In the course of reviewing different Twitter add-ons to Firefox yesterday, I noticed there was an entire page of betas that required a login to install. One of the betas that I noticed was called TwitKit. Apparently, I’m too lazy to create a login, but I did find the link to the developer site in the details.
I couldn’t find any screenshots of the app anywhere. But I shrugged and went ahead and installed it. You can see a thumbnail of what it looks like over there. I have to say, I’m impressed, even with this beta.
First, it has a nice, clean interface reminiscent of TweetBar (which I reviewed here), in a pleasant brown color (or is that colour) scheme. There are 6 tabs, and it defaults to the 2nd, user.
Public shows you everyone’s tweets. User shows you the latest tweets from your friends. Friends gives you a list of the people are you following. Followers shows you who is following you. @s are messages directed toward you and me gives you a handy stat page similar to the “about” page on Twitter.
Also on the interface page, you have self-explanatory refresh and clear buttons. Below that is your list of tweets.
Now this is what gets my excited — as opposed to TweetBar, TwitKit has a tiny reply and favorite icon below each user picture. Perfect! Also, not shown, there is a red dot on the right side of your own tweets, which can be used to ‘hide’ an update. This feature doesn’t seem to work consistently, or well. But this is a beta so I am not too worried.
Aside from the main interface, there is also an options page that allows you to add the from application to each tweet, a refresh timer setting, the ability to change how names are shown, and a pull-down selection of 4 different color themes.
After using this add-on for a couple of days, I have to say that I find it fully as enjoyable to use as TwitterFox, but in a full sidebar form factor. It is stable and responsive. There are a couple of drawbacks, but they aren’t major: First, you cannot install TwitKit on Firefox Beta 3, it only works with FF2. Also, TwitterFox supports multiple Twitter logins in the interface, and with TwitKit you would need to sign out, and then sign back in to a different log in, which would be a pain.
Otherwise, it is stable and easy to use. I can definitely recommend this product!
Update: If you already have Tweetbar installed and active, disable or uninstall it before installing TwitKit. Apparently the two plugins don’t like each other much. Thanks tw3nty3ight for the heads-up!
Originally published at scribkin. You can comment here or there.
Originally published at scribkin. You can comment here or there.
StumbleUpon isn’t very much like any social bookmarking site out there. And, in a way, that is good. If you are relatively new to web surfing, or even if you feel like you are going to the same 5 web sites every day, StumbleUpon is the perfect remedy.
Originally published at scribkin. You can comment here or there.
Every modern operating system comes with a web browser. On Windows, it is Internet Explorer. On a Mac, it’s Safari. Linux usually comes with more than one, but usually has at least Firefox. All of these (arguably) are decent web browsers and do the job of displaying web pages. Generally, you should never need to install another browser on your computer, except for maybe on Windows. There, many people are not satisfied with Internet Explorer for a number of reasons, and tend to install Firefox as their primary browser.
So, why switch to a new browser? Isn’t it possible to do everything you want to do with the one you are using, via plugins or mods? Well, perhaps. But maybe you will find a browser that works just as well as the one you are using, and provides a level of integration and convenience with services and sites you already use. Maybe that web browser is Flock.
Originally published at scribkin
It has generated a lot of buzz in the past year, but for many, what Twitter does is still a mystery.
Why do we need to log in somewhere just to type in a sentence worth of text?
Isn’t that what Instant Messaging is for?
I heard it is just like Dodgeball.
I have a few friends who LOVE Twitter.. but they can’t really explain why!
None of my friends use it.. why should I sign up?
Originally published at scribkin. You can comment here or there.
Most everyone has heard about Google Reader at this point. But I am sure there are more people out there who don’t know an RSS feed from a banner ad, and how Google’s product leverages this technology.
First we need to discuss what RSS is. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. The RSS feed format uses XML to define and standardize different fields in a data stream. This stream, or feed, can be interpreted by a RSS reader (also sometimes known as an aggregator) and presented to the end user in a clean, easy to navigate format. RSS feeds can contain text and URL links to media and pictures, or extra markup tags. The RSS specification allows for full-text or just snippets to be syndicated.
Almost all feed readers will manage multiple RSS feeds, keep track of what articles are read or unread, and will allow some sort of tagging and selecting articles as ‘favorites’. They usually will also present a view that shows articles from some or all subscribed feeds together sorted by date or other criteria to the user. This is sometimes called the ‘river of news’ view. Google Reader is one such RSS app with an additional trick up its sleeve — it is completely browser-based. It can also, however, be used off-line with a browser plug-in called Google Gears.
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