I've made a couple additions and modifications to iTweet this week, they are lots of fun and add some great functionality!
In the Web interface I've added Statistics to your profile in the top right - so you can see at a glance your number of updates, favorites, following and followers. This updates itself as you tweet, fave and follow. There is also an "Appearance" preference in the Settings menu - you can keep the default iTweet look OR import your Twitter profile's appearance - background image, font colors, sidebar color and everything!
If you are wondering "where did the nifty follow/notifications/block buttons go?", I have moved them all to the Profile pages to make better use of the API and make these methods more intuitive. The old method assumed whether you were following a person or not based on the timeline they were found in; this was a little confusing and inconvenient, so I've moved it to the Profile page. Here the page can tell (via the Twitter API call) whether you are following that person or not, and present the correct options depending on that status.
There's also an "is so-and-so following me?" button so you can see if that person is following you, and a "Twittering Since" date that shows when that person joined Twitter. That part has been interesting to me as it's neat to see how long someone has been part of the Twitter community. That data is made available via the Twitter API, although for some reason you can't find that info about a user on twitter.com - another reason to use iTweet!
The Following and Profile methods are the same for both the Web interface and the iPhone interface. I love hearing feedback from users; that's been an important part of the development process for me and interacting with the community of iTweet fans is really half the fun for me. So please use the contact section of iTweet or this website to email me your thoughts, feature requests, etc. And keep on tweeting!
Leave comments on this blog, or let's talk on Twitter or Facebook.
There's a great new way to follow hot topics using iTweet.net!
Twitter just made a great addition to their Search API: Twitter Trends! This method allows you to see the hot topics of discussion across the entire Twitterverse. This is a neat way to keep up on breaking news, technology trends, political sentiments, or the latest Internet meme that everyone's tweeting about.
When I hear about some fresh news or tech rumor, I do a quick Twitter search before I go to any news website; it's a great way to find a wealth of links to pertinent content across the Web.
I've added the Twitter Trends method to both the iPhone and the Web version of iTweet.net. I think it will become a fun way to keep up on current events, and to entertain myself when I'm stuck in line at the bank. ;) Enjoy!
Leave comments on this blog, or let's talk on Twitter or Facebook.
A major upgrade to the iPhone version, and an all new app for the Web!
Today I'm releasing a major upgrade to iTweet, an interface for Twitter that is one of my pet projects. This is a double release: a hugely improved iPhone Web app, and an all-new interface for any Web browser.
Beginning with the iPhone app, there are some key features to note:
Tap user pictures to toggle bio information. This section allows you to see a user's location, bio, and URL. There are quick links to send a DM, view extended profile, turn notifications on/off, block, and follow/unfollow.
"In reply to" links allow you to see the tweet a person was replying to, without loading a new page.
Monitor your remaining API requests using the number in the "refresh" button.
Update (and check) your location from the Settings menu.
Change your notifications device, get more detailed API usage info, set hashtags preferences, and more from the Settings menu.
Vastly improved speed in loading all timelines.
As before, a basic rule of thumb with iTweet goes: tap the avatar to see a person's profile, tap the username to see a person's tweets.
There is also a contact form on the About page, please use this for feature requests and bug reports! (It sends messages directly to my email so you will get a quick response, especially if you're following me and I can DM you.) <3
The Web interface has all the same features as the above, but adds some more information that doesn't fit on a tiny iPhone screen:
Detailed user info and API limit info available at top right.
Speed Tweet mode! Hitting the "Return" key from the text-entry field will send your tweet, more like an IM client than the Twitter website. Give it a try! I love it... if you don't you can turn that feature off using the Settings menu.
Really simple method for sending DM's, I use this one all the time too.
User profile pages are missing information for most users. Also profile information such as "last update" are running behind something like 5-18 hours. This is due to a bug in the Twitter API which I have reported here. I will post an update when this is fixed. This will allow some very cool functions to be brought back to the Web version especially!
This new video sharing site lets you share video face to face, in real time!
For one long year, my fiancée and I lived in different states (before we were engaged and parents and stuff). I don't recommend the long-distance relationship to anybody who likes the person they are with, but sometimes it's unavoidable. We found that it took a LOT of telephone time, and we also explored some creative solutions to spend time together as well. One of our favorites was the long-distance movie date - while talking on the phone we would rent the same movie and watch it together while we talked on the phone. The trick to it was starting the movie at the exact same time, so we could share the laughs and surprises without annoying each other. You can picture how this went:
"One... two... three... press play!" "Did you start it?" "Yeah. How close did we get?" "Umm... OK the credits are starting..."
And so on. If we had done it correctly, we could comfortably watch the movie together while talking on the phone. If we had done it incorrectly, we started over. It was kind of fun, if you looked past the hassle of trying to sync the movie.
Enter nxtgen.tv: Shared Video on Demand. This video sharing site allows you to share video with people, in realtime, online. The syncing of the video is handled automagically, and you can actually discuss the action live, via webcams and/or group text chat.
Sign up and send your personalized channel URL to your friends along with a time to meet there. Then you control the action: when you start a video, or pause it, your friends see the same thing in real time!
The patented core technology of the app was invented by a couple sharp individuals who brought it to The Illusion Factory along with a Facebook app and their great idea. Since then we have hammered it into a working demo app and started to show it off a little bit. Enough interest has been raised that I've recently been given the OK to "go nuts" with the project, wheeeee!
A "movie date" between two people is just one application of this technology; I am also working on some different configurations, for giving presentations, providing unique customer service, and collaborating on video editing. I am also building out the social aspects of the site. Soon I hope to launch a new version with full-fledged social and sharing features! So stay tuned for lots more from nxtgen.tv ... but until then I would invite anyone who is interested to sign up for our demo site and give it a try! We are always interested in user feedback, especially from you, web-savvy individual that you are.
This technology is available for license in any custom format, be it entertainment, service, media, or enterprise. We think nxtgen.tv is a lot of fun and there are many possibilities for the technology... if you can imagine shared video having any synergy with your product or service, drop me a line!
You will need these if you're working with ImageFields in Django.
I have been building my first site using the Python-based development framework Django and it is really fantastic! I am picking up some of it very fast (the concept of templates and template tags, for example) because of my experience with the PHP-based CMS ExpressionEngine, and some of it is totally foreign to me... but as I muddle through it, I can tell that I've begun to learn some very powerful tools, especially once I got Django working with the jQuery javascript library.
When working with images such as profile avatars, you need to have the Python Imaging Library installed, which also means installing the libjpeg library to compile PIL. I found a couple articles here and here but it seemed that only part of each worked for me. Last night I installed everything again on my PowerBook running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.4, so I recorded the combination that worked for me:
1. If you haven't already, you must install the Apple Development Tools (XCode). 2. Download and install the Unix software installer Fink. The binary installers for the Mac worked great, both on my Intel and PowerPC machines. 3. Open a Terminal window and type:
