If you are a Twitterer, you’ve probably received an unexpected direct message from a friend in the last couple of weeks that looked something like this:

or maybe this:

haha. This you???? http://foo.ws/KD7P

Whatever you do, DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK IN THE MESSAGES. These are examples of a rapidly-spreading Twitter hijacking “worm”.  I haven’t seen a good explanation of the how or why this is so prevalent, but when I see some even my most web-saavy friends (you know who you are), and even the Internet legend Cory Doctorow being duped, I figure it’s high time to make a post.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

While I don’t have any hard-and-fast info on how or why this is spreading, there are two easy things you can do:

1. Typical phishing-prevention steps: review all links before you click on them.  Does the URL say TWITTER.COM or does it say TWITTAR.BIZ? Yeah. I realize this might not be possible on a mobile device, so exercise caution.

2. Update your password to something complex. A little uppercase, a little lowercase, a number. e.g. FooB4r! (and no, that isn’t my password)

3. Check your “Connections” on Twitter. Review them all and remove any that look suspicious.

I am a Twitterer. A tweeter, a twit, whatever. I like Twitter specifically because they have made it so easy for you to use it from a mobile phone (or at least for other people to write applications that I can use on my mobile phone. I love the Twitpic integration in them that allows me to seamlessly upload photos from my mobile phone. It’s great… kinda.

A few months back, Kelly got an iPhone. That’s great. She can take all the photos she wants and do all sorts of magical stuff, because the iPhone has an application approval process that at least vets the application (they aren’t crashy or terrible). That is great for Kelly. There are tons of good Twitter applications for the iPhone.

Unfortunately,  I have a company-provided Windows Mobile phone, specifically the Samsung Blackjack II. It’s a good phone – it hooks up to my company’s email and has a good battery life. Windows Mobile, however, doesn’t have an “App Store” or a vetting process, which is both good (yay, free! open! do what you want!) and bad (why does this app eat memory like PacMan?).

This leads me to my search for a good, non-crashy, non-memory-hogging Twitter application for Windows Mobile. I’ve tried many, and the majority of them are “not good”, meaning they are either nonfunctional (ceTwitsp) or bizarrely interfaced, massive apps (PockeTwit). I say “majority” because they are not all terrible – in fact, there is one that I have found to be on the same level as an iPhone app as far as stability and usability – and that one, shining example is…

Twinkini.

It’s fast, it’s stable, it’s not a memory hog and I don’t have to fight it like some others to do what I want it to do. Yes, it’s a for-pay application, but it’s that good. I’m normally a big supporter of open-source, for-free software, but there just isn’t anything on this level.

Kudos, to yudos, Trinket Software.

And what’s more – it actually functions!