I find tiled backgrounds to be boring, but with ever expanding screen resolutions, I can see why it makes sense. Also, many users find repeating backgrounds to be minimalist and beautiful – each to his own, I guess.

An original article by TechZilo

Free Twitter patterns and texture backgrounds

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You can choose the kind of poll to be used, questions and answers, expiration date and whether to allow multiple votes per IP address.

Twtpoll is part of a bunch of free applications built by Twtapps.

An original article by TechZilo

Create Twitter polls and surveys: Twtpoll

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Threaded view seems like an interesting feature, particularly as most clients do not implement it (yet). It has features like multi-column view, search, filtering etc. Some not-so-common features like translation of tweets and multiple accounts are supported. It has a native Mac OS X-style UI, something missing in most Twitter clients. There are easy shortcuts for tweeting, reply, retweet etc.

You can switch between a one column (Twhirl-like), two column (Thunderbird-like) or three column (Tweetdeck-like) view.

These keyboard shortcuts can be configured from preferences. Application support is rather limited – Twitter, Friendfeed, identi.ca, Ping.fm and Tr.im.

Get Nambu for OS X

An original article by TechZilo

Nambu: Native Mac OS X Twitter application

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The community has come up with solutions, as usual. My personal favorite is Greasemonkey scripts, as they are more powerful than bookmarklets and less resource-hungry than extensions. Below is a collection of useful Greasemonkey scripts for Firefox. You must get Firefox and then Greasemonkey addon. And while you’re at it, why not follow me on Twitter?

Greasemonkey scripts for Twitter users

Twitter search results on Google – Google may buy Twitter, but untill then, use this userscript to see real-time search results from Twitter on Google search pages.

Twitter Translate – Adds links for each tweet to translate (using Google Translate).

Rapid Response – Adds a box on Twitter profiles to quickly respond to the user, from within his/her profile.

Jaiku Theme – Restyle Twitter pages using Jaiku’s bubble theme.

Twitter AJAX Reload – Reloads Twitter every two minutes using AJAX (ie. without page reload). A countdown is shown above the last status. If there is any text in the status box, reload is postponed.

Troys Twitter – Adds a bunch of useful features like nested replies, custom search tabs, autocomplete, autopagination, retweet button, URL expansion etc. (see original post). Easily the most powerful userscript in this list.

Google Reader to Twitter – Share Google Reader items on Twitter.

Reverse Tweet Order – Reverses the order of Tweets on a Twitter page.

Twitter Highlight – Highlights tweets referring to you in timeline.

Twitter Textarea Limitless – Removes character counter and blockade when your tweet exceed number of characters.

Last Tweet Preview – Displays your friend’s last tweet when you hover your mouse pointer over his or her image in the Twitter sidebar.

Twitter Emoticons – Brings Yahoo smileys to your tweets.

Twitter Unfollow buttons – Creates buttons under each posting on your home screen to unfollow users on twitter. Reduces the number of clicks to remove a user from follow list.

Twitter Sidebar Replies – Shows replies to a user on the sidebar of that user’s Twitter page

Twitter Friends Bio – See user bio, following & followers count etc.

An original article by TechZilo

15 kickass Greasemonkey scripts for Twitter

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CNNbrk is a Twitter account set up by CNN to update with the latest news, as they happen. Active Twitter users will find it useful, as you do not need to open or follow news websites often.

An original article by TechZilo

Follow CNNBrk on Twitter for breaking news updates

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Troys Twitter Script is a Greasemonkey script that brings a bunch of much-sought interface improvements to Twitter (on the web).

Features of Twitter Script

• Nested Replies
• Custom search tabs
• Status autocomplete
• Auto Link Compressor
• Auto Pagination
• RT button
• Media Embed ( YouTube, Twitpic, Movapic, Image URLs )
• URL Expansion
• Hash Tag Search Links

(from left) Nested replies, auto complete and script settings

The script can auto complete @usernames, show more tweets automatically (like in Google Reader), adds retweet button (which makes you wonder why it isn’t there by default), expansion of shortened URls (to the actual URl, with the anchor text being the title of the page linked) and hash tags linked to Twitter search pages.

Get Troys Twitter Script

Also see Tweetpkr, a bookmarklet that brings Twitter to your browser sidebar(works on all browsers).

An original article by TechZilo

Greasemonkey script to improve Twitter functionality

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It is much like a Twitter desktop application, except that it requires no extension/software install. Indeed, Tweetpkr’s slogan goes: “take a peek at your friends twitter updates from anywhere”.

Visit Tweetpkr and enter your username/password to get the customized bookmarklet. Your login details are used only to encrypt it to the bookmarklet for authentication purposes.

Clicking the bookmarklet brings up a sidebar with tweet window and your friend’s tweets. The design is quite neat and beautiful – with shades of gray, red and white.

Finally, you can view Tweetpkr in action in this video:

An original article by TechZilo

Tweetpkr: Twitter in your sidebar, in a bookmarklet

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The single most significant feature of DestroyTwitter is seamless browsing of profiles from within the application. Some other Twitter apps load the profile in your browser, but DestroyTwitter shows you profiles within upon clicking a username (as below).

There are separate tabs for replies, DMs, search etc. for easy access to those tweets. Quick shortcuts are also helpful (like Cmd+T on Mac OS X for tweet window).

Download DestroyTwitter

An original article by TechZilo

DestroyTwitter: AIR-based Twitter client

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Visit Twitlet to create the bookmarklet (you have to enter your username and password which will be stored in the bookamrklet), and drag it to your bookmarks toolbar. There likely isn’t any security concern, as the username/password details are used only to customize the bookmarklet.

It does seem a bit weird when the URL of the page you are on appears in the popup for tweets (see image above).

An original article by TechZilo

Twitlet bookmarklet updates your Twitter status in one click

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In my short analysis, I realize that iPhone is more popular than Mac, which is in turn more popular than Apple, Microsoft and Windows7.

New features that I would like to see are user accounts which helps keep track of comparisons (perhaps even show results every day) and per-user comparisons. Hopefully, such features will come up in time.

An original article by TechZilo

Analyze word usage on Twitter with TweetVolume

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Random stats apart, what makes Cursebird more interesting is that you can look up statistics on a particular user by entering his Twitter username. For example, statistics on my Twitter profile show that I have never used a swear word (follow me on Twitter?).

An original article by TechZilo

Cursebird shows you swearing on Twitter in real-time

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Type your tweet in the address bar and click the unobtrusive grey icon next to address bar to post it. Moving your mouse over the icon shows you number of characters left.

Another interesting feature is that you can also post URL of the current page by clicking the TwitterBar icon with typing in the address bar. When you do so, your tweet will appear as “Currently browsing: “. The text in front of the URL can be customized by editing extensions.twitter.web in about:config.

This would be a nice touch – you can inform your followers of useful links without leaving your browser or switching to a Twitter tab.

Install TwitterBar

An original article by TechZilo

Post to Twitter from your Firefox address bar with TwitterBar

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Here is a quick way to report spam on Twitter quickly, using Twitter itself (!):
Send tweet in the format “@spam @spammername Optional” (without quotes), where spammername is the name of the user whom you want to report and Optional is any extra comment you would like to add, for example what kind of spam the user is indulging in.

[via a tweet by @twitspamorg]

An original article by TechZilo

How to report Twitter spam quickly

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FaceYourManga creates avatars through a multiple-step avatar building process, configuring every imaginable part of your face. After creating your avatar, you need to enter an email address to which the avatar will be mailed.

Three things FaceYourManga should change:

• Improve page load times: It felt a bit slow at times. Every time you click on a customization, it takes time to redraw the avatar, which I think is unintuitive.
• Entering email ID: While there is no registration required, entering an email ID certainly makes one suspicious of their intent. I used an old, unused email ID for this purpose (to prevent any spam from affecting my regular usage).
• Excess usage of flash: The header and navigation links are powered by flash. Images could have been used instead.

Screenshots of FaceYourManga avatar creation

Here are some screenshots of avatar creation in action:

An original article by TechZilo

FaceYourManga.com: Create avatars for Twitter and IMs

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