Category Archives: Site Updates

Updated: How I got Google+, WordPress and Twitter to play nice (sort of)

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Just a quick update.
I spent a while trying to figure out how I could get my link sharing to be a little less manual labor.
I have a cooked up scheme that seems to work for now, but it is less than ideal.

The process is this:
Any public post to my Google+ page will be read in through sebstein’s wordpress google+ crosspost plugin. This combined with alexking.org’s Twitter Tools plugin bridges the gap to twitter.

The downside is that twitter links back to my page, instead of the link directly. I may have to roll my own plug-in to get it to work the way I think it should. If I do find the time to develop it, I’ll post it here for anyone to use.

UPDATE
After some thinking, I decided I didn’t want my content to be cross posted 2+ times.
I came to this conclusion after considering many issues, the key being time (and my ability not to have any).
I also realized that I was detracting from the content I wanted to share by link-stealing visitors. No one wants to go to a blog and then to the real source.

So what I have done is started using the Google +1 Share button for that purpose.
I dug through the Google+ API looking for a way to get access to a user’s public +1′s, but I couldn’t find anything (I am assuming they are working on adding a lot of functionality to the API’s).

So, until there is a better way for doing this, I cooked my own way from ideas from two others blogs:
http://blog.varunkumar.me/2010/11/how-to-auto-tweet-your-google-reader.html and
http://mashe.hawksey.info/2011/11/google-plus-ones-to-tweet/

Note: I had to clone Martin’s Yahoo Pipe to exclude links that had no title, as feedburner wouldn’t validate them. As always, your millage will vary – I suggest cloning Martin’s Yahoo Pipe or mine, and modifying it as you see fit (it really isn’t that hard). The added safety/security bonus is that you will be in control of the entire pipeline if you create your own pipe, and not hope Martin or I won’t muck with the pipe, causing your implementation to break (You wouldn’t want someone to redirect all your twitter followers to the back ally of the internet, would you? Fair warning).

The workflow is like this:
“+1″ Web Source (from Apps like Google Currents) -> Screen Scrapping via Yahoo Pipes -> Google Feed Burner -> Post to Twitter.

So now, I can be reading something on Google Reader or Google Currents, and click +1, and it will automatically appear on my Google Plus profile, and then have direct post to the content tweeted. Added bonus – because the Pipe is spitting out an RSS feed, it is readily available to be consumed by the RSS WordPress widget (look to your right—->).

The Rebirth

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I’ve had a ‘blog’ for quite some time now. However, I never was able to accurately define a direction for the blog, or to write cohesive enough entries. Much like my thoughts, my posts were tangential ramblings that failed to engage in thoughtful dialogue.

I find it difficult to consistently find topics to write about, mostly due to the fact that I am a fulltime college student who is not pursuing a degree in underwater basket weaving. Further, I feel that the bigger issues are better covered by syndicated blogs, such as the folks over at engadget.com, lifehacker.com, or Om Malik’s blogging network, GigaOm.com.

While I have been searching for direction for the blog, I realized that I often find obscure videos, links, and posts that most people I share with. Yet, I find mindless link forwarding rather pointless unless it fosters some sort of debate.

I found a direction for my blog while watching a rerun of the Family Guy episode “Stewie B. Goode”. During the episode, Peter gets a job at the local news station, and becomes the star host of What Grinds My Gears, a segment in which he rants about things that bother him.

The light switch went off, and I had it. The direction of this blog will be a running commentary of things that don’t align with my view of the world.

If I feel like it, I will offer solutions, but I won’t hold myself to that.

This “My Way or the Highway” approach will not bring the bees, I realize this. However, I do hope that if I complain enough, someone will eventually oil the squeaky wheel.

To close of this celebration of rebirth, I quote one of my all time favorite books, Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Toolbooth”

Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you’re going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not.