If you're a Twitter user, got a WordPress blog, and would like to throw in some interactions between those two, don't miss this plugin: Twitter Connect. Using the brand new Twitter's OAuth API, this plugin lets you identify yourself using your Twitter account.

I like it for several reasons: it's cool, it's quick, and it opens the door to getting more information from your commenters. Right now it gets one's Twitter avatar and use it like a Gravatar, but I'd hack it so it would display a link to the Twitter profile and show commenter's latest tweet just like some plugins add your latest blog post. I also think that Twitter related blogs (such as Twitip) could enforce using this as a probably very effective anti spam method.

I like it. I'm putting it on top of my "plugins to install" list. Found via @joetek.

Recently, I've been using Twitter more and more. I recently launched a tiny web service and decided to use Twitter as a "marketing" platform (maybe I'll blog about this later) so I really needed a way to switch easily between multiple Twitter accounts and identity.

The best twitter client I've found yet is Splitweet, a free web-based Twitter multi account manager, aimed at "corporate and heavy users". It's great.

Why I like Splitweet

In a nutshell, you can, within one dashboard screen:

• easily send tweets under one or several accounts (crosstweeting) (and see an estimated cumulated audience)
• follow tweets from people you follow
• follow replies & DM sent to all (or some of) your accounts
• monitor a brand reputation: get a list of tweets for any people mentionning keywords you want to watch (your full name, company name, company URL, book title…)
• and last but not least, beat my corporate firewall which is blocking twitter.com. Ahah, pwned.

Splitweet is definitely a tool I'd use even if I had only one Twitter account, for its feature list beats Twitter hands down. The "brand reputation" management especially is a cool thing that integrates well Twitter's totally awesome real time search.

Now if you're a Splitweet developper, read on, I have a few suggestions and feature requests :)
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OK, let's step down a bit from Twitter for a while. This is a much overdue update to the übercòól Admin Drop Down Menu. Aside from minor tweaks related to the upcoming WordPress 2.8, more languages than ever (German being the latest addition), the plugin is now fully RTL friendly (hence the so witty post title)

I'm warmly thanking a few helpers for their feedback regarding the right-to-left locales: Sudar Muthu, Narayanan Hariharan, Mena Hanna and Amiad. I must admit I almost lost my sanity when working on this update: boy, reading seeing LTR English mixed with RTL Hebrew was confusing.

So, either you're planning on upgrading to WP 2.8 when it's available, or you're using a funky locale reading cute characters from right to left, upgrade to version 3.2 now!

Ho, by the way: the plugin is nearing 100,000 downloads on the plugin repository, and is currently listed as the #1 highest rated plugin of all times in the whole universe. Thanks a million to all of you, users!

It seems Jeff Atwood from Coding Horror has found a new way to identify spam:

comments by women are so rare on my blog that when I see a female name in the comments it is 95% likely to be spam. Sad but true.

Hey. Fun but sad but true, I'd say :)

Troy's Twitter Script for Greasemonkey is the definitive power tool for Twitter addicts. The feature list of this tiny script is amazing: my favorite is media embedding (view pictures or Youtube videos right from within Twitter), Retweet button, on the fly link shrinking when writing and expanding when reading, and much more.

Check the full description with screenshots on @ArtemR's Beer Planet (which is not about beer)

custom wp is a gallery of websites that are powered by WordPress with a twist. Unique designs, interesting usages, cool examples of what people would rightfully call "WordPress as a CMS" if WordPress was not already a CMS. While you're at it, have a look a their WordPress People page, tracking the activity of 50 peeps that blog mostly about WP.

(Found via @SingleFunction)

I've recently stumbled upon SingleFunction, a site showcasing sites with one function and one purpose. The site shows a gallery of refreshing web services: most of the time, their designs are clean and uncluttered, their functions are simple, either fun and pointless or with a real use. As a bonus, SingleFunction is also powered by an interesting WordPress theme.

Definitely a cool addition to your RSS reader, or to your Twitter friends (@SingleFunction)

One of Twitter's cool features is that you can really customize your profile, in particular with any background you want. Doing this, you are soon facing a design constraint: Twitter is a fixed width centered column, and your background image will be aligned from the top left corner. So despite all your artistic efforts, your background might just look dull or clumsy if visitors viewing your profile are not using the same screen resolution as yours.

To help with designing a background that fits every desktop resolution (from 1024×768 to 1900×1200), I made a convenient Photoshop template (.psd file).
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