Archive for December, 2008
Quick Twitter User Locator in Firefox
TinyURL'd
Want to add keyword functionality to speed up your Twitter searches in Firefox? First, go to any website website with a search bar and add a Keyword to your Bookmarks list;
When asked, name the Keyword whatever you feel dandy, but add the infamous @ symbol as the keyword.
Next, go into the bookmarks window and search for the keyword you just added (I use the Search tool, but only because I have a jillion of these) and change the location to http://google.com/search?btnI=1&q=twitter+.
Anyone working with keywords or search engines at all should be familiar with a form of the search? commands. The way this one works is by adding the btnI, it submits the same command as clicking the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on the Google homepage. By using twitter+ I am making sure this searches only for things that meet both search criterum, and since, were it a functioning Twitter handle, that users profile would be the first thing to show up.
So, thanks to Google, linking to a Twitter profile in your Firefox address bar sends you right there. Just try copying the command with any of your favorite Twitter handles, and you will end up right there.
Skitching that Image Captioning Itch
TinyURL'd
I was talking to a friend about the new setup I have around my MacBook, she asked me how happy I was with it and I responded in glee. After then I told her she was the reason I decided on a Mac, or at least, it was an application she often showed me; Skitch.
Skitch is a freeware Mac OSX program that does such a great percentage of the average Photoshop usage; screenshots, captioning and captioning screenshots. To best describe how it works, I have used it to describe itself;
And if those arrows look familiar, websites like Lifehacker use it in their tutorials all the time, as well on my own website (all the bloody time). A small but really nice feature, as well, is the drag me option there in the bottom, where you just drag it onto your desktop, and in the case of my use of TweetDeck and the integrated TwitPic, I can simply upload my Skitches. It is pretty handy.
Even when I am captioning my own photos, I just open it in Mac’s preview, take a shot of the image itself and then caption it, it’s pretty nerdy, and I accept this.
Skitch (Mac)
Tweetree Houses, galore!
TinyURL'd
I often brag of my vast and lazy intelligence - I get great ideas, and it automatically makes someone else make it. For a while now I had a great idea for a threaded Twitter client and, unfortunately, missed the Quotably boat. Well, in a reply to my last post, I was given a link to Tweetree.com by a good friend of mine, Niha Tiwari.
Twitter is a much-needed Twit-threader. I really have no idea why Twitter doesn’t have this built in already; it really does help follow one’s own conversation, as opposed to ctrl+clicking every in reply to… link. Better even so, it embeds images from sites like TwitPic amd videos from YouTube, a la Power Twitter on Firefox, as seen below.
Also, unlike FriendFeed, Tweetree lets you post from the page into your Twitter page, as well as reply into the respective Tweeters.
Tweetree, TwitPic, Firefox (Mac/ PC/ Linux), Power Twitter (Firefox)
Swap the TweetDeck’s!
TinyURL'd
There are very many Twitter applications out these days, the Twitter API is, undoubtedly, one of the major reasons for its popularity. And believe you me, there is a crap load of popularity! TweetDeck is one of the larger of Twitter apps, aeshetically, at least. But I like that, as a late user of Twitterific (and Twhirl, and Spaz, and Google Desktop, and Digsby), I did not feel as centralized. TweetDeck is an Adobe Air application, its layout is a series of very useful columns that can be moved around horizontally; All Friends, Group, Replies, Direct Messages, Search, Favorites, TwitScoop and 12seconds. As well as a vertically expanding Tweet section with a very nice TwitPic integration and a TinyURL-esque service as well… with more than enough URL shrinkers to your service.
I find it to be a very clean layout and for me, someone with a second monitor, it is very nice to have it maximized all the time. As a recent adopter of TwitPic , I found the integration fantastic, as well as how simple it is to follow your own conversations in the Replies column. But more than anything, I love the use of the TwitScoop column; as a blogger (talented or non) it is a fast way to see what the general Twitosphere is currently interested in.
And the great part about this all is that, by the time you read this there will be a new one out, just as damn good.
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© Andrew Littler, 2008
