Archive for February, 2009:

Identi.ca Tools 1.6

Tagged with: , , , , — John @ 12:26 pm

Alex King’s excellent WordPress plugin, Twitter Tools, has been released in a 1.6 version.

As described in this earlier post, I’ve modified Twitter Tools to use Identi.ca endpoints rather than Twitter ones, since I have my Identi.ca account set to auto-cross-post to Twitter.

Here’s a revised version of what I’m calling Identi.ca tools – just replace the twitter-tools.php from the 1.6 release with this one (rename it from twitter-tools.php.txt to twitter-tools.php of course) and you should be good to go:

twitter-tools.php.txt

WPBook 1.2 Released

Tagged with: , , , , , — John @ 3:46 pm

(Updated: 1.3 has been released, so I’ve disabled comments here – please raise any still open issues there.)

Just checked in changes for WPBook version 1.2 – get it from the WordPress Plugin Directory or on this blog.

The biggest change here from 1.1.1 (and why I decided to make it 1.2 rather than 1.1.2) is a change to the mechanism used to create the user profile boxes. Although it worked for some users, the previous method (relying on an fb:ref url pointing to the recent_posts.php page inside the WPBook theme) was at best inconsistent, and could even cause uncaught exceptions.

The new mechanism, which sets the profile FBML in a function and uses an fb:ref handle to refresh it, seems to be more generically robust and should improve things, especially for anyone who had the “No content to display” error when trying to add the profile box to the profile.

Also in this release are some administration page improvements (thanks Brandon) and timestamp on posts.

As always, comment below if you have issues, and if you get your blog setup using the plug please leave a comment on this page.

Dopplr import fail

Tagged with: , , , , , — John @ 6:08 pm

I use Dopplr and TripIt, to keep track of traveling colleagues, update people on my own travel, and just generally simplify life. (I’ve blogged about each many times as well: see posts containing dopplr or TripIt).

I’m getting tired of Dopplr’s consistent FAIL on a common (for me) use case- a one day trip to NY on Delta.

Whenever I forward such a confirmation here’s what Dopplr does:

Thanks for sending us a message by email.

We automatically created a trip to Atlanta, GA, United States (from Newburyport, MA, United States) between February 10th and February 13th

We won’t share coincidences from this newly-created trip with your fellow travellers until February 18th. This is to give you a chance to check and correct any problems in interpretation.

If you’d like to check, go to [link removed]

Yours sincerely,
The Dopplr Team.

The problem is, I’m not going to or from Atlanta – that’s where Delta airlines headquarters is, sure, but it’s a long detour on the Boston->New York route.

I’m also not travelling Feb 10 to Feb 13, I’m leaving and returning on the 13th, and the trip was booked on the 10th.

I can (and do) go in and manually fix the trip in Dopplr, but in this type of case TripIt’s import feature just works.

Teh Awesomeness: Miro 2.0

Tagged with: , , , , , , — John @ 5:36 pm

Ok, this seems to be the week of me blogging about things being released, so I was going to skip the Miro 2.0 release announcement – figuring it has been well reported elsewhere – but then I got this in email:

Miro 2.0 is Here, and it's really really awesome

Miro 2.0 is Here, and it's really really awesome

They’re right, Miro is awesome, and it’s an open source project which you can help contribute to, whether you’re a coder or not.

Also in the email:

How can you help the most?

  • Send this message to your friends! Since we can’t afford to buy our way into their hearts, we need you to tell them about Miro and why open media is important.
  • Translate! Only about 40% of Miro users are in English speaking countries. We need your help to translate Miro, our website, and the Miro Guide. Details are on our Volunteer Page.
  • Test and code! Got chops? Join in.
  • Help new users– you can answer questions and join the community conversation here: Miro discussion forums.

And don’t forget to download Miro 2.0!

ReTweeter 0.9.1 Released

Tagged with: , , , , , , — John @ 12:22 pm
Photo by Andrea Mercado

Photo by Andrea Mercado

Thanks to Karen Huffman (@slakm) who raised some issues she was having with an installation of ReTweeter, I’ve tracked down the bug and uploaded and released 0.9.1.

Turns out that in late December of 2008, the Twitter API servers started sending a 417 Status Code response to many clients, including ReTweeter. (See Alex Payne’s announcement on the Twitter API Google Group and this message from Tom Morris which identified the necessary fix for CURL based clients).

In addition to squashing that bug, this update also better handles error responses from the Twitter API in general, which is to say it actually identifies to the user what status code was returned to enable better troubleshooting.

Remember to copy your settings from your old version before overwriting with the new.

About Me

Open Parenthesis is a blog about free and open source software, next generation internet strategy, and the assembled web, written by John Eckman (me).

John Eckman

I'm a Sr. Director at Optaros, a professional services firm offering strategy, design, development, and consulting services to enterprises interested in leveraging free and open source software.

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