Testing out TextMate’s blogging bundle

This is a test from Textmate’s Blogging bundle. This is really cool.

Review of the ‘Twhirl’ Twitter Client

Twhirl is a relatively new Twitter client that packs just about everything you need for twittering into one Adobe Air based application.  While Twhirl of course handles all the basic things you need out of a Twitter client, I feel it really shines when you start using the additional features and usability enhancements.

Some of these features include:

• Runs on Windows (200/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX
• Ability to connect to multiple Twitter accounts
• Ability to simultaneously post to Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
• Extremely easy to install and configure
• Embedded services include Tweetscan, is.dg, Snurl, TwitPic, and Terraminds
• Timeline filtering
• Automatically checks for new version
• New tweet notification windows
• Localized to English, German, Italian, and Spanish

Installation

To install Twhirl, visit Twhirl’s website and on the right side you’ll see links to download Adobe AIR and Twhirl.  If you don’t yet have Adobe’s integrated runtime environment (AIR) installed, follow the instructions you see to install it.  Once AIR is installed, click the download/”install now” link and you should see the AIR application installer begin to download and install the Twhirl application.  Follow the on screen instructions to complete.

Configuration

When you load the application for the first time, you’ll need to set up your Twitter account(s).  Enter your screen name, and another box will prompt you for your password.  You will also see a few additional tabs.  The first being “Colors” which allows you to modify Twhirl’s visual theme.  The second is “Language” where you can select between English, German, Italian, and Spanish.  And the final tab being “Update” where you can check if a newer version exists.

Sending Tweets

99% of your time using Twhirl will be spent looking at the main Twhirl screen after you successfully connect.  From this screen you will see the “river” of new tweets rolling down as they arrive.  You can also post tweets by typing your message in the input box.  Please make not of the TwitPic and “Shorten URL” icons on the right of the input box for a couple very useful tools.

Additionally, you have 9 view types that you can choose from in the drop-down.  These views range from the standard “Timeline” view with is the tweets from those you are following, viewing the archive of your own tweets, viewing your followers’ bios, searching tweetscan.com, and a few more very useful views.

Gripes & Suggestions

I’ve already covered many of the upsides to using Twhirl, but I do have a few gripes and suggestions that I hope the developer can address in future releases:

• When you lookup profiles inside Twhirl, you should be able to at a minimum, click a link that takes you to the user’s Twitter account.  Optimally, I’d like to have the information on how many followers the user has, and how many people they are following.
• When starting up the application, only notify me of direct/reply tweets I haven’t yet read, not all of them.
• Add TweetBurner.com to the list of short URLs.
• Add a Quotably link to each tweet.

Conclusion

Twhirl is my 5th Twitter client over the past 4-5 months, and really, the majority of that time has been spent on Twhirl because it has been my favorite, by far.  I have stuck with it because it offers all the essential functionality I need out of a twitter client, and then some.  It also happens to be the first Adobe AIR application I have actually had a good experience with and it gives me hope for the future for this platform.

Also, check out these reviews for other Twitter clients

• Twitterfox: A Twitterfox Review
• Twitterific: A Review of Twitterific
• TwitterBerry: TwitterBerry, combining BlackBerry and Twitter
• Twitterfeed: A review of Twitterfeed
• Twitbin: Twitter and TwitBin – Microblogging Made Easy
• The Guide to Being a Drunken, Debaucherous Twit
• Netvibes: Using Netvibes for SMO

The Calacanis Effect

Some people have been wondering how much having Jason Calacanis link to your blog in his twitter feed (twice) and his blog?  Well, some initial numbers from the last 24 hours…

• About 70 new Twitter followers.  With each of his two tweets directed at me, I instantly gained about 15 new followers, and then the rest scattered in throughout the rest of the day.
• 910 new visits to my blog with 1.36 pages/visit
• The viddler video now has 650+ views from my blog, and another 600+ views on the viddler site.

Any other statistics people were wondering?

Enabling Wordpress 2.3 Tagging in Windows Live Writer

Part of the reason for my recent increase in blogging is mostly due to my discovery of Windows Live Writer, I absolutely love it.  The only complaint I’ve had so far is that it doesn’t support tagging for Wordpress 2.3, something recently introduced with the release of Wordpress 2.3.  I assumed I’d have to wait for an update from Microsoft to be able to use WP 2.3 tagging, but it turns out that isn’t the case.  Check out this post from Ruhani Rabin who provides a great tutorial on how to enable tags support in WLW for WordPress:

• Enabling Tag support in Windows live writer for Wordpress

In a nutshell all you have to do is download the wlwmanifest.xml file and upload it to wp-includes.  This file is what tells WLW a bit more about the blog and it’s capabilities.  Once that is uploaded, update the blog in WLW (Weblog > Manage Weblog) and viola, the “keywords” box shows up in the advanced options menu below your post in WLW.

New Wordpress Theme

I figured it was about time to upgrade to a new theme, so I found this one, Snoods theme.  Whaddya think?

Because this theme doesn’t accommodate the native tagging capability of Wordpress 2.3, I had to hack into the wp functions to add the capability to display tagging in the post.  What Wordpress really just needs to do is append the tag info to the end of all posts, like I’ve done for this theme. 

If you need to do the same, update “the_content()” function in wp-includes/post-template.php to the following code (additions in yellow):

function the_content($more_link_text = ‘(more…)’, $stripteaser = 0, $more_file = ”) {
    $content = get_the_content($more_link_text, $stripteaser, $more_file);
    $content = apply_filters(’the_content’, $content);
    $content = str_replace(’]]>’, ‘]]>’, $content);
    ob_start();
        the_tags(’Tags: ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘<br />’);
    $tag_html .= ob_get_clean();
    if (!empty($tag_html))
    {
        $content .=”<br /><div align=’center’ style=’clear:both;’><span style=’border:solid #333333 1px; padding:3px;’>”;
        $content .= $tag_html;
        $content .= “</span></div>”;;
    }
    echo $content;
}

This really the first time I’ve dove into the innards of Wordpress, and wow is it rather horrid.  Considering how important Wordpress is to the evolution of the blogging community, developers are important, and with the way the code looks now, I can’t imagine anyone would take up Wordpress development as a hobby.

First post from Windows Live Writer

One of the reasons why I don’t find myself blogging too much is I think I’m just too lazy sometimes to go to my site, log in, go to the post page, use a crappy WSYWIG to create the blog entry, and hit post. Not a lengthy process, but one I get annoyed with. But I just came across Windows Live Writer, which is a Microsoft desktop app that hooks into your Spaces, Wordpress, Blogger, Livejournal, etc… blog and allows you to create a post in a very rich and intuitive interface. The biggest surprise is that it actually downloads the CSS sheet and mimics what your post will look like while you are editing it!

So, props to Microsoft for coming out with a pretty slick app, and especially allowing users to connect it to something other than their Spaces blog, which no one has.

Alright, gotta post this to see what it looks like.