This tutorial covers the very basics of creating an Adobe AIR application that will work on Mac, Windows and Linux. It will show you what software to install and how to turn some web code into an Adobe AIR application. You will get enough information to get you started and from there you can create the next great Adobe AIR application.

Step 1. Get Aptana Studio – It’s free. http://www.aptana.com

Get Aptana Studio

Step 2. Get the Adobe AIR plug-in for Aptana Studio. http://www.aptana.com/air

Step 3. Create a new project in Aptana by going to File -> New and choosing Adobe AIR Project.

With Twitter exploding in popularity in every direction, there are a lot of newbies that will not quite know what’s going on or who to follow. So I decided to write down the 9 things I look at when I determine who to follow on Twitter and who not to follow.

First of all, do not follow everyone who follows you. Some are legit, some are automated, some are spam, and not all of them are worth connecting up with. You get the most out of Twitter if you choose to follow only those who you are really interested in.

As the web continues to evolve, and more and more people are empowered to create their own sites, there is little to no concern for those on slower connections.

It’s been said that 10% of U.S. households still use dial-up internet to access the web.  This could be due to the lack of high speed options in their area, unwillingness to pay the $50+ a month for high speed, or no real need to go faster.

I’ve become a fan of Ping.fm and its mass notification abilities.  However, I wanted to update my Ping.fm status without navigating away from the page I was on.  So I created the Ping.fm Mobile Sidebar for Firefox.

Much like my many other Firefox sidebars, it simply works as a shortcut to access the mobile version of a site.  This time it’s Ping.fm.

Yes, you could easily do this with a bookmark in Firefox, but I prefer to have an icon in my toolbar and a keyboard shortcut at my disposal.

Have you heard about Twitterkeys?  It’s a site that puts together a list of special characters that you can just copy and paste and put into a Twitter post.

Where as they are marketing to Twitter, these symbols work great for Plurk, ReJaw, Facebook, email or whatever you want to use them with.

Twitterkeys offers lots of different symbols from hearts to stars and even a snowman.  I think there are about 200 symbols to choose from.

Check them out as it may come in handy.

A few days ago Plurk came out with the ability to customize your profile with your own CSS code.  I put my skills to work and created my first Plurk theme!

It’s a bit darker, to match my website, and comes with rounded boxes, a unified timeline and colors that pop.

You can get a better feel for it by viewing my Plurk Profile.

Want the theme?  No problem.

Install TwisterMc’s Plurk Theme

Want to edit the code?  Go ahead.  Just remember to give me a little credit for the time I spent creating the theme.  You can grab the code by installing it and then editing your Plurk profile and customizing it.

I’m a big fan of Plurk, a micro blogging platform, that is often compared to Twitter.  It has basically taken me away from Twitter by fixing some of my big Twitter concerns.  The more I use Plurk, the more I realize how many limitations and issues Twitter currently has.

Here are a few reasons why I like Plurk better than Twitter:

1. Inline Replies – Keeping conversations together.  This really makes it feel like a community of users and not just a string posts.  In Twitter, when someone replied to a Tweet I put up yesterday, it was hard to follow the conversation.  Plurk however, keeps everything together.

I realized that the code I wrote for SocialAddict on Adobe Air could easily translate into a web application.  So I tossed the files up online and now it’s accessible everywhere.

Check it out: http://twistermc.com/s

What’s cool about this is you can use it in a few different ways.

1 – Use it without Adobe Air.

2 – Load it in Firefox’s sidebar.  Just visit the URL above, bookmark the page and be sure to check the ‘Load in Sidebar’ box.  Now whenever you click on the bookmark, it’ll pop-open.

After my recent success with Plurkit, I decided to take the idea to the next level and add in more social sites.  The outcome is SocialAddict which has 11 social sites within one Adobe Air application.

What SocialAddict does is loads the mobile or iPhone version of each site for easy access.  Again, I didn’t tie into any APIs or do massive re-construction.  These are all previously available applications that have been tied together to make it quick and easy to go from one to the next.

Within SocialAddict you’ll find:

• BrightKite
• Facebook
• FriendFeed To Go

If you tried to download the iPhone Facebook sidebar extension or the latest MidnightFox theme beta, you may have noticed the button didn’t properly install the files. Instead it threw some odd error. This is an issue that effects mostly Windows users.

I’ve since been made aware of the issue and included a link to download the theme and extension file directly. Once downloaded, just open your addon’s window in Firefox, drag and drop them in and they should install.

Sorry about the confusion and thanks to those who brought it to my attention.