TwitRand will then use a script to pick a completely random user from your desired group as the contest winner. You can also use TwitRand to pick a random person from group of people who have ReTweeted the same thing. To use that option simple enter the URL or phrase and TwitRand randomly pick one of the ReTweeters as the winner. However, the number of ReTweeters must not be more than 1,500 people for this option to work.

It is a simple tool that does not require any download or registration and takes less than 30 seconds to pick up a random winner.

1. Using Proxy Sites

The web is packed with lots of free proxy web sites that you can use to get on Twitter. That said, sometimes paying a small monthly subscription fee for accessing Facebook or Twitter might be worthy. Such a paid service that you might want to check is Unblock-Twitter.com. Once you sign up for a free account, you will receive a user name, password as well as a totally random URL that you can use to access your account at Twitter.com. Although the service isn’t free, it might be valuable for you if you use Twitter for everyday communication with your peers and friends.

2. Use Browser Add-ons:

You don’t even need to go to a website to access your Twitter account. Simply use one of the many add-ons that allow you to access Twitter right from your browser toolbar. Some really good ones are Friendbar and Twitzer.

3. Use Plug-ins:

If you are at work, chances are you regularly use Microsoft Outlook for your email. Why not integrate Twitter with Outlook for easy, secure and anonymous access. The plug-in lets you do almost everything that you would do on Twitter.com. Download the plug-in here.

4. Use 3rd party apps:

Chances are your administrator has blocked Twitter.com and some of the popular Twitter websites like Brizzly and HootSuite. As an alternate you can use one of the less popular ones like tDash, gTwit or Twimply.

These are some of the ways you can access Twitter from work or school – please make sure that you use them responsibly – don’t do anything that can put your job or academic career in jeopardy.

Are you aware of other ways to unblock Twitter you can think of? Feel free to share them with others.

Facebook Toolbar

Facebook Toolbar allows you to easily search Facebook from anywhere, connect with your friends, share content by sending the page you are currently browsing to your friends or posting it to your profile, upload photos, add a caption and tag them. This add-on even notifies you when your friends update their statuses or write a new note and much more.

FacePAD

Facebook Photo Album Downloader more commonly known as FacePAD lets you simply download your friends’ Facebook albums all together with just one click. It is one of the simplest tools to save images from Facebook easily and quickly.

Friendbar  – The Twitter and Facebook Toolbar

Friendbar shows a flow of photo and text updates on the toolbar itself, lets you post updates and lets you like, comment, update, retweet, dm, and reply right from the toolbar. No need to open any extra web page or widget, do everything right from the toolbar on top of your browser.

Twitter Search

Twitter Search is a search plug-in that provides you with speedy access to the real-time Twitter search. Simply installing the plug-in adds Twitter to the list of your browser search engines so you don’t need to open a new window everytime you want to search Twitter for something.

TwitrPix Express

TwitrPix Express for Firefox is a top photo sharing tool for Twitter users. This add-on allows you to immediately upload and share any photo from any web site on Twitter without exiting the site you are on. A link to your photo and status update will be visible on Twitter instantly.

TwittyTunes

TwittyTunes lets you post your presently playing songs to Twitter. Additionally, you can post the websites you’re surfing, videos you’re viewing and lots more.

Twitzer – Twitter more!

Twitzer – Twitter more! is a Firefox extension that allows you to post text lengthier than 140 characters on Twitter. Furthermore, it offers a feature which lets you resolve Tiny URL links to actual links to guarantee that you are clicking on secure links.

Power Twitter

Power Twitter improves Twitter by adding features to the Twitter Web interface including @mentions of friends on profile pages, photo uploading, custom settings and much more.

Some of these provide you a quicker access to your desired features while some work to bring you a more efficient social networking experience. Which one is your favorite? Can you think of any others to add to the list?

Tweetie

Tweetie is one of the best Twitter clients for the iPhone. Tweetie lets you easily manage several Twitter accounts at once, survey all of Twitter, from your own timeline and mentions to the favorite tweets of your followers and friends. It also lets you read, tweet, favorite, follow, save to Instapaper and more even when you’re offline and offers many more features.

Twittervision

Twittervision is a real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter for the iPhone. You can watch what’s going on around the world in real time, find people near you, and also search the Twitter conversation feed for keywords and terms. You can also update Twitter with your current location, discover what people are talking about and view web links right inside the Twittervision browser application.

Tweetsville

Tweetsville for iPhone features a very lengthy timeline and also fetches all of the tweets since your last visit. It lets you search the newest hot topics using Trends and allows you access to all your direct messages in an SMS like interface, so you can view your past conversations with each Twitter user. You can also search the Twitterverse, view details of tweets and much more.

Twitfire

Twitfire makes posting to Twitter easy and powerful. You may take a picture with your camera or select an existing picture from your library and Twitfire will upload it to twitpic.com and insert the URL in your tweet. Browse the web and insert links using the built in web browser, Twitfire will automatically shorten the URL before inserting it into your tweet, send your current location to Twitter, insert a Google Map URL to your current location and let you browse and reply to your followers. It also offers a cool shake to erase function.

Twapper

Twapper lets you monitor Twitter feeds from your phone’s browser—a nice alternative to constant SMS alerts. Twapper, designed for mobile browsers, lets you view and bookmark the messages from any Twitter user.

iTweets

iTweets is a twitter application for iPhone mainly focusing on minimalism yet supporting Twitter specific features. iTweets is completely modifiable through the standard settings page. You can alter the colour of the tweets based on the sort so that you can simply classify important tweets like replies and direct tweets.

Twiltr

Twiltr’s core function is to let you filter your tweet stream. So even though you can’t make groups, you can have a filtered view of tweets from the people you really want to follow, as well as save keyword filters (i.e. searches).

LaTwit

LaTwit is a micro-blogging client that lets you read and send posts on Twitter or any Laconi.ca based social networking site. Worthy of note is multiple account support, URL shorteners, Ping.fm posting, the ability to hide users, custom font sizes, and exchangeable tabs.

Twittelator

Twittelator is packed with over 200 features: Email, Retweet, and copy tweets, Trending Topics, Autorefresh, Unlimited drafts and offline tweeting, handle multiple Twitter accounts and more. The app may be rich in functionality (there’s a help button, ideal for emergency situations), but it is not very user-friendly and eventually, might be a disappointment to many.

Twinkle

Twinkle is a Twitter app for iPhone which lets you discover, connect, and send messages to people nearby, upload photos and update your Twitter account.  Contact old friends and make new ones, all with Twinkle, the location-aware network for the iPhone.

Twitterific

Twitterific is the award-winning mobile Twitter client that’s user-friendly and full of well-designed features like, managing multiple accounts, searching Twitter quickly, filtering tweets, and much more.

Twitterfon

This app focuses on providing basic features in a quick, stable package. There are only four screens in the app: a stream of tweets from the people you follow; replies to you; direct messages; and search (including location-based search). TwitterFon feels slightly bare but for purist tweeters, it’s the ideal package.

Gyazickr

Gyazickr is a Twitter app for iPhone specially for people who like to share their photos with other twitter friends. Take a snap using your iPhone and post it to twitter directly. You can also opt to crop photos and have photos hosted on Gyazickr, TwitPic, or Tumblr.

Twitterboost

This app frequently suggests a random twitterboost user and gives you the option to follow or skip them with one tap.

Tweeter

All you can tweet. However, Tweeter gives you no image upload or Twitter viewing options.

Ziibii

Ziibii ropes updates from many of the most popular social networks and media sites, allowing you to check your feeds on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, as well as add feeds from the Web, on a single iPhone app.

Nambu

Nambu’s iPhone app brings popular desktop client features to your phone. You can fully engage with Twitter and FriendFeed, update Identi.ca, post to Ping.fm, upload to pic.im (and view images), and create tr.im URLs. This app is certainly worth checking out.

NatsuLion

NatsuLion’s got all the basics covered – though users would love to have the facility to add photos and retweet. One awesome feature is the option users have to view their Twitter friends’ conversations.

JustUpdate

This app provides a quick loading (on edge and WiFi) field to post updates to Twitter without having to pay for an SMS, complete with a characters remaining counter. JustUpdate also attempts to ensure that during a network malfunction, or a Twitter failure, your update isn’t lost. This app has no follower feed, no friends, and no features: just a text box for you to post directly to Twitter.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is your mobile browser for staying connected with what’s happening on Twitter and Facebook from your iPhone. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to the minute regardless of where you are. You can make groups, explore Twitter, handle multiple accounts, and easily post your tweets or share photos, videos, links and much more.

With these Twitter apps, you can do almost anything from your iPhone that you can do from a desktop or web-based application. Packed with all the advanced features, these apps give your mobile phone complete control over your social network. Do you access Twitter from your iPhone? What is your Favorite Twitter app for the iPhone.

Among the best Twitter clients, TweetDeck is a handy dandy tool compatible with Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, that helps you stay updated in all your Social Circles. Be it Facebook or Twitter, TweetDeck keeps you informed and allows you to update your status with ease. You can also save your Twitter searches as a separate column and retweet with a single click.

2. Nambu:

Currently in private beta, Nambu is a Mac OS X based Client that provides easy access for multiple Twitter accounts (Here’s a comprehensive list of web apps you can use for managing multiple Twitter accounts). The interface is a creative three- window-view, enabling the user to multi-task simultaneously. A sleek navigation menu on the left makes Nambu a great Twitter tool.

3. DestroyTwitter:

DestroyTwitter is an AIR-based application that enables you to receive updates instantly without having to go online and log in to Twitter. It is a low memory based application and can easily run in the background without putting any load on the performance of the system. It is compatible with all different operating systems.

4. Tweetie For Mac:

Tweetie for Mac is a simple yet greatly functional tool for Twitter. Use of stylized icons instead of words makes this app more interesting.

5. Digsby:

Digsby is another popular desktop based IM client that also supports Twitter.

6. Skimmer:

Skimmer is an awesome Twitter client focused on displaying inline media. It integrates streams from Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

7. Tweetr:

Tweetr is a sweet application to help the user easily share files with fellow Tweeters. Just drag and drop files and a link is automatically created for your file. You can also upload your newest pics live from your webcam.

8. Twitterlicious:

Twitterlicious is a windows based application that lets you read and write tweets without any hassle. A handy dandy nifty little tool that doesn’t take up much space, and refreshes itself from time to time to ensure you’re up to the mark.

9. Twhirl:

Twhirl is a cute little Adobe AIR based application that notifies the user on any new activity, and manages different social network service accounts in one place. Compared with other similar apps, Twhirl has a rather colorful interface that adds to the overall experience.

10. DigiTweet:

Digitweet is another excellent desktop client app for Twitter. Just hover on a shortened URL and a small pop-up window will display the destination URL.

11. Twunami:

Twunami is another Twitter desktop application that lets you tweet, retweet, super tweet and much much more with ease. It has a built-in spell-checker, workspace customization and a number of other features. In short, it takes a professional approach to Twitter.

12. Twitterrific:

Twitterrific is a cute little  application that is user friendly and very simple. It is designed for Mac OS and is very efficient in occupying screen space.

13. Alert Thingy:

Alert Thingy is your own personal social desktop. Now you can send Tweets, update your Facebook status, upload photos to Flickr, and more. For business users Alert Thingy promises Yammer, Basecamp and Huddle integrations. Talk about being the jack of all trades.

14. Toro:

Toro‘s is another simple Twitter client with a clean navigation menu and more than enough features for an average user.

These 14 tools eliminate the need to go online every time you want to use Twitter. Do you use any of these? What other tools do you think should be added to the list?

Stay tuned for more on Twitter. In the mean time, feel free to follow us on Twitter.