I’ve tried every Twitter application on the iPhone, including the favorites Twinkle, Twitterific, and Twittelator. I’ve even tried Tweetsville, TwitterFon and GPSTwit and fired off photos with Twitfire. But in the end, I always ended up coming back to Hahlo, a web-based Twitter client built specifically for the iPhone.

Why? Simplicity and the ability to separate “replies” from “direct messages.” I wish it were more complicated than that. It’s not. I don’t want my direct messages mixed in with my replies and I certainly don’t want them mixed into my friend stream, indicated only by color. I want to choose easily whether to reply in public or private and I want to be certain that choice is honored. Hahlo did all of that for me. Tweetsville does it as well, but doesn’t allow me to access replies on the main screen. And… the one feature that was missing from Hahlo, was the ability to retweet, to easily repost something interesting.

Tweetie gives me all of that and more.

It is has now replaced Hahlo on my main iPhone toolbar. Tweetie allows me to set up multiple Twitter accounts, as you can see below. That’s helpful. My only “complaint” is that they’ve gone overboard on the text bubbles. I’d like to see more tweets on screen at one time and the graphics are taking up too much space.

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That said, the fact that “Tweets,” “Replies,” and “Messages” are easily accessef from the main menu was the first clue that I was going to like this app. And when I choose to reply, the option buttons are large and easy to hit accurately. I can’t tell you how frustrating the small icons on most of the iPhone apps are to hit accurately.

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The ability to copy and paste links was an unexpected bonus! When you access a link in a tweet, it opens inside the Tweetie browser.

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The icon on the lower left then gives you the ability to either open the link in Safari or “post the link,” which copies a shortened URL into a new tweet. Sweet.

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Ahh, but there’s more. Easy access to Twitter Search features and trends. And a quick way to search for tweets directed at me, but not directly at me, via the “Search @ResPres” button.

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In addition, Tweetie allows me to save drafts and easily follow and favorite right from the app. Simply put, this is finally a Twitter iPhone App I can recommend. Now, if only Twitter would take the limits off the API. The reason I keep resorting to Search.Twitter.com, even on the iPhone, is this:

But I know it’s not Tweetie’s fault. So, my first click is on Tweetie now. If that fails, then my saved Twitter Search icons are my fallback plan.

I’m usung Air Mouse, the clear winner in my quick search for an option that would allow me to work using my right index finger. It beat out Snatch. And it’s wasn’t even a close competition.

Snatch

While the Snatch touchpad is larger and allows for multi-touch control, it has several problems. First, the multi-touch is finicky. It performs only ome of the time, which forces you to switch to the scrolling control screen to scroll inside windows. Second, the mouse position control is not accurate. a lot of time is spent getting the mouse to the correct position on the screen. And third, the keyboard is hidden away on yet another screen. Snatch simply requires too much effort. The two main control screens are shown below.

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Air Mouse

In stark contrast, Air Mouse places most of the controls you need on one screen (see below). Two buttons, a scroll wheel, track pad and keyboard are all on screen at the same time. It is all I needed to type this post, and upload photos.

The cursor control is extremely accurate and responsive. And it acts as you would expect it to. Taps and double taps on the track pad respond just like the Powerbook trackpad. And the secondary control screen gives me access to my programmed mouse options.

After one evening of use, i’m now comfortably conrolling every aspect of this process with my right arm pinned against my chest, leaning back comfortably and without moving my shoulder at all. Air Mouse allows me to work. I would have been severely limited without it!

I hadn’t run in a long, long time. And as I took in large quantities of air, I had a brief moment of clarity. “Hey,” I thought. “Maybe I should test StepTrakLite for the last portion of this death march.” So I did.

The last portion of my run/jog/walk is 100% uphill. It’s the downside of living on one of the highest points around. I didn’t even attempt to run it. I just turned on StepTrakLite and put the iPhone back in my pocket. For most of that last mile, I simply walked at a brisk pace. It was certainly faster than I’d normally walk, but it did not even approach a Jog. When I pulled the iPhone out of my pocket and checked the final stats, this is what I found.

First off, I clearly need to alter the settings, you’ll see that graphic below. It judged my brisk walk as running and I can tell you right now, that just wasn’t the case. But apparently 248 of my steps were so slow that they registered as walking. I don’t know what part of the “run” those steps might have taken place. I wasn’t getting enough oxegen to my brain to remember anything. What the graphic clearly shows, however, is that it took me sixteen and a half minutes to walk that last uphill mile. Yep. That confirms it. I’m officially out of shape. Thanks for that insight, StepTrakLite. I appreciate it.

I watched for part of the way and it did indeed count each step accurately, even though my classification of steps was off. I would agree that it was “vigorous” but I wasn’t running. So, the application allows you to change the sensitivity in the settings.

Clearly, I need to change my classification bias to have it more accurately predict my running. But applications like this one are what I love about the iPhone. StepTrakLite helps make the iPhone something more than a phone. And this is an application I’ll certainly be using on my “runs” in the future.

Maybe soon I’ll be able to remove the quotations from “run,” and when it counts my steps as running, they actually will be. Sounds like a worthy goal to me.

TextExpander has greatly simplified the task of getting common emails responses out to customers for me without having to rely on cut-and-paste or a template email that I have to find in a folder somewhere. And I’m not just talking about using a keyboard shortcut to generate my signature. Sure, TextExpander can do that too but it’s real power shows off when you can craft a full page email with formatted text or even generate AppleScript (which I haven’t tried yet). I have only touched the surface of what this program can do for me – I’ve only written about how I use it with email but TextExpander can work in all applications.

I can’t do it enough justice here in a short post so you really need to check out the videos. TextExpander is available from Smile On My Mac and there is a downloadable trial.

I’d be interested in hearing about how others are creatively using TextExpander as well.

Mobile post sent by ResPres using Utterz. Replies. mp3

Today I saw a short post about Vidnik over at DownloadSquad and before I even finished the second sentence had already clicked over to the Vidnik download page to give it a try. So, I thought I’d record my very first moments with Vidnik to see if it was as easy as it appeared in the graphic on the DownloadSquad post.

I usually test without reading beyond a basic description. This is partially because I expect things to be easy on the Mac and partially because I want to see how intuitive the product is to use. In this case, as advertised, Vidnik was very easy to use.

Here’s my test of Vidnik, right out of the box:

Takin Vidnick For A Test Drive from respres on Vimeo.

As you can see, it’s easy to use… but I can’t get it to sync the sound properly.

Here’s the link to the finished Vidnik test on YouTube. Initially I thought the sound may have been off because I was capturing a screencast at the same time. But I did a second test and a third test and the same thing happened. Other Vidnik testers appear to have the same issue with Vidnik.

The videos that Vidnik automatically saved to the hard drive were perfectly in sync. So, I uploaded Test 3 again, only this time I did it directly to YouTube the old fashioned way. No luck, I encountered the Same problem. Finally, to make sure it wasn’t something happening on my end, I recorded a final video in iMovie and uploaded that. It uploaded just fine.

Unfortunately, while I like the simplicity and intuitiveness of the Vidnik application, the end result left much to be desired.

I’m in love with ScreenFlow from Vara. Every effect you see in the video is done inside ScreenFlow after recording. It’s a truly amazing application and I’m up at 2:45am as a result. I’ve never seen a better screen capture application.

Not ever.

Simply Amazing: Screenflow from Vara Software from reshows on Vimeo.