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Twitter, I guess it’s one of those web applications where you either “get” it or you don’t. For a long time I stood firmly in the don’t “get” it camp. My history with Twitter is somewhat scattered, I posted my first couple of tweets on December 21, 2006. It was a while until I tweeted again, when I did it took the following form:

Testing twitter on my Nokia N95 06:15 AM January 22, 2008 from web

And then 7 days later I tweeted again:

Once again playing with twitter, still not sure that I “get” it! Hmm. 02:52 PM January 29, 2008 from web

And then just a few hours later:

Testing gTwitter on Ubuntu. Looks good but uses mono and therefore comes in at a rather large 20MB+, hmm. 07:52 PM January 29, 2008 from web

And then today I tweeted this:

Testing Twitux twitter client, looks good and doesn’t use mono like gtwitter. This I could use, will leave it running. about 14 hours ago from web

By George, I think I’m beginning to “get” it!

It’s only taken me a couple of years, but I think I’m beginning to understand what Twitter is all about. Twitter is a simple little application, at least from a user’s standpoint, where you input up-to 140 character messages. These messages can then be viewed by anyone who wishes to follow along. It’s quite simple really and I’m now confused by why it took me so long to come to terms with such a simple concept. Why didn’t I get the hint from Twitter’s front page?

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Anyhow, as you might have read, I’ve now started using Twitux. The application was introduced to me by Gabriel D. W. Wollenburg. I’ve only had it running for day, but I like it, and it beats having to keep another tab open in Epiphany. Unfortunately the application isn’t available in the Ubuntu repositories, but you can grab a copy from getdeb.net. It’s a small download at about 66.8 KB and only takes seconds to install using gdebi.

Regarding gTwitter, it crashed on first use, this didn’t leave a good first impression. Secondly, it uses Mono. I have nothing against Mono, but so far CrunchBang Linux remains a Mono free system, at least it does for me. So, installing gTwitter, which is available from the Ubuntu repositories, gave me an apt-get output something along the lines of:

corenominal@misspiggy:~$ sudo apt-get install gtwitter
[sudo] password for corenominal:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
 libart2.0-cil libgconf2.0-cil libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil
 libgnome-vfs2.0-cil libgnome2.0-cil libgtk2.0-cil libgtkhtml2.0-cil
 libgtkhtml3.8-15 libmono-cairo1.0-cil libmono-corlib1.0-cil
 libmono-data-tds1.0-cil libmono-security1.0-cil libmono-sharpzip0.84-cil
 libmono-system-data1.0-cil libmono-system-web1.0-cil libmono-system1.0-cil
 libmono0 libmono1.0-cil librsvg2.0-cil mono-common mono-gac mono-jit
 mono-runtime
Suggested packages:
 libgtkhtml3.8-dbg libgda2-3 libgdiplus
Recommended packages:
 binfmt-support cli-common
The following NEW packages will be installed
 gtwitter libart2.0-cil libgconf2.0-cil libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil
 libgnome-vfs2.0-cil libgnome2.0-cil libgtk2.0-cil libgtkhtml2.0-cil
 libgtkhtml3.8-15 libmono-cairo1.0-cil libmono-corlib1.0-cil
 libmono-data-tds1.0-cil libmono-security1.0-cil libmono-sharpzip0.84-cil
 libmono-system-data1.0-cil libmono-system-web1.0-cil libmono-system1.0-cil
 libmono0 libmono1.0-cil librsvg2.0-cil mono-common mono-gac mono-jit
 mono-runtime
0 upgraded, 25 newly installed, 0 to remove and 37 not upgraded.
Need to get 6173kB of archives.
After unpacking 22.0MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

While I’m not short of disk space, 22MB for a Twitter client is somewhat extreme. Besides, I prefer Twitux.

Finally, I’d just like to publicly thank Gouki for encouraging me to explore Twitter some more. Gouki is without a doubt the main cause of all my time wasting experiences. BTW Gouki, I’ve still not forgiven you for this

You can follow along with my pointless twittering at: http://twitter.com/corenominal

Philip Newborough. Some Rights Reserved.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.