[Blindtlk] McTwit 2.5 released

[Jamal Mazrui]

McTwit
Version 2.5
October 15, 2009

McTwit is a free, open source client for Twitter -- the second-most
popular networking site after Facebook.  McTwit works on almost any
version of Windows, including 64-bit versions and the new Windows 7.  The
text-based nature of Twitter and its open programming interface has
enabled McTwit to become a full-featured client that is keyboard and
screen reader-friendly.  An executable installer is available at
http://EmpowermentZone.com/mtsetup.exe

A zip archive that may be extracted onto portable media is available at
http://EmpowermentZone.com/mtsetup.zip

McTwit now has a greatly expanded Utilities menu.  It offers handy ways of
getting useful information, which is obtained mostly from third-party web
services rather than from twitter.com, itself.  Most are still directly
Twitter-related, though a few are general-purpose conveniences. The new
utilities are as follows:

Common URLs - Show a list of the 100 most commonly referenced URLs on
Twitter at the time.  These typically point to news stories that people
have been retweeting.

Driving Directions - Input a starting and ending location, and get a list
of steps to get there by car (a blind person might share this with a
friend or cab driver).  The location may be specified as a street address
in any country.

  Feed Find - Get a list of RSS and ATOM feeds made available by a web
site, e.g., by pointing to a URL in a tweet.  A hotkey then lets you open
a feed at the cursor position.

Hash Tag Lookup - Get definitions of hash tags (a word preceded by the #
symbol).  People on Twitter use these to annotate messages for easier
categorizing and searching.

Language Translation - Translate a tweet in another language, or any text
you specify, between about 100 different languages.  You can quickly
understand what a foreign phrase means or how to write it.

Members of Congress - Get a list of House and Senate members for a zip
code, with various data about them including committee assignments and
contact information, including Twitter screen name if available.

Neighborhood Search - Search for places near a location, e.g., restaurants
with a particular cuisine near an address you are visiting (anywhere in
the world).

Original URL - Get the original version of a URL that was shortened for
sharing in a tweet.

People Search - Search for people on Twitter, e.g., an old classmate to
reconnect with.

Short URL - Get a shortened version of a URL so you can share it in a
tweet and have more text to type within the 140 character limit.

Trend Topics - Get a list of topics that are currently popular on Twitter.

User Stats - Get a variety of statistics about a user, e.g., average
tweets per day and hash tags used, in order to help you decide whether to
follow him or her on Twitter.

Weather Check - Get a summary of current and forecasted conditions for any
location.


Jamal