The absence can be explained by the fact that my main computer these days is a Mac, so I'm not using Vista much at home, meaning that fixing Twadget's been low on my priorities.

But here's a release with a couple of bugfixes, plus a new feature:

• Clicking on a post's user name will start a new response with "@username"
• Unicode posting works. This also fixes the bug so that posting won't lose the "+" character any more.
• In expanded view, the relative dates are displayed once again.

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Any comments or questions, just leave 'em on this blog post. I read and appreciate them all. And as an aside, I'm aware that Twadget is pretty danged ugly (I'm a programmer, not a designer), so if anyone wants to volunteer to work on a new "skin", let me know.

UPDATE: Posting from Twadget is fixed again. Thanks to Blaine at Obvious for fixing things at Twitter.

• Twitter now limits you to 140 characters for your posts, so Twadget will respect that
• A fix for the problem where Twadget just can't see new posts for you, due to some goofy IE kludginess under the covers (Thanks to Omar Shahine for pointing me in the right direction for this fix)

Download

Any comments or questions, just leave 'em on this blog post. I read and appreciate them all.

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Update: Due to a screwup when I packaged this release, it wouldn't install. If you downloaded this release before the 20th January, please re-download and re-install it. Sorry!

I'm waiting to hear from them what the problem is -- Hopefully either they'll fix it, or I'll figure out a workaround, some time in the next day or two.

Sorry 'bout this!

UPDATE: Twitter fixed this within a day. Everything's back to normal. Hooray!

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None of this "neverending beta" nonsense for me! I'm calling this version 1.0. (OK, technically I'm calling it version 1.0.0.0 -- dunno why Microsoft are insisting on four decimal places, but who am I to argue?)

A little bit spruced-up codewise since the last release, and now with a lovely shell that looks all graphical and stuff. Thanks Paint.NET!

Also overdue a tip of my metaphorical cap: the awesomeness-on-toast that is jQuery, my Javascript library of choice, and responsible for things gliding in and out smoothly in the gadget.

If you're actually using this gadget, I'd love to hear from you. Just to know that one other fool out there has installed Vista and twitters on Twitter would make my day! Say hello at me at rod@begbie.com.

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Updated with a couple of bug fixes, and the ability to post to Twitter from the gadget. All, erm, none of you currently using the gadget should upgrade. (Thanks to the Googlebot for downloading a copy, though. That made me feel better.)

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OK, here's my first ever "gadget" release.

If you're one of the (estimated to be as many as three) people who use Twitter and are running Windows Vista, download the widget, drag it onto your sidebar or desktop, set your email address and password on the settings screen, and you should get a regularly updated flow of your friends' statuses.

I had a stab at creating one for Google Desktop a few weeks ago, but due to limitations in the Twitter API I was unsuccessful. Spurred on by the lovely OSX Dashboard widgets Twidget and Twitgit, I had a stab at Microsoft's gadget format, and despite it being a bit shit and barely documented, I've had more luck.

Currently, I've got a FUNCTIONAL_BUT_UGLY implementation in place, which I will upload shortly. Prettification, bugzapping, and improvementizing will all take place over the weekend.

(Oh, and the name is a truncation of Twitter gadget, obviously, and in no way related to the apparent slang term for a lady's front-bottom.)