Twitter + Quicksilver = Quicktwitter

I've been using Twitter for almost a month now and I'm hooked. For those who don't know what Twitter is, it's another one of those web 2.0, social networking thing that's on the series of tubes we call the interweb. It's like SMS; you send out a small bit of message. Small bit is 140 characters. But instead of sending your message to just one person, your Tweet can be read by people who has subscribed to your Twitter account. You can have one or two friends or you can have up to several hundreds even a thousand subscribed to your account. Twitter's tag line is "What are you doing?" But people have been posting more than what their activities are. Some are using Twitter as SMS on the net. They've made Twitter as an IM client. A lot of blog posts and articles have been written about Twitter. Here are just some of them:

• 5 ways to use Twitter for good from Lifehack.org.
• 6 Twitter power tips by Christopher Penn.
• Top 10 Twitter spin-off applications and services from Tech Digest.
• 6 habits of wildly successful Twitter users from Slacker Manager.
  

Another feature of Twitter is that users can send and receive tweets thru IM or thru SMS, but some are finding out that SMS updates can become really expensive. I've set up Adium, my IM client, to be able to receive and send tweets through my Gtalk account. I have found an alternative which I will explain in the next paragraph.

Quicksilver is an application launcher for the Mac OS. The app however does so much more. It can be used to send out emails, launch websites and now, send Tweets. An apple script with instructions on how to install is available at Graham English's website. He's calling this project as iQuicktwitter, a mash up of Quicksilver + Twitter + iChat + Growl. You need to have Quicksilver installed on your Mac and for added features, Twitterific as well as Growl.

This hack is not for the queasy or novice. You need to do a little tweaking here and there. It's little things like this, however, that makes the experience of being a Mac user so fun.

So, good luck and Tweet away!