Life-changing program #1: Twhirl
Compact and good-looking, Twhirl sits on your desktop and delivers a stream of tweets. Unlike the Twitter website, it doesn't require that you refresh in order to see new messages—it just flows them out to you.
On the sending side, Twhirl is strong. For each incoming message, it gives you easy options to reply, retweet, DM or mark as a favorite. It has a built-in URL-shortening feature that lets you choose the compression service. And it integrates with TwitPic, a photo-sharing site for tweets, among other services.
On the listening side, Twhirl really shines. It automatically shows you any messages that contain @YourUserName, and it creates Twitter search links out of hashtags. To help you understand at a glance what's coming in, it color codes the messages (here, green tells you that @YourUserName appears in a post). Perhaps best of all, it lets you create searches, and then it inserts the results right in your incoming stream—an incredibly efficient way to keep on top of the things that matter to you.
Before installing Twhirl (http://twhirl.org), you must run Adobe Air (http://www.adobe.com/products/air). That sounds intimidating, but each takes just a few minutes to download and run. Be aware that desktop web applications tend to suck up system resources over time; be sure to close and restart them every day or so.
Note: As we were going to press, Twhirl's company, Seesmic, was in the process of launching an updated version of Twhirl, Seesmic Desktop. ...
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