Adobe hasn't officially ported Adobe AIR to Linux yet, but Ubuntu Unleashed figured out that you can install AIR using the WINE windows emulation layer for Linux. Installation isn't exactly painless, and when all is said and done, there are a bunch of AIR applications that won't run. But some will.

Note that the instructions at Ubuntu Unleashed tell you how to install Adobe AIR beta 3. But read on and we'll show you how to install Adobe AIR 1.0.

Twitter's alright if you like to keep hitting refresh on a static web page. But we like our social software to be a bit more interactive. Desktop Twitter clients like Snitter do a great job of making Twitter feel more like an instant messaging platform and less like a web service. You receive a notification whenever someone you're following posts a new tweet, and you can quickly post new messages or replies.

The only drawback is that Snitter doesn't let you login to more than one account at a time. So if you maintain separate accounts for work and personal tweets, you can only use one at a time. Fortunately, there's Twhirl.

Twhirl has pretty much all the same features as Snitter, and like Snitter, it's built on Adobe AIR which means you can use the Twitter client on a Mac or PC. Plus it lets you login to multiple accounts. For example, we were able to monitor and update the Download Squad Twitter account at the same time as a personal account.

Twhirl also offers some nice customization options. For example, you can change the font of tweets, schedule how often the program will check for new messages, and determine how notifications will be displayerd.

[via Digital Inspiration]

Ever wish you didn't have to visit 20 different web sites to keep up with your friends on social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter? 8hands has you covered.

8hands is a desktop client that displays all the latest updates from all of those sites as well as media updates from your YouTube and Flickr contacts. All you have to do is download and install 8hands and you'll almost never need to visit a web page to keep up with all of the latest news from your friends. If you want to hit up one of those web sites though, all you have to do is click the icon for the service you want to visit and 8hands will pull up a web browser.

8hands is also a fairly competent replacement for desktop Twitter clients like Snitter and Twitterific. The client displays all the latest tweets from your friends in an optional pop up window. And you can send out tweets by changing your status line, although there's no easy way to reply to a tweet by clicking on it and there's no tinyurl integration.

With a plethora of other methods to post to the 140 character short message service, why do we need another? Snitter could be why.

Yes it takes a download of the Adobe AIR runtime, but what is 9mb's really? Nothing nowadays. Sure it has its good and bad, but give it a shot if you haven't already. DownloadSquad covered it here. Snitter started out as a little project by Jonathan Snook to test out Adobe's AIR. And why did he pick Twitter as a good API to use it with? Bad feelings about the Twitter website that he felt he could upgrade a little. The application works on both Mac's and PC's thanks to Adobe AIR, and is a quick download. It is a compact application that sits on the desktop much like an IM, and can be resized to fit in nicely with what's going on in your space. Tabs make it easy to check out the archive, replies, friends, and followers list, with a clear tweets button and refresh tweets button to clean your space. Messages that are sent directly to you with @, get highlighted which makes them stand out. One drawback is that only the past 20 recent items on your timeline show, which is a little annoying at times especially if you didn't have time to check in one day.

It's a great tool for Tweeting if you don't mind installing the Adobe runtime.