Colby Palmer's Blog

A Much Needed Update

Today I get to release something special: a site I've built just for myself! This is special because I have been SO busy with client work that my site had become somewhat dated. I had been wanting to swap out the software from the excellent ExpressionEngine to a custom Django back end. (I mostly build in Django these days and it bugged me that my own site wasn't built with it.) I also wanted to update the front end with a modern HTML5/CSS3 interface - believe it or not, my old site was old enough to predate jQuery (not to mention border-radius and the like) so most of the UI was pretty rusty - not at all a showcase of my current skills.

So, welcome to the new colbypalmer.com. Tight, ain't it?

The site has a responsive layout that serves a different experience for desktop, tablet, mobile (landscape) and mobile (portrait). Try resizing your browser window to see what I mean! It's packed full of the latest HTML5/CSS3 goodness, with appropriate fallbacks for older browsers. It also is running a full-featured Django blog app that I've built and plan to open-source as soon as I can package up the code.

I plan to write up a couple things related to this site: a colophon page so I can credit folks whose plugins/apps this site uses, and tutorials on some of the cooler features I've got here - a few things that I developed in the course of making this site are worth sharing.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new site design - and if you chance to find any bugs I'd love to find out about those too! Please use the fancy new threaded commenting system to share your input.

iTweet and OAuth

This morning marked the official deprecation of Twitter's basic authentication system. I had been working toward the changeover, and at about 8 am I switched iTweet.net over to OAuth-based authentication. Things went pretty smoothly, I hope. Most people seem to have been able to refresh, authenticate with Twitter, and start tweeting again right away. Even aside from the improved security, the nicest immediate benefit is the API rate limit of 350 calls per hour instead of the 150/hour available through basic authentication. This will allow me to do some fun stuff that wasn't possible before. The people who were most affected by this change were those who use iTweet because twitter.com is blocked due to a company firewall/filter or censorship. These folks are not able to sign in via OAuth, just due to the nature of what OAuth is. I'm bummed that this is the case, but don't immediately see a way around it - however I am open to ideas from any direction. For the time being I've put a basic-authentication version of iTweet up at: http://itweet.net/basic/ - and you can use it at that address for the next two weeks. However, please note that Twitter is going to be cutting down the number of available API requests by 10% every business day until August 31, when basic authentication will be switched off entirely. You can read about this in the twitter-development Google group. If you're one of the folks who use iTweet to get around a filter, this is a bummer. So by the end of the month people needing a proxy for twitter.com will be out of luck. I'm open to suggestions as to how this inconvenience could be avoided, as this change will happen for all apps, not just iTweet.net - feel free to post ideas in the comments.

Blocked Port 25: SMTP Using Postfix on Go Daddy Dedicated Server

I've been setting up a new dedicated server at Go Daddy running Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). I was following The Perfect Server guide at HowToForge, and it was very helpful, especially in the area of setting up email using Postfix, which is new to me. I did run into an unexpected problem with outgoing email - it wasn't going out, or anywhere for that matter! Taking a look in /var/log/mail.log showed an error saying "No route to host". Trying to telnet to any other domain would give me the same error. A little Googling dug up the fact that Godaddy blocks outgoing traffic on port 25, which is used for SMTP. However they do provide a relay server that you can use for your outgoing mail. The relay server is k2smtpout.secureserver.net. To use it, edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and set the relayhost line to look like this: relayhost = [k2smtpout.secureserver.net] Then restart Postfix with the command: sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart And that should do it! I had a lot of trouble diagnosing the problem and then finding the solution, so I thought I would post it here to help anyone else experiencing this problem.

Google Reader "Send to iTweet" Button

I'm a big fan of Google Reader. Recently iTweet user @leavingearth requested a "Send to iTweet" feature for Google Reader, and I thought this was a fantastic idea so here it is.

In Reader, select "Reader Settings" from the Settings menu in the top right corner of the page. Then choose the "Send To" tab, and click "Create a custom link" at the bottom of this page. A short form will be shown - enter the following items into the fields.

Name:

iTweet

URL:

http://itweet.net/web/?share=true&t=${title}&s=${short-url}

Icon URL:

http://itweet.net/favicon.ico

Then click "Save" and you're done! Go back to Google Reader and in your "Send To" menu you'll have a new iTweet option. Clicking it will open iTweet.net with the post's title and shortened URL pre-filled in the post field. Have fun sharing your links - if you have any feedback on this new feature please let me know in the comments.

iTweet and 140 Proof

My pet project iTweet.net has been a great success for me. It gets plenty of traffic, enjoys a steadily growing community of users, and is a lot of fun to work on. The list of things I'd like to explore with this project grows every week, and with all the new additions to the Twitter API of late - OAuth, RTs, Lists, Geolocation etc - there is much more to be done in order to keep up.

The steady increase in traffic means that we've had to spend extra time and money on iTweet's server in order to keep up with all the users. Hosting has graciously been sponsored by The Illusion Factory, but the monthly demand keeps increasing and it's clear that something needs to change. The growing nature of both the to-do list and the server cost has led me to think of ways in which iTweet can become self-sustaining. This app needs to start earning its keep, peoples! One thing that I've decided to try is the insertion of sponsored tweets by 140 Proof.

This company has a very unique system of advertising delivery, promising very targeted content in an unobtrusive format. How does that work? 140 Proof's system scans your (publicly available) tweets and delivers you an ad tailored to your location and/or favorite topics. This means that you'll see content that is interesting and relevant to you. And the ads come in tweet format so they fit right in with the flow of the app. Most of them are real tweets, from a real Twitter account, and behave pretty much like the other tweets in your stream - you can reply, favorite or retweet them too. (I'm giving these sponsored tweets a slightly different style so you can tell them from regular tweets.)

Since a lot of people have asked me what my plans for future development are, here's a nutshell version:

iTweet.net has no database behind it. It doesn't store any of your information, and only uses data from the Twitter (and TwitPic, bit.ly, etc) APIs. In order to do some more "interesting" stuff, such as multiple accounts, decent Lists and follower management, autocompleter, etc, I need to put a database behind the front end and rewrite a whole bunch of stuff. This will let me do a lot more *interesting* things with the app, as it currently operates within the exact constraints of the API.

My immediate goals for iTweet are this:

Switch to OAuth - this will eliminate API limit hassles
Database-driven back end
Support for new APIs - RT, geolocation etc.
Support for multiple accounts, other oft-requested features
Support for internationalization (multiple languages)

Once these major issues are tackled, I'll be looking at expanding iTweet's feature set into a new app, something larger that I have been imagining for some time now. My hope is that by exploring monetization routes for the app, I'll be able to fund part of this development.

Cheers, and thanks for helping to make my little project take off. As always the user community will directly influence the direction of future development. Please let me know your thoughts below or by contacting me directly - I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.

itweet, twitter, api, twitter app, itweet.net, 140 proof, twitter ads

Free Wallpaper: Orange Cluster

This is a desktop background (wallpaper) that I made for use on my home monitors. I am using it on my dual monitors and I have really been digging it, so I thought I would share.

This image is free to use and to share, but not to sell. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which means you can use it or remix it as long as attribution to this original piece is made.

Enjoy! I am posting a 1920x1200 version here. If you'd like a different size just let me know in the comments and I'll add your size to this post.

Download Orange Cluster - 1920x1200

Technorati Tags: graphics, wallpaper, desktop, orange, cluster, free, art, design

WebMapSocial ... and Me

I'm going to be giving a presentation at the WebMapSocial meetup on Tuesday, Nov. 17. Want to come? Find out all the info right here. It's at the Google campus in Mountain View - I'm excited for an excuse to go visit!

I think I'll be talking about iTweet.net and the upcoming Local Trends API that Twitter is going to be releasing soon. I also may be talking about the SaaS product I've been building, NetConference.tv. It's only kinda-sorta map-related, but it IS shiny and new, so I'm excited to show it off.

Thanks to my friend Catherine Burton, host of this group, for the invite. She is an avid mapster and innovator - check out her unique company Endpoint Environmental.

That's the Story

One of those amusing instances where my Twitter pals kind of summed up my story of the past week:

As Janet notes, I am available for new work at the moment.

I Can't Tweet That iTweet.net Is Down

Ahh, it reminds of olden days when Twitter was down more than it was up. ;-P

iTweet.net has been down since yesterday morning (with a few short reprieves) due to the DoS attacks that are happening. I'm keeping an eye on it and will update this post when service is restored.

Adding to the confusion, I am not able to post any tweets from Twitter.com or even via SMS, so I am unable to respond to those of you who have asked me what is happening. Sorry! I hope you've subscribed to my blog's RSS feed.

Twitter has confirmed that the downtime is only affecting some clients, also that SMS is unavailable for some users, and that they are working on the issue. I guess I'm just lucky enough to fall into both categories!

Update: iTweet.net is back online, after some changes from Twitter and some refactoring on my end to accommodate those changes. Yippeee!
(August 7 2009, 4:30pm PST)

Twitter Raises API Limit

I just noticed in my web app iTweet that Twitter is reporting a maximum of 150 API requests per hour now! Hurray! This is great news for Twitter clients, as the API limit is a constant challenge in user interaction.

Twitter had mentioned that this was in the works, but so far I haven't heard mention of them actually launching this upgrade. I hope it is here to stay!

They have also recently fixed a long-standing bug that caused followers/following methods to report incorrect data. Along with this fix came some new API methods for managing follow relationships - I will be updating iTweet with a new follow/unfollow UI just as soon as I can get to it!

There are some really great improvements coming soon to iTweet.net - stay tuned for much much more.