meta_robert

An interesting issue has begun to take the front seat for BeTwittered, our Twitter client for iGoogle. Load on a server is a simple problem. More load requires more CPU, RAM, bandwidth, etc. Very uncomplicated, yes? Now, ignoring other factors, like web server setup and optimization, other services running on the server, etc; what if we complicate this simple equation by throwing in a messaging application? Being ignorant in creating BeTwittered, it never occurred to me that I was creating a messaging application. more »

Here is a link to a LifeHacker story about Prism. Feature: Create Distraction-Free, Customized Webapps with Prism Prism really has my attention and imagination. I REALLY like how I can run BeTwittered as if it were a regular desktop application. There it is, floating about like a normal window on my desktop. No modifications required from the little web-app it really is. There are a couple issues I have, like lack of packaging things up like a regular, everyday application installer. Another is that web links open in a new Prism window, not my browser. I may find that there are simple solutions to these issues, I haven’t looked yet (tonight!) I look at Adobe’s AIR, and sigh. Sure, AIR has local system access to your PC, but I’m really not sure how big an advantage that is, and how long it will last. Plus, AIR is..well..Adobe proprietary, and probably brings a lot of crap and baggage. I have a hard time trusting Adobe. I mean, Acrobat reader is now something nearing a 20mb download. Holy crap! It’s supposed to be a READER! And why all the advertising baggage? And NO, I don’t want a photo album organizer with it. Quit asking! What the hell is that about? So, anyway, Prism looks nice. :^)

I’ve really had a lot of fun writing and updating BeTwittered.
I’ve found that just creating a bit of software that other people freely choose to use is very satisfying. I’m not a programmer in my day job, so I’m getting to learn a lot as I go, too. That’s all fun. But I recently gained a new friend, which is coincidentally benefiting BeTwittered and dovetailing right into the whole programming part of my life outside work. This should get really interesting as we’re very similar, but also complement each other well in the technical arena. Scott, if you are reading this and it sounds a bit mushy, don’t worry, I’m not going to get a couple of beers into me and do the whole “I love you man!” routine. Well, maybe I will because I’m really weird and I think it would be funny, but you have my permission to punch my eye or my mouth, but not both. Any don’t bend my fingers, I need those to type. And no hair pulling because that’s for sissy nerds and we’re “tough, manly nerds”

I got a bit of a lesson this morning.  I updated BeTwittered, and was very pleased.  Well, until I noticed that the formatting was junk.  What did I learn?  Stylesheets get cached, and pretty liberally.  So if you were using BeTwittered this morning, and it suddenly looked a bit clunky, my apologies.  One interesting thing, IE was better than Firefox in this case.  It surprised me that IE picked up the changes when I closed it and re-opened.  Firefox was VERY stubborn…  So, here’s the “official” notice.

I need a bit of help. I’d like to make a couple of improvements to BeTwittered, but I have a couple of questions I need some feedback on. I’m wondering if you (if you use BeTwittered) would like me to add those “posted about 1 hour ago” type of timestamps to messages. I really like them, but I’m not sure how important they are to everyone else. I suppose I could just put them in as an option. Question for you, then: Would you rather have the timestamps on or off by default?

The other bit of help I need is from Mac users. I can test on Linux and Windows using Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera. Some of you (quite a few actually) are Mac users. Any information about BeTwittered from Mac users would be really great. What do you like about it? What is wrong with it for you? Does it look “nice”? If someone wouldn’t mind sending me a screen-shot, that would be very appreciated. I’d like to make sure it looks good for you, too.

You can comment here by clicking the “comments” link, just a bit down the page from here, before the next article. You can also use the link for feedback at the top of BeTwittered, or just send an email to codemonkey@32hours.com, which is the mailbox I use for BeTwittered communications.

I’ve been hacking about in PHP again.  Found that my use of ereg was outdated by pcre’s preg while listening to PHP Architects  “Pro PHP podcast.” Besides these archane regular expression changes internally, I’ve made some nice changes to BeTwittered, my Twitter gadget for Google homepage.  I’ve made clickable links of replies Now, clicking on an @username will take you to that users homepage.  I’ve also added a settings page, and moved the logout button there with the new “no pics” option.  I felt moving the logout option was a good idea.  I always felt a bit concerned that when clicking “refresh” that the logoff link was a little bit to close for comfort.  You can get general BeTwittered info, and find a link to add it to your iGoogle page >here<

I spent a bit of time this morning adding to my error handling in BeTwittered. Around 8am there was a bit of a service issue at, I believe, the Twitter server end, but I had no way to confirm it. I was, as my own customer, just getting my own “OOPS, something went wrong” please stand by sort of message. The problem is that I used the PHP file_get_contents() function, which does not return HTTP error codes, and when using Twitters HTTP API, that’s key for error handling. To make a long story short: I discovered that, although the function does not return the HTTP status codes, that status DOES get stored in the global variable $http_response_header. Are you geeky enough to want to see how I captured this info? Then read on… more »

BeTwittered has been on Google as a homepage gadget for a couple of weeks now. Today I created a mobile version that is more useable on a phone -> http://32hours.com/betwittered. You can follow the link to have a look, even from your computer. This version drops some things like automatic refreshing every few minutes, and is a bit more simplistic in order to be “lighter” for use on a phone. If you run it from your computer, be aware that it’s intended for small screens. If you like it and you use Google’s homepage, check out BeTwittered for iGoogle!

Do you have an iPhone?  If you do, and you check out  BeTwittered, please let me know how it looks.  I don’t have one to test on yet and would REALLY appreciate the feedback.

I’m really thinking seriously about getting an iPhone, but only for testing purposes, of course. I would never buy a cool gadget because I’m drawn to cool gadgets like a cat to the other side of the street. OK, so I do want one because they’re cool. But I would really like to get my Twitter Gadget (BeTwittered) working on mobile phones, and I really think the iPhone would be a great platform for it. I’ve already got a large percentage of users on Mac’s. Not that iPhone users are necessarily Mac users. But I think that’s an indicator, and the Apple customer is generally a devoted, tech-savvy one. Plus, I think I should get an iPhone.

If you already use BeTwittered, let me know what you think. Do you also have a mobile device? What kind? You can reply here, or use the feedback link in BeTwittered and send me an email. As a matter of fact, let me know what you think about the app itself. What do you like or hate? What do you think it needs?

I’m going to be working on mobile device compatibility today. I’d also like to set it up so you can use it from its own web page, rather than only being useful as an iGoogle gadget.

I’ve made some more improvements to my Twitter Gadget for Google / iGoogle. Check it out, follow the link to 32hours.com -> The Latest Changes - TwitteGadget for iGoogle