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About the Twitter Downgrades

And our tumultuous relationship with the Bluebird of Happiness/Crappiness...

Twitter API Limit Downgrade Twitter has decided to remove a certain call from their API that the iTweet 2 private beta relied on to create the "ticker" effect that kept it updating at nearly real-time speeds.  The rate limit for API calls also remains handicapped, cut to 30 per hour from the usual 70.  This makes using Twitter API tools extremely inconvenient, and developing them is also quite frustrating. For now I have removed the "ticker" feature and the friends timeline will refresh every 140 seconds, though this number may be adjusted slightly as I attempt to keep the page open and in use today.  (Big thanks to all my helpful beta testers for your excellent feedback on the last iTweet 2 development cycle!)  Further development on the beta will continue when the API rate limit returns to normal.  Until then, Twitter API development is a waste of time as most people seem to be ditching API apps for the non-limited Web site. This is actually a good thing for me, as I am working hard on developing some other tools for The Illusion Factorythat I will be posting more about soon. Apologies for the lack of updates recently, I've been...
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Make Your Own Tweet Cloud

New site creates a word cloud from your Twitter feed.

There's a great new Twitter service called Tweet Clouds, that will make a word cloud out of your Twitter timeline.  Here's mine: @colbypalmer's TweetCloud It's neat to see which words jump out. Some are obvious (iTweet, iPhone) but I am surprised at the weight of a couple words ("new" is one of the biggest words, I don't know what that's all about).  It also shows the people that I converse with the most and that's kind of cool to see. I also like that "love" and "lt3" are right next to each other - "lt3" being how Tweet Clouds reads "less-than-three" <3 hearts. TweetCloudsThis is an inventive and useful way of analyzing the content of your Twitter posts.  Kudos to John Krutsch for the scripting and Jared Stein for the design. You can see my full-size Tweet Cloud here. You can follow my Twitter updates here, my Twitter handle is @colbypalmer.

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iTweet on Wired.com

iTweet featured in "The Best Web Apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch"

There's no shortage of Twitter clients out there that will work well on your iPhone. Twitter even offers its own: m.twitter.com. But iTweet takes the cake for us. The client offers a great UI, and most importantly, the ability to download only new tweets each time you refresh, saving a lot of time and bandwidth if you're using AT&T's snail-slow EDGE data network.
Wired.com Best iPhone Apps - iTweet.netI just saw this really nice mention of iTweet,  my Twitter UI and iPhone web app, here on Wired.com's Epicenter blog. Thanks guys! (This article contains a voting system for "best app". If you enjoy using iTweet, please visit this page and click the green "UP" arrow to vote for iTweet!) I've also received a few requests now for a BlackBerry version of iTweet. I have never made a BlackBerry app before but how hard can it be, right? I will try to create a BB iTweet as soon as possible for those of you who don't have iPhones yet. ;) In other iTweet news, I'm working on a complete rewrite of the desktop app (and the iPhone app pending a review of the upcoming iPhone SDK). It's lean, mean, and Ajaxy. My favorite...
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Flash & iPhone Workaround

Use swfObject to "hide" accessible content behind your site's Flash pieces.

swfObjectI recently had a client ask me to adjust her site to be iPhone-compatible.  The navigation of this site uses Flash to apply a cosmetic animation on the text, so her site wasn't navigable via iPhone or any other non-Flash equipped device. At first I thought I would advise her to forget about the slight effect that the Flash provided and change to a non-animated, but fully accessible navigation system.  But I knew she really liked this small detail of the site, so I thought I would try another way. ...are you using swfObject to embed your Flash content, anyway? Because you probably should be.  swfObject is an  XHTML-valid javascript  method of displaying Flash content without using unwieldy tags.  The script will fill any old
with your Flash, and changing the layout is as simple as adjusting the
with your style sheet.  It detects Flash player versions and will help a user upgrade or install the Flash player "in-window" if necessary.  It is a fantastic workaround for the annoying IE "Eolas patent dispute" requirement to "activate" Flash content by clicking it once before any buttons are active. And -- thanks to the way that...
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Twittory: The Darkness Inside

Twittory: An "Exquisite Corpse" story - Twitter style!

Internal mechanisms began making adjustments. Muscle relaxants, serotonin. What to calm her mind? Focus...her son, where had they taken him?
This was my 140-character contribution to Twittory #1, "The Darkness Inside".  This is a Twitter-based Exquisite Corpse story written in 140 sentences of 140 characters or less (this is the amount of space allotted to a tweet). Fun idea! The story so far has elements of mystery, action, science fiction, humor and romance.  Also blood, swearing, kissing, treachery, and time travel.  And Lou Reed. Twittories are a production of The Podcast Network, and the game was begun by Cameron Reilly of the "G'Day World" podcast. My sentence is number 54, which I entered sometime around December 22. Right now the game is up to number 86...so check back in March or April to read the final product!

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