enter the fine folks from Twitter.

Although we had begun to use SocialIdentities.com as a landing page that redirected visitors to our individual websites, we were still using the name Twitter Image for our primary website. However, a few days ago we received an email from Twitter asking us to stop using the name Twitter Image as they felt it created some confusion and some people may have assumed that our site was operated by Twitter… even though we do not use any design elements or colors that should have created any visual inference that this was the case.

So, since we have no wish to rock the boat and considering that Twitter did agree to let us continue using the word Twitter in our domain — as long as it did not appear in front — we have changed the URL of our site to CustomBackgroundsForTwitter.com and have Twitter’s blessing to use that URL. However, although that URL will be great for SEO, it’s too long to be of any realistic use for branding, so we will use the name Social Identities in the logo of our site. It will be possible to get to our website from either SocialIdentities.com or CustomBackgroundsForTwitter.com.

Have you been wishing you could tweet in Klingon but just aren’t fluent in Klingon? No problem. Cryptic Studios by Friend2Friend has just launched their new app that takes care of the translation for you and also provides the English translation for your friends that aren’t fluent in Klingon either.

Why would you want to tweet in Klingon? I guess for the same reason you’d want to dress up like one and go to a Trekker convention. Warp on over to Tweet in Klingon and you’ll batlh Daqawlu’taH.

Don’t ask me how I got this information because I don’t want to get anyone fired, but in their tradition of creating custom logos for special occasions Google has not only paid Twitter an amazing tribute, but they’ve also seemingly made an announcement no one was expecting. Has Google actually merged with Twitter? My contact tells me that this logo will go live tomorrow but click here to check out Google’s prerelease page and see for yourself.

Edit: The new TweetDeck (version 0.32) released on 11/30 has added support for the new Twitter RT format.

Let me start out by saying that I’m happy to see Twitter adding more functionality to their own website and I realize that the new retweet function is still in beta.

Now that I have that disclaimer out of the way, let me point out what I consider to be the most glaring flaw in the system and when I say glaring, I mean it’s a much bigger issue than the fact that we can’t add our own comments or that tweets from strangers that we aren’t even following are showing up in our streams. Those are certainly flaws, in my opinion, but this one outshines them all.

When you post a retweet (RT) using the currently accepted format of adding either “RT @hughbriss” or “via @hughbriss” on either Twitter proper, or any of the third-party apps, like TweetDeck or Seesmic, the result is the same. Your tweet (retweet) shows up in the stream of all of your followers and they can read your retweet no matter which of those applications they’re using. BUT… if you use the new Twitter retweet option, the only followers who will see it are the ones that use Twitter proper to read their tweet stream.

That, my friends, means that for most of us, a huge percentage of our followers would never see our retweets and that, is what I call a glaring flaw. The question is, was it done on purpose to draw third-party apps users back to Twitter or is it simply a case of the third-party apps just not being able to recognize the new format and requiring only a simple fix we’ll see in the next TweetDeck update?

Here is a screen shot from Twitter using a test account I set up to follow only myself for the purposes of this test. As you can see, there are three tweets and the one in the middle is a retweet.

Here is a screen shot of the same series of tweets on TweetDeck and as you can see in this image, the retweet that showed up on Twitter DOES NOT show up on TweetDeck and the same will be true on Seesmic or any other third-party app you’re using.

So, do you want all of your followers to see your retweets?  If so, there’s only one option available to you. Continue to use the standard “RT @hughbriss” format when you retweet, whether you’re using Twitter or a third-party app.

I know, amazing isn’t it? Some nut actually going to crazy extreme measures to stroke his ego, and this time,  it’s not Ashton Kutcher.

Rules: The rules are quite simple actually. All you have to do is add me (@HughBriss) to one of your Twitter lists to enter. That’s it. Just add me to one of your Twitter lists and you’ll be automatically entered to win a chance to win one million dollars

Selecting the winner: At some  time in the very distant future I will pick a name from my “Listed” list and that person will receive a chance to win a million bucks, delivered in person, by me.*

Good Luck!

Small print: Entrants must live in the U.S. and be eligible to win the Florida State Lottery and be willing to meet me at the convenience store near my house to pick up their chance to win (lottery ticket).

*Note: The chance to win a million bucks is delivered by me, not the actual million dollars.