An outlet for my obsession with technology
Twitter Map Mashup
Jan 31st
I did a search the other day for the a new blog post I saw fly by on Twitter about the top 100 twitter applications and ended up re-reading a post from RRW about the top 10 twitter applications. Now the post is from 2007, so I am sure that the top 10 has changed quite a bit. What I took away from the article was a note about Twitter Atlas.
What’s it missing? The ability to get only your Twitter group’s tweets shown on the map.
First thought: really, that’s so silly there has to be a fun little mashup for that…and I on went to check out the top 100. Once there I pulled up all the map based apps…could not find anything that displayed, in easy fashion, the people you follow.
So, 4 hours later…damn I hate CSS…I need someone to do all my CSS work for me…its just not the part of coding that I like. Anyway, so I coded a mashup. You can guess what it does. Pop in a user, click and get the people they follow on a map. Then you can click on anyone they follow and do the same…its kinda fun and I waste a lot of time getting list in the network.
Downside, the twitter API requires auth to pull the total users..so I can’t tell how many people someone is follow, so I can’t figure out how many pages I need to request to get everyone. I only do one request.
Can anyone suggest a name?
Check it my twitter map mashup and let me know what you think…thanks!
Oh, anyone from ESRI..can I use your basemap data? I’d really like to redo this in the ArcGIS Server JS API….I think…
UPDATE: Crap its LATE!, I added a breadcrumb ..I think it encourages one to keep diving into the network. Which is really cool but without caching there is a huge number of requests to the google geocode service…yuck.. Next task…caching of markers…Late next week after I do some real client work…
Twitter’s looming business model
Jan 21st
In the light of the recent hire of Kevin Thau, someone with sales and business development experience. The pending rate limit seems to imply a more aggressive twitter.
Could cutting back on API limits be the first steps towards paid access to the API?
The API twitter provides is amazingly simple and, as such, has resulted in a tremendous amount of growth. That growth includes 3rd parties developing applications and business models around the API. These applications can often be stuffed into 2 categories. First, an application that sits directly on top of twitter and provides nothing more then 1 or 2 missing features. Second, being the “aggregator” style applications which attempts to combine twitters features with those of their direct competitors.
It would be hard to see how, beside growth, either of these two types of uses for the API could be seen as a positive for Twitter.
TweetDeck, Twhirl sure! single user, desktop, 100 request limit.
FriendFeed, Tweetree…not so much…
TechTweet release v0.3.1
Jan 20th
Today I decided to eat my own dog food…I uninstalled twhirl and tweetdeck from the PC I use daily. TechTweet will by my official twitter client from here on out! I hope TechTweet is stable enough to use, to highlight what needs work and to push me to keep updating it.
You can download the client, check the change log and provide feedback on the TechTweet page on the Technology Aces website.
Adobe Air, Twitter Client…Useable
Jan 12th
In my playing with Adobe AIR I started on Yet another Adobe Air Based Twitter Client…Its pretty useable as of today. here are some screen shots. I’ll be adding more features throughout the week.
Twitter Notify – A Windows Live Writer Twitter Plug-in
Jan 9th
Due to some issue, or possibly configuration, with the wordpress plug-in I have been using, my last few blog posts have not been announced on Twitter. After tweeting about my frustration - Joe Cheng told me about a Windows Live Writer plug-in that will pseudo automate the process of posting to twitter after a blog post.
The plug-in opens a dialog with a pre-populated tweet that includes the title and a nice tiny url. While I like the ability to customize the post content I would like the ability to have this done in the background.
So far I have the plug-in installed, check the options and started writing this post. We shall see how it works in a second!
Update: Everything worked as expected, Thanks Joe!
Why would I not code stuff using Adobe Air?
Jan 9th
Really, why have I waited so long to jump into a platform that is based on JavaScript…and HTML and CSS. Really, after spending 1.5 hours with Air I am totally amazed at my own stupidity. Oh’ and I started on YAAATC (Yet another adobe air twitter client) yaht-C…its like expresso and espresso…
Its rather late and I have to get up early…to go to work and code more Air stuff I guess…
UPDATED: Back to work! Bye Bye Pinggr
Jan 7th
I wanted to learn how to use facebook connect and ended up using FBC, Twitter, OpenID, some complex htaccess, got sick enough by the process (not having a PHP MVC framework to call my own) that I started on php.technologyaces.com
I have code that won’t write itself…
Also, I decided to dump the simple framework…I think Code Igniter is simple enough. I don’t have time to play developer…I am in need of cracking stuff out quick!
Pinggr – meta micro blogging
Jan 1st
Or just what I coded to I could lean how to use facebook connect…
Background
When facebook connect was released I wanted to code something to see how it all worked. I wanted to code something I could prop up relatively quick. Partly due to my lack of time but also because I have not released one single piece of software all year! I decided that, since I was just hopping into the land of twitter and I found it complicated to manage my twitter status and my facebook status, that I would write a small app that would allow me to update the status of each site either concurrently or independently.
Specifications
- support facebook connect : (100%)
- local uid/pass system : (80%)
- update facebook status : (100%)
- update twitter status : (100%)
- update local status : (100%)
- private status updates : (100%)
- support tags : (100%)
- support date/time updates (past, present and future) : (70%)
- provide meaningful statistics : (30%)
- support a public profile/time line page. http://pinggr.com/detroitpro : (50%)
- mobile version : (10%)
- simple API : (0%)
Out of scope
- Clone twitter
- I am thinking that it would more sit “on top” of the status update services.
- Full “router” support aka: act like ping.fm
Features I would like to add in the future
- Twitter style reply and dm
- openid support
- more status sites
Twitter is…
Dec 22nd
I just started using twitter…I know…yeah for me 
but until just recently I never understood twitter. I was of the mindset that Facebook status updates where the way to go. Compact, secure, great level of engagement – Until I started really using Twitter.
So, here is how my developer brain breaks down what twitter is and how its useful.
Twitter is a loosely coupled system where Facebooks implmentation of status updates is ….um…not loose coupling
Man…that is a horrable analogy! Can someone do better…PLEASE
