Wikipedia explains that "OAuth allows users to hand out tokens instead of credentials to their data hosted by a given service provider. Each token grants access to a specific site ... for specific resources ... and for a defined duration. ... This allows a user to grant a third party site access to their information stored with another service provider, without sharing their access permissions or the full extent of their data."

The concept of separating and limiting access to a service for specific by separating that from the user's login is a powerful one. For example, it makes revocation of access for a single application very simple so in the case of Twitter, with so many third-party applications providing alternative ways to access the service, switching to OAuth made a lot of sense.

The only problem with Twitter's switch was that all of the simple ways to update Twitter such as using cURL stopped working once Aug. 30 rolled around. Worse still, getting the likes of cURL to use OAuth turns out to be a real bear. Luckily, there is a service called , which acts as a proxy for applications so they can still access Twitter via basic authentication.

To use SuperTweet you simply sign into Twitter using SuperTweet and authorize the service to have access (the only thing SuperTweet won't be able to do is access your Twitter password). You then provide SuperTweet with some simple details about your application including an email address and the application name and you're good to go ... or rather, good to tweet.

Now SuperTweet can transparently handle OAuth for you and, using the SuperTweet interface instead of Twitter's, you can do you used to be able to do. Thus, using cURL: