For various reasons I’ve decided to start afresh with a new blog that I’m actually going to be writing content on this time, I promise. So, pop over to The Code Train, update your feed readers, leave me some comments and make me feel loved :)

Except that the blooming things wouldn’t work for me. Oh dear.

Recently I’ve been playing around with Twitter Bots. I had a need to be able to let just the people I work with when someone had brought food into the office, so I created yahoofood. I wanted near real-time updates of when The Ten Word Review was updated, so I created the ttwr bot. I also want to allow people to review things on The Ten Word Review using their mobile phones, so I’m going to be needing to create a bot for that.

It’s really easy to set up things on your server to automatically gzip all sensible files though, and most of the code you need is very easily found in the Apache 2 documentation. All you have to do is copy and paste the following into your .htaccess file, and all your files (except images) will end up being gzipped for you. Awesome.

That’s what I use on the command line to see which files aren’t up to date within my CVS tree at work (at home I use SVN, which in my opinion is a lot nicer).

What you can do though is run a little AppleScript voodoo that’ll do the job for you. Installing the script onto your system will take at most five minutes, and then you’ll simply have to run the script before you sync your iPhone so that it knows which episodes need syncing.

I’ve got to say, I had fun. I stayed up all night with David and presented my talk about automating TV downloads first thing on the Sunday morning bleary eyed but to what I like to think were a receptive audience. I’ll be putting an expanded version of my notes from the talk up in a couple of days so that people can make use of, and expand on, my technique.

That said, I definitely won’t be buying an iPhone. Why? Lets get started…

And, guess what? We’re looking for six more awesome people to come and join us in making super awesome websites that will be seen by countless people around the world. If you’re a web-developer with good all-round skills, are always willing and wanting to learn new things and are happy to be working in London’s groovy West End then I want to hear from you! Drop me a line and your CV at neil [dot] crosby [atatat] workingwith [dot] me [dot] uk and I’ll pass on your information to those who need it.