To say that I’m disappointed that Twitter Sidebar Gadget from BuildAGadget hasn’t been released with oAuth support (now a mandatory requirement for any Twitter client) would be the understatement of the century. Not only have they had ample time to engineer the support but they’ve not communicated much in the way of where they’re at dev wise via EITHER their blog OR their Twitter feed. Being someone that depends heavily on Twitter, I can only respond with one comment: SONNAFAB-TCH!
So off I go to find a replacement tool.
SO WHAT AM I USING NOW?
Tweetz from BlueOnion Software seems to be a viable alternative although I wish the font size could be made even smaller than it’s current version. Tweetz features (in no particular order):
- Home timeline
- Mentions timeline
- Direct Messages
- Favorites
- OAuth authentication protects your twitter account
- Search
- Single click access to user profiles
- Click #tags to search
- Follow/Unfollow
- Number of unread tweets shown in header
- Reverse lookup of shortened links (for most services)
- Docked and undocked sizes
- Reply/Retweet
- Link shortener (uses http://is.gd for the shortest links)
- Optional font sizes
- Audible notification of new status updates (configurable)
- Configurable intervals
- Uses new twitter 2.0 API for increased security
- Clean, concise UI with small desktop footprint
- Adjustable height
- On demand refreshes
- Hot keys to shorten links and send tweets
- More funner to use than version 1.5
Because tweetz is a Windows Sidebar gadget it stays on your desktop where it’s always available. And if you’re a fan of Windows 7’s Aero Peek, you’re going to love tweetz. Simply move your mouse over the "Show Desktop" bar at any time to reveal your gadgets, including tweetz, and read your tweets.
Tweetz also respects the gadget guidelines. The docked version (pictured right) is 130 pixels wide and plays with other "docked" gadgets correctly. Want more real estate? No problem, the undocked version is wider and also displays the user’s picture.
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 