If you are reading this chances are you know what twitter is and if you don’t have an account yet you can get one at www.twitter.com

If you are wondering why twitter is important you can check out this video which gives a great explanation.

For a long time I just used the twitter site or my iphone to update twitter.  There is nothing wrong with doing it that way but you don’t get as involved as you do with a desktop client. You can see people’s conversations instead of only noticing who is directly talking to you.

I tried using twirl but never got into it. I then noticed some of my friends tweets saying tweetdeck on them. I decided to download it and check it out. www.tweekdeck.com

Now tweetdeck I was really able to get into. There are many different options including searches, 12 seconds, stock twittering, twitscoop, twitpic, and an option to shorten urls.

My favorite option by far is the ability to see facebook status updates. I have several friends on facebook. I even use facebook more than twitter. Now I can see the update within tweetdeck just like the tweets I receive. Now I find myself leaving tweetdeck open all the time to keep up with my friends.

If you use twitter and facebook I would absolutly recomend tweetdeck over the other twitter clients.

From makeuseof.com

Twitter is a great tool that helps you keep in touch and meet a wide variety of new people. Since its release there have been people who think Twitter is worth your time and some who think it’s a waste of time.

I’m one of the ones that have found Twitter to be extremely useful but if you haven’t found that, here are ten Twitter bots guaranteed to help you change your mind :

MSNBC Breaking

This bot will provide you with the most current news and happenings around the world. There are a few other news bots out there like CNN Breaking News and BreakingNewsOn, but those bots just provide you with the headline and no link. I don’t find a lot of value out of them if I can’t go directly to the story. That is why I think the MSNBC news bot is the best.

ESPN Headlines

The ESPN Headlines bot is much like the breaking news bot above, but it is completely sports driven. As a sports fan, I like to be updated throughout the day. This bot also gives you the courtesy of providing a link to the story. Before this bot was added to my Twitter, I would check ESPN.com repeatedly throughout the day in order to stay current with any sports updates.

Woot

If you are unfamiliar with Woot!, it is time that you discovered this great site. Woot! is an online shopping website that sells mostly electronics, but what makes it different is that they have the Woot of the Day every day. There is always a great deal on something different everyday. If you keep up with it, you can really find some nice things on the cheap.

Weather Forecast

This bot does exactly what you think it does.

Just direct message it with your location, and it will return you the weather forecast you were looking for.

Sandy

Have you ever wanted a personal assistant that would keep you updated with all of your important events? Well, you can have that now with Sandy. But if you wanted a real assistant, you are going to have to wait or shell out the cash. All you have to do is direct message Sandy the reminders you want later, and she will make sure you hear about it at the right time.

Stock Quotes

If you compulsively check your stock quotes like I check my Google Analytics, you are going to need this easy to use stock bot.

Just direct message this bot with the stock symbol to get the latest quote for that company.

Timer

I lose track of time frequently when I’m online or blogging away.

This timer bot lets you set an alarm clock in Twitter to make sure you stay on top your regular and get those other things like paying bills, laundry or cleaning done as well. Pretty cool.

Twitter GCal

Plans can change quickly or come up quickly. Twitter GCal allows you to add events to your Google Calendar by just direct messaging this bot.

Some instructions are needed to fully explain how to use this bot, but they can be found at TwitterCal.

Tipr

Tipr will help out all of the math challenged folks out there (myself included).

It calculates the tip amount for your bill, so you can make sure that you leave the right amount.

Remember The Milk

Remember the Milk is a great online to do list and task manager.

You can update your tasks or to do lists or even get reminders sent straight from this Twitter bot.

I have two favorite media players VLC media player and media player classic. Both are free and both play many different file types with ease.

VLC Media plalyer http://www.videolan.org/vlc

A cross-platform media player and streaming server. This player is highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs VCDs , and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in ipv4 or ipv6 on a high bandwidth network. The site tracks how many are being downloaded and at the time I am writing this it is being download 2.2 times per second. Below is an example of an avi file I tested

The other one is media player classic.

I love this one because of it’s small memory footprint. On my old computer I could actually play a video and do something else at the same time. Also you don’t need to install it. The program is just one exe file good which is also good for a USB drive. I did have one problem though. I have a new computer so I had to install the xvid codec. After that everything worked perfectly. Below is the same avi file in media player classic

I like media player classic because I think the picture is sharper but vlc is brighter. Both have many options to customize the video settings but I prefer to just click and go so classic works for me.

HighxLow.com tracks your mood through twitter

Once upon a time my Dr told me to track my moods and give him a report. He gave me a paper chart to track them but of course I didn’t do it. After all it seemed to be such an inconvenience. Now for those of us who use twitter we have the perfect solution.

First you must have a twitter account obviously.

Then to track your mood, which they refer to as biorhythms, you send messages to one of three options.

Send a message to @highiam if you are happy. Example @highiam I am happy

If you are unhappy send a message to @lowiam

If you want to encourage someone you can do so by typing @cheeron @theirtwittername then your encouraging message

To see a chart of your history go to http://highxlow.com/yourtwittername

The picture was too big to post so follow this link to see my chart http://www.highxlow.com/MelRidger

The only problem I have with this application is that it takes several minutes for it to show up in highxlow. Other than that it looks like another great new twitter application.

Right now my favorite twitter client for the iPhone is http:\\itweet.net