Posty: Now Smaller With Identi.ca Support

Other Adobe AIR clients have had trouble competing with Twhirl thanks to that app’s overwhelming popularity among Twitter users, but a little app called Posty has a shot. That’s mainly due to the fact that it offers the ability to multi-post to a number of services in a manner that’s similar to how HelloTxt or Ping.fm operate.

Today, there’s a new version of Posty that fans of this app will like even better – especially since some of the most requested features have now been added – most notably identi.ca support and a new, smaller size.

The full feature list of this version includes:

• Identi.ca support
• A new minimum size of 380 pixels
• The ability to minimize Posty to the system tray in Windows
• The ability to automatically clear the text message when posting is successful
• A notification mechanism that lets you see public tweets from the public timeline every 3 minutes. This feature is experimental so turn it off if it gets in your way.

Unfortunately, to get this version of Posty installed, you have to remove the old one (or just install it into a different folder).

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Posty, an Adobe AIR app I mentioned briefly here is a tool that lets you update Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, FriendFeed, and Pownce all at once. Today, this app has received an update which brings with it several new features that make the app much more useful than before. These new features include the ability to browse Twitter friends’ statuses, the ability to browse FriendFeed friends’ entries, the addition of Twitter search powered by Summize, and the addition of built-in FriendFeed search. With these new features, Posty is transforming itself from just a multi-service update tool like HelloTxt on AIR to a full-fledged client for interacting with these various micro-blogging services.

One thing that wasn’t updated are the themes. The theme changer only updates the font color used to label the updates and other items. Although there are several different themes to choose from in Posty, but all of them keep the black background which many people find hard to read.

They’ve also announced that Plurk and identi.ca will also be supported as soon as those sites release an official API.

FriendFeed/Twitter AIR app Feedalizr has just launched into beta today. They had been previously been in a public alpha, but they now feel that their feature set is rich enough and enough of the bugs have been squashed to qualify their app as a beta.

Along with the launch, feedalizr has been updated with a few new features that make it worth a look, including support for FriendFeed’s rooms. With the new app, you’ll now get the messages that have been sent directly to the rooms you’re a member of and you, in turn, can also post directly to a room via a drop down box that lists all the rooms which belong to.

Another new feature is tab support. With this, you can choose to see just your Twitter messages in a tab, for example. To activate this feature, you only need to click on the service icon from your FriendFeed stream to show all the posts from that service. When you load more tabs than you have room for, feedalizr just adds an arrow so you to scroll over to the others that don’t fit on the app’s main screen.

In addition, this release improves support for Twitter DMs by adding a “direct” link underneath a friend’s tweet.

Of course, Feedalizr has always stood out from the other AIR apps by including support for Jaiku as well as support for flickr and video uploads. If you’re looking for a good FriendFeed desktop client, Feedalizr should be on your list.

You can download the latest version here.

How excited was I when I heard that there was now a Google Reader Adobe AIR application that would let me browser through my feeds outside a browser? Pretty freaking excited! But then I thought "wait - why do I need this?" This doesn’t really help me solve a problem. With Twhirl, for example, I get easier access to all of Twitter’s features and it refreshes my tweets for me. Google Reader, though, isn’t really broken. (Well, except for NO SUBFOLDERS, which is literally killing me).

But, for the most part, Google Reader in the browser works just fine. ReadAir on the other hand, lacks a major feature: keyboard shortcuts. I don’t even think about it anymore, it’s just j, j, j, j, j, k, j all day long. I can’t imagine having to give them up just to use an AIR app.

That being said, it seems that adding keyboard shortcuts to the app is an upcoming feature, as is an offline mode, continuation, and alternate themes that don’t make it look like a Mac app (thank god). Maybe I’ll just have to check back later, then. (via DownloadSquad)

Oh dear lord. As if we didn’t already have enough with the war between Twhirl and Alert Thingy (and Feedalizer and bTittleTattle!), here comes yet another AIR app for Twitter/FriendFeed users. This one is from the makers of the Firefox extension, MySocial 24×7, and, like the extension, the app focuses on consolidating your social streams into one desktop app.

This app has a few nice features, like a built-in media browser and consolidated alerts, but for Twhirl devotees, losing one-click access to archives, directs, replies, etc. would make switching nearly impossible.

Out-of-box, I had issues with the app. Sorry, but I don’t have my FriendFeed Remote Key memorized, and even though the app requires its entry, there was no button to push to quickly pull it up in the browser. FriendFeed fanatics may know that it’s available at http://friendfeed.com/remotekey, but others will just be confused, and will try entering their password to no avail.

Another issue occurred after I entered in my Twitter credentials. I got a message that literally said "Some Problem." I imagine this means that I’ve hit the API wall, but at least Twhirl tells me that it’s "paused for 5 minutes," not "some problem."

There are also weird scroll boxes around the "Everyone" button (see picture with this post). This is probably because I resized the app, but that shouldn’t happen. Resizing also seemed to screw up the "Like" and "Comment" buttons, which now display with the text cut off.

However, there is one great feature of the MySocial app - the media browser, which basically means you don’t need a web page to view some content -  like YouTube videos, for example. The videos just pop-up in their own window for you to play instead.

It’s also nice that the drop-down at the bottom serves as a FriendFeed filter, allowing you to display only items from a selected service - like flickr, Google Reader, Last.fm, etc., but that alone does not a killer app make.

In the end, for everyday Twitterholics, this app may be fun to try, but it’s no where near being a Twhirl replacement.

Well, it’s back to Twhirl. In my excitement to finally have my Twitter stream and FriendFeed stream all in one window, (and de-duped!) I temporarily forgot my obsession with having Twhirl pinned on top of my other windows, something which is especially important when I’m on my laptop. So, it’s back to Twhirl for now. However, the way things have been going with the AlertThingy/Twhirl war, I expect we’ll see a Twhirl upgrade…oh…tomorrow.

Update: Or, as it turns out, tonight. 

Here we go again -the battle of the AIR apps continues. This time, it’s AlertThingy in the lead. They’ve just released version 1.3 of their popular FriendFeed AIR app, which you can download from their new and improved web site.

The new version of AlertThingy is an answer to my prayers: Twitter and FriendFeed in the same window! What’s even better is that they are de-duping Twitter messages for you, so you won’t see both tweets - one coming via FriendFeed and the other via Twitter. I can’t even tell you how great that is for me.

In addition, the new client offers a flickr uploader tool built-in. Just drag-and-drop your pic and it gets uploaded to the site, and respectively, your FF lifestream, assuming you have that service enabled.

Version 1.3 also includes a couple new themes like a bright “Flickr pink” and a more demure “Twitter turquoise.”

It’s still too soon to call a clear winner since every time one app updates, the other quickly follows. What’s nice for us though is that we’re going to end up with the absolute best AIR app ever in the long run.

But for now at least, I can say it’s AlertThingy for the win.

Just posted this on Read Write Web:  Today, the battle between the two most popular AIR apps as of late has begun. Yesterday, the FriendFeed AIR app, Alert Thingy, having only just launched on April 13th, was already getting an update - this one to include Twitter support via a built-in "Tweet" button. Not to be outdone, Twhirl wasted no time in providing an update of their own, seemingly crafting their updated version overnight. Now Twhirl includes FriendFeed support and Alert Thingy does Twitter, but are either of them really giving users what they want?…Keep Reading.

I  just saw the new on Deep Jive Interests: AlertThingy has arrived! This Adobe AIR application lets you keep tabs on your FriendFeed, similar to how Twhirl lets you tweet and keep track of your tweets. The app also has a search box, so you find words, friends, etc. in your FF stream. When you first install AlertThingy, you have to get your remote key in order to authenticate against their server - a step I could have done without, but ultimately, not a big deal.

The app, version 1.0, is lacking in some of the FF features, like the ability to hide items, for example, and it doesn’t appear to have the skinning abilities that Twhirl does. You also can send your comments back as tweets - another bummer. However, having a FF desktop AIR app is really great, (so thanks Howard Baines!), and I’m sure more features will be added in time. In the meantime, though, I might just stick with the FF site itself.

Update: I see that my fellow Grand Effect blogger, Frederic, agrees with me on sticking with the web for now and Corvida thinks it wasn’t worth the wait.

  TumblWeed is an Adobe AIR/Flash app for bloggers who use the Tumblr blog platform. With TumblWeed, you don’t have to open an web browser and go online to blog - just use this desktop application. There isn’t a WYSIWYG blog editor, but you can drag and drop photos and audio files to upload them to your Tumblr blog. You can also view your posts on a mini-dashboard.  The app is in alpha, but looks pretty good. You can download it (and Flash and AIR if you don’t already have them) from here.