A few hours ago, I was sitting at my office and thought that it would be nice if I could easily display my latest Twitter replies (or “tweets at me”) on my blog. Then I remembered that I had been wanting to create an actual WordPress plugin, so I began writing code and pulling a couple bits from my TwitterTech code.

After a short break for dinner, I’ve completed Tweets @ Me, a little plugin for WordPress that lets you display your replies.

Install it
So you want to skip all the reading and jump right in, eh? Before you do, you should be aware of a couple very important things. First, you need to know that if you don’t make sure your tm_tweets.txt and tm_last.txt files are world writable (chmod 777), it will not work properly. If you need help with that, ask your hosting provider. Also, the first time it is loaded it will send a tweet from you about itself. This will only happen once (unless your tm_last.txt file is not writable). If you want to turn this off, feel free to see the configuration options section below. If you appreciate my work and want to share it, leave this feature on or turn it off and send out a tweet manually.

I read the above notice and want to download Tweets @ Me v.10

To install (I like Edit+ for config files):
1. Open and edit tm_config.inc.php. You must provide your Twitter.com username and password .
2. Upload the “tweetsatme” folder to your WordPress plugins directory
3. Chmod 777 the two .txt files Very important!
4. Log in to your blog’s admin panel and activate the plugin from the Plugins page.
5. Add the following line in your template:

<?php display_tweets_at_me(); ?>

6. Visit your blog to see it in action.

Why do this?
It’s a similar principal to the “recent comments” plugins we’ve seen everywhere. You display the recent replies as incentive for people to leave you more replies.

How does it work?
It’s pretty simple, really. It logs in once per hour and grabs all Twitter replies sent to you. It then displays the last five to your blog. You can add (or remove) it easily and can customize the configuration and style to your liking.

Configuration Options
Username [twitter username] : You need this to grab your replies.
Password [twitter password] : You need this to grab your replies.

To Display [5/any number] : This is the number of replies to display on your blog.

Announce [yes/no] : If set you “yes”, the plugin will send out the tweet the first time it’s loaded in your blog.

Debug [no/yes] : If set you “yes”, it will continue to grab new tweets and re-write the display HTML every time it is loaded. The most likely reason you would need to set this to “yes” is to see style changes as you make them. Just remember to set it back to “no” when you’re done so the plugin can cache your replies.

Seconds [3600/any number above 60] : This is the number of seconds to wait between getting replies again. It’s set to 3600 (one hour) by default because Twitter imposes a limit to how many API calls your username can make per hour. Keep this number above 60 if you want this plugin to work all the time. If you get any less than one reply per hour, be nice to twitter and leave it at 3600.

Style Options
Width [130/any number] : This is the width of the plugin.

Margin [0px/any number] : If you don’t know, leave it alone.

Padding [3px/any number] : If you don’t know, leave it alone.

Border-Top [0px dashed #ff0000/css border] : If you don’t know, leave it alone.
Border-Right [0px dashed #ff0000/css border] : If you don’t know, leave it alone.
Border-Bottom [0px dashed #ff0000/css border] : If you don’t know, leave it alone.
Border-Left [0px dashed #ff0000/css border] : If you don’t know, leave it alone.

Divider [(blank)/some html] : This is any HTML you would like between replies displayed like a line or image.

Font-Size [10/any number] : This is the font size of the text.

Font-Color [#000000/any color] : This is the color of the text.

BG1 [#ffffff/any color] : This is the background color of replies.
BG2 [#c2c2c2/any color] : This is alternating the background color of replies.

Questions?
Please feel free to post questions below or via email. I’ll answer as quickly as possible. I hate when I install software and can’t get support, so I’ll do my best to come through for you.

Also, any version updates, etc. will be posted here.

Thanks
The only reason I was able to make such quick work of this plugin is the classes I had at my fingertips. So big fat thanks go out to the following people for the classes:

* @author Michal Migurski (JSON class)
* @author Matt Knapp (JSON class)
* @author Brett Stimmerman (JSON class)
* @author Nick Beam (Twitter class)

My first full day at BlogWorld couldn’t have been better. Michelle and I headed down for breakfast and then I headed out to grab my badge. While waiting for the exhibitor floor to open up, Ian Fernando joined me and we got caught up on our plans for the day’s panels. There were a lot of booths to hit, so I just started from one end of the room and began working my way across, skipping those that didn’t interest me and stopping to talk (sometimes at length) with people at booths that caught my eye. One of those was mindtouch, a collaborative wiki system that I am told is much more intuitive than others and can be integrated with WordPress easily. I don’t know that I’m really sold on it since I’m not much of a wiki guy, but I’ll check it out. One program that looks very interesting is Zemanta. The name isn’t the easiest to remember, but the idea is great. Zemanta integrates with WordPress to ease the process of finding photos, videos, and other artcles related to what you’re writing about. The way it was explained to me, it analyzes the text of the post you’re writing and suggests content and links for you as you type, and all the content is Creative Commons friendly. I haven’t tried it yet, but if it lives up to its promise, it should save bloggers a lot of time as well as help the artistic community promote their CC photos and videos. I’ll do a full review when I retrurn to Phoenix. While wandering around the expo floor, I was stopped my a couple people who recognized me, which is always nice. I would have loved to chat more, but I had booths to see.

Ian and I met back up and headed to the panel full of name-dropees, John Chow, ShoeMoney, ProBlogger (Darren Rowse), Copy Blogger (Brian Clark), Zac Johnson, and Jim Kukral. As always, it was full of useful information, and has inspired some small changes I’ll be making to this blog in the near future. This “super panel”, was so popular, in fact, that people were having a hard time pulling themselves away and eventually people had to be reminded that there was another panel scheduled for the room. Before the panel began, I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of my readers, NikNik and Reggie from MyTechOponion. I also had an opportunity to show Jim, the damage I’ve done to my Flip in preparation for the upgrade I’m doing (expect that post soon).

Just before Ian joined me and Michelle for lunch, he let me know that Michelle and I were invited to the Market Leverage dinner at Envy that the super affiliate bloggers were going to. In attendance were the panelists mentioned above as well as a few people who won seats at the dinner, a couple more affilliates, and of course, Deb, Mike, and Jen from Market Leverage. The dinner was almost as great as the opportunity to sit down with some of the blogging elite. John posted pictures of the dinner and all the food, as expected.

The BlogWorld Opening Day party ended at 9:30, so everyone at the dinner missed that, and many of us ended up at the Tempo bar at the Hilton. Shortly after that, Ian, Michelle, the ML crew and I all headed to the Wynn, where we spent the rest of the night at Blush, drinking and dancing.

If you want to see all the photos I took, they’re on Flickr. Day one was awesome, and although I think today will be more relaxed, I’m sure I’ll get just as much out of it.

Since the 3G iPhone hit the shelves, Apple has seen a tremendous amount of feedback from popular media, blogs, and consumers alike. While many loved the new device, a lot of us also hated it for various reasons. I have also chimed in with my own thoughts, good and bad, on my new iPhone and the love/hate relationship I have had with it. Apple seems to have listened, recently promising their iPhone 2.1 software update with plenty of fixes and some new features just for good measure. About 15 minutes ago, I got a notification that the update was available. Wanting to avoid the peak of the download rush, I plugged in and updated right away, getting my iPhone to 2.1 pretty quickly. Here’s what the update claims to include:

iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:
• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• significantly improved battery life for most users
• dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• faster installation of 3rd party applications
• fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
• improved performance in text messaging
• faster loading and searching of contacts
• improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation

The first thing I looked for was better reception, simply because that’s what I find most wrong with my iPhone while in my office. Immediately, I noticed 4 bars and 3G. This is pretty rare for me in my office. While playing in the App Store, I noticed 5 bars. Could this really be? I have had slightly better reception over the last few weeks, with only a couple dropped/missed calls, so it’ll be a little harder to test, but I’m finally confident for the first time about my iPhone purchase.

UPDATE: “improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display” is a big fat FAIL. As soon as I answer a call, it drops back to 2 bars.

So far, I’ve also noticed the increased loading speed of my contacts. The rest will take some time and some playing around, but it’s good to see Apple responding to our concerns.

Now… Apple, How about the SMS system. Can you bring real picture messaging to the iPhone and get rid of this lame system where I have to go to a site with an impossible-to-remember username and password to see my picture message?

With the release of Google Chrome (beta) this week to the masses, Google reaches into the browser market, hoping to pull out a healthy handful of early adapters. I’m always willing to try something new, especially when it’s free. So of course I headed on over to the Google Chrome homepage and clicked the big blue download button. The install failed miserably on not only my computer at work, but also one of my employee’s computers (both XP). After a few minutes on my laptop at home, I have a successful Chrome install and some initial opinions.

What is Google Chrome?
Google has their own description of Chrome:

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

If you want some more in depth information about it, you can always check out the videos and other accompanying material or you could read the 38 page book if you have a free hour or two. In short, Chrome is the newest browser to jump into an already competitive market feet first.

Why should I care?
For most people, the answer to this question is pretty clear. You should care because you spend 95% of your internet time in a web browser. While you may be content with Firefox or Internet Explorer, a browser is really only as good as its competition forces it to be. For proof of that, you need look no further than Google Chrome. Any company would have to be stupid to come to the table with anything less when trying to take on the big dogs.

A new Development Market?
Developers like me have a whole additional perspective on the matter. Firefox opened the door for a slew of plug-ins and add-ons created by average Joes like me. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a company like Google is apt to follow suit and with a fresh market, the possibilities are endless.

New browser, new features
So what if you released your own browser. I could do that. People are used to their own browser and you’re going to have to step it up if you want to shift their loyalty in your direction. The company that weened us from Yahoo searches knows this all too well and they’ve come prepared. Although Chrome is still just in beta, it offers up plenty already. For starters, it just looks smooth. One of the first things I noticed (even when it didn’t work right on my office computer) was the interface. It’s clean and it’s minimal. The menu bar is completely gone as is the status bar you would find at the bottom of other browsers. When the status updates (like when you mouse over a link and it shows you the URL it links to), the update shows just briefly over the bottom-most content and then fades back out. It seems a lot faster, too. Between my own site, Flickr, Google Maps, and everywhere else, things just seem to load fast and run smoothly. Another area I looked for improvement over FF and IE is memory consumption. Currently, with just this tab I’m writing in and a Flickr tab, Chrome is eating about 60MB of my memory. Firefox needs about 38MB for the same two tabs, and IE used about 31MB. Not very impressive fro Chrome. Others have reported impressive memory savings with Chrome, so your mileage may vary.

One new feature I was instantly impressed with was the home page. While the glimmer may eventually wear off and it’s not exactly world-changing, I liked that Google thought outside the box to make my browsing experience just a bit more convenient. The default home page comes equipped with a memory of your most visited pages, a search box, most recent bookmarks and most recently closed tabs. There are about 7 sites that I visit constantly, and even with auto-completion of URLs in other browsers, this is a huge time saver. For those worried about the privacy implications of all this, Google has already answered your concerns with their “incogneto window”, which is nothing more than a new browser window that ignores history and cache and all those things that can get you in trouble when you’re visiting sites you shouldn’t be.

Still offering fresh ideas, Chrome opens your history and downloads in a new tab and lets you search them. Again, auto-complete is nice, but as you can see above, Chrome lets you search the actual content of your history and returns a list complete with a partial text preview and thumbnails. Don’t forget downloads. If you want quick access to that file you downloaded, just look through the list or search for it.

Should I switch?
Don’t uninstall your default browser just yet. Google made a big first impression, but it’s still Beta. That said, you should definitely download it and play around. When the first stable release comes, you’ll already be comfortable with the interface. There’s still a few smaller features that Chrome lacks and a developer-supported library of add-ons is a must, however. When these things are addressed, I could see myself sending FireFox an “it’s not you… it’s Chrome” letter.

What about you? Have you tried Chrome? Any plans to? What are your thoughts?

For quite some time, there’s been a parallel universe online with a ton of users and no real competition. Second Life was, well, your second life… a place to get away from the “meat world” and be someone else for a while. It still is, but now they have something to worry about. There’s only a few possible companies that have the resources and expendable cash to throw their hat into the ring. Google is one of those few and they’ve tossed their hat in with their own virtual world, Lively. It’s not much of a surprise that they’d play in this still very open arena. What did catch me off guard is the lack of publicity from a company positioned to turn the virtual worlds crowd upside down.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t really tried Second Life, but it’s not for lack of trying. I actually thought it looked pretty cool (and still do), but I couldn’t get it to install. Not only would it crash over and over again, but I found myself more frustrated just trying to get through to their support. Ultimately, I never got a response and gave up. Lively has its own problems, which I will get to, but it’s also still just in its infancy.

Get your new virtual life
What do you need to get started? Not much, really. One of the great ideas that makes me like Lively right off the bat is that it runs right in your web browser. The advantage of this is that it doesn’t suck up all your computer’s memory or require a powerful machine to play. Aside from a modern web browser, all you really need is a Google account and some free time. The Google account isn’t a bad idea, anyway. If you don’t have one already, you will be prompted to create one.

When you sign up, you create your Lively username that people will see and enter a couple other boring details. Then you get to dive right in and create your second you. This process begins with the selection of an avatar to represent you. The pickin’s are still pretty slim, but not horrible. One thing I found pretty interesting here was the ability to become male, female, or have your choice of a few different animals. If you ever wanted to live life as a pig, now is your chance.
Once you’ve chosen your avatar type, you need to refine it with some details. Start with a hair style and move on to your choice of pants, shirt, shoes, etc. When you’re all done, you’ve got this fully dressed avatar, ready to mingle with the crowd - or walk around aimlessly, clicking on things. The avatar options and finer detail choices still leave a lot to be desired. The selection process is pretty simple and the option variety is OK for the initial launch, but I really hope Google is working on rolling out more options as this thing grows. It’s still pretty new and too many of us look alike.

Walking, talking, dancing and fighting
Lively, just like any richly interactive experience, takes a bit of learning and some getting used to. Some things are intuitive and others aren’t. For example, to interact with a person or object, you just click on it. Simple enough. Try looking around and simple may not be the first word that enters your mind unless you enjoy flight simulators. Eventually, you get used to it, but it still doesn’t feel natural. What is pretty simple is the ability to drag yourself around. Click on your avatar, hold the mouse button down, and drag in the direction you want to go. Take it slow, though. You’re walking, not teleporting.

Once you’ve got your moves down, find a quiet corner and practice your animations. You can dance, applaud, body slam someone, flirt, you name it. Just right-click on your avatar and you are presented with a pretty healthy list of options.

Meet others and make friends (or enemies)
I met someone right away in Lively. I didn’t catch his name, but he beat the hell out of me while I was choosing pants. Rude, sure, but definitely not surprising. Any time you enter an environment in which anonymity is commonplace and even encouraged, you can expect to find people who never aged past 12 years old. The beating wasn’t as bad as the general demeanor of a lot of the people. In my first visit, Lively was only days old and it was full of these types of people. When I went back tonight, there were more rooms (including one called “Fight Club”) and a lot more people, most of whom were acting much more mature.

Getting to know people is pretty easy. Just walk right up, click on someone, and start chatting. You can send a private message by “whispering”, or you take a completely different approach and just start dancing with them. One thing I hope they add is the ability to ignore everyone else for a bit while I discover items, dance with someone, etc.

So far, I like Lively. While I may not have a lot of time for it, I can see myself relaxing in a new environment for a while after a long day. The installation process was very simple and impressed me after Second Live let me down, but in the few times I’ve played with it, it crashed twice after I closed the Lively tab in Firefox. There’s a lot more to learn and a lot for Google to add and improve upon, but it’s a nice start.

Try out Lively for yourself and let me know what you think or share things you’ve discovered that I haven’t found yet.