There are just so many Twitter clients in the market at the moment and Im even finding it hard to keep up. The newest Twitter client is TunesTweeter. TunesTweeter is a web app that lets you show what you are currently listening to in iTunes, and updates your Twitter status with the song and artist.
TunesTweeter seems like an interesting application that adds a nice twist, maybe now someone will also come out with a Last.fm Twitter related client.
Thunderbird is an Outlook like email client that is free to download and is made by Mozilla, the same company that makes Firefox. The best thing about Thunderbird is that developers from all over the world are able to make addon tools to use, unlike Microsoft and Outlook. Thunderbird is multi-platform and multi-lingual. Here is our list of the top 10 Thunderbird addons.
(1) Contacts Sidebar – handy addon that lets you display all available address books in Thunderbird sidebar. This lets you easily access all your contacts from the main window, quickly edit contact details, drag’n drop files on top of a contact to send it as an attachment and more… (Thunderbird: 1.5b – 2.0.0.*)
(2) QuoteCollapse – automatically collapses all the quotes within any message, making it look neat and less cluttered. To expand quotes back to standard view just click inserted ‘+’ button. (Thunderbird: 0.7 – 2.0.0.*)
(3) QuickMove – must-have addon letting you quickly file messages to your frequently used folders using keyboard shortcuts. (Thunderbird: 0.5 – 2.0+)
(4) Signature Switch – allows you to create multiple email signatures (Private, Business, etc.) and quickly switch between them right from the main toolbar. Also provides configurable signature auto-switch option based on the email recipients. (Thunderbird: 0.7 – 2.0.0.*)
(5) Remove Duplicate Messages – helps you quickly locate and remove duplicate messages from the selected folders (and its subfolders). (Thunderbird: 1.0 – 1.5.0.*)
(6) Nostalgy – lets you assign single-key keyboard shortcuts to common thunderbird operations i.e., move/copy/delete messages, change folder, add/remove/view tags, add attachment, scroll the message while keeping the focus on the thread pane and lots more. (Thunderbird: 1.5 – 2.0.0.*)
(7) GMailUI – adds Gmail-like mail archiving and powerful message search (i.e. ‘from:Makeuseof to:Aibek’) functionalities into Thunderbird. Makes excellent addition to already existing ‘Saved Searches’ feature. (Thunderbird: 0.8 – 2.0.0.*)
(8) Attachment Extractor – integrates one-click attachment extract option from selected messages. Once attachments have been extracted it can delete, detach or mark messages as ‘read’. Way easier than going through messages one-by-one. (Thunderbird: 2.0 – 2.0.0.*)
(9) Auto Zip Attachments – adds an ‘AutoZip’ button to the compose toolbar allowing you to compress all attached files to a single ‘zip’ file. (Thunderbird: 1.5 – 2.0.0.*)
(10) Send Later – integrates extra ‘Send Later At’ (’Ctrl+Shift+Return’) feature to the message compose window, allowing you to send messages on a particular future date and time. It can be a contract cancellation notice, a ‘Happy Birthday’ or a friendly ‘Don’t Forget’ note. (Thunderbird: 1.5 – 2.0)
Yesterday I got my hands on the new Seesmic Desktop application which is a direct competitor to Tweetdeck. The new Seesmic desktop app is simple to use and is a great way to control all of your twitter accounts in one location. Head here to signup for Seesmic Desktop.
Seesmic Desktop includes the following features:
- Control more than one Twitter account in one location
- Ability to add more windows for all of your accounts
- Can see one full Twitter stream for all of your followers on all of your accounts
- Ability to perform searches within the application
- Able to store searches that automatically update
If you are a constant Twitter user then you need to check out Seesmic Desktop.
TwitStat’s current top 10 list is below, showing ranking and % of users posting from each service today. Note that where users made use of multiple methods, all were counted. The list is constantly changing, and the Top 100 can be found here.
1 Web – 29.57%
2 TweetDeck – 10.58%
3 Twitterfeed – 5.54%
4 Twhirl – 4.92 %
5 Twitterrific – 3.79 %
6 Tweetie – 3.65%
7 Text – 3.40 %
8 Mobile web 3.00 %
9 TwitterFon – 2.96 %
10 TwitPic – 2.94 %
Although Gmail is still in beta there has still been a lot of changes and developments with the product. Gmail has to be one of the most heavily adopted free email clients in the marketplace at the moment. Thus, I thought I would put together a very short list of the top 7 Gmail skins. Enjoy!
1. Super Clean skin — probably the most popular Gmail skin, Super Clean replaces the standard interface with a minimalist white and sky-blue version. Perfect for the budding Zen-master.
2. Air skin — makes subtle changes to the visual interface, adding clean lines, a cloudy color combo and changes the primary font. The perfect solution for users looking for a fresh look without any radical changes.
3. Mac skin — a Mac-inspired Gmail skin to match the Mac you’re checking your mail on! Adds a Mac-style menu and color-scheme to your Gmail account.
4. Fe Mail skin — a well-crafted and very pink Gmail skin.
5. Dark Gmail skin — almost the complete opposite to the last link, this skin is one for the dark and brooding Gmail user.
6. Silverstar skin — a popular minimalist gray theme.
7. Brushed skin — a gray and maroon theme with nifty gradients thrown into the mix.
Zenbe is a new email service that includes a calendar, task lists, an address book, even your Facebook friends, at a glance. Zenbe lets you send, search, organize, and share your email from Gmail, AOL, Yahoo! Mail, or any email address. Additionally, the service is currently ad free. Zenbe seems to be a service that is wanting to challenge the likes of Mozillas Thunderbird and Zimbra. Can the service live up to challenging those major players? Let us know.
Zenbe is giving away 500 invites. Claim yours now!
Seesmic which claims to be the Twitter for video has just acquired Twhirl. Although Seesmic is still in Alpha this seems to be a good purchase on the outside. Twhirl is one of the most popular Adobe AIR apps and allows users to post to their Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce accounts. This is the first acquisition ever of a pure AIR application and im sure it wont be the last.
For other coverage on this acquisition take a look at BlogHerald and Mashable. Im also interested to see what Arrington has to say about the acquisition, because he is an investor in Seesmic, however Mark Hendrickson did the review for Techcrunch of the story.
I have been using twitter a lot more recent and ive been looking for an application that can show twitter message in real time and also allow me to interact. I think I have found the perfect client, Spaz. Spaz is the winner of the Adobe AIR Developer Derby Award for Best HTML Community Application, Ed’s desktop client for Twitter provides users the ability to customize the user interface with multiple themes, user CSS overrides, event sounds, and access to extended features of the Twitter API.
Anyways, make sure you head over to Twitter and follow me. Ill be sure to follow you back.
Napster have announced that they are dumping their desktop client and re-launching with a new web-based version. Napster customers will now be able to listen to their music from any computer anywhere in the world. This will hopefully enable Napster to also develop embeddable widgets that can push their products on possible web enabled devices.
Napster is still going to be based as a subscription model, which most industry experts think is holding back the company, because it makes Napster incompatible with the iPod. Consequently Napster has lagged behind Apple’s end to end iTunes system which reportedly controls 70% of the digital music market.
UMG has announced they are now happy with iTunes and the revenue split, so it is only a matter of time before DRM free becomes standard and Napster will really need to gain some market share before Apple.
If you would like to see a slideshow of the new Napster service, please head over to Crave.
