rudis dot net

I've got a decent number of folks on Twitter who are also in my OS X Address Book and I wanted an easier way to keep their Twitter avatars in sync than just manually downloading and updating the images. Enter Taabu [297K DMG], my Twitter Avatar to OS X Address Book Updater.

As long as your OS X Address Book contacts have one URL field with their http://twitter.com/twitterid account in it (and you are following them), you will be able to use Taabu to update their OS X Address Book pictures with their Twitter images.

This currently works for up to ~98 contacts (all depends on your current Twitter API rate limit status, which you can use the widget in the previous post to keep track of) and is fine for me since I have far fewer than that I need to sync. Post a comment if you need that functionality as it will mean some coding to allow processing of your local contacts in batches (due to the rate limit situation). There's a "README" in the DMG download that gives a bit more info and some additional screenshots.

Requests, bug reports, complaints, accolades, etc are all welcome. (And, yes, there is a spelling error in "Downloadig" - will fix when I post the next release which will also contain the full, ugly Objective-C source code :-)

For those who are developing anything that uses the Twitter API or even if you just like to experiment with Twitter standalone or alternate web-clients there is a hard limit (currently 100) on the number of calls per hour. This, however, is not made obvious since it requires grabbing an XML file from an http Basic Auth protected URL.

Enter the "Twitter Rate Limit" Dashboard Widget:

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With it, you will know how many API calls you have left and when the counter gets reset.

This is version 1.1. Version 1.0 was inspired by @aadom who was also the UI designer of 1.1.

Version 1.2 will be out in a bit as I really need to fix the gauge colors.

Drop a note in the comments with your suggestions/gripes/accolades.

I was musing on Twitter about the need for the ability to get the status updates from friends who only use Facebook incorporated into my Twitter feed (so I do not have to view Facebook as often). While writing a bot would have been cool, I dislike re-inventing the wheel and came up with a way to do it by pairing some web "services" together (not actually using web services per se).

To do this, you'll need to setup a new Twitter account (I suggest using your "TwitterUsername_fb"), unless you want all your followers seeing all your friends' updates. You can secure the updates to this account if you wish. You'll need to use a secondary e-mail account (Twitter does not allow dups). I also really don't like giving my main Twitter credentials to external services.

I also suggest getting an OpenID as one of the sites you'll be using is twitterfeed and it prefers OpenID logins (I have a free OpenID through Verisign, but you already have one if you are an AOL, Blogger, Flickr/Yahoo, or WordPress users [and others]...full details on the OpenID link I provided).

With those credentials in hand, fire up your browser and head to Facebook and then choose to use the old Facebook (it's just temporary, but one step will fail if you're not in "old Facebook mode"). Highlight "Friends" and select "Status Updates":

On the status update screen, look on the right under "Subscribe" for a "Friends' Status Feed" link. Right click on it and copy it (however you do that with your browser/system). Save and protect this URL!!! It has direct access to the status updates of your friends (and, hence, part of your account) so you should not disclose it without consideration.

The next step is to go to twitterfeed and login:

Once you login, create a new feed and populate it with your alternate Twitter credentials and Facebook Friends' Status RSS feed URL. I highly recommend testing both your login and feed (via the provided links). You can tweak the other settings to match your preferences. The only downside is that if your friends have any more than five (5) updates since the last check, you will miss them. You can choose an alternate feed-post-to-Twitter provider (or roll your own) if this becomes an issue).

The last step is to follow your alternate Twitter user id and you will begin receiving updates every 30 minutes (or longer, depending on how often your friends post status updates).

This setup is only as robust as Twitter, Facebook RSS and twitterfeed, so you have no guarantees from me on how stable it will be, but it has been working well since I configured it.

If you have an alternate solution, definitely drop a note in the comments!

I haven't been slackin'...just lots of Apple postin' on TAB...

• Twiterriffic 3.1 beta
• ScreenSteps 2 mini-review
• iPhone Development Preview
• iPhone Web Development Starter
• My Apple TV Upgrade Experience

The Grand Tech Merger Of 2008

The Microsoft/Yahoo! dance is quite fitting since it seems both companies share a very common hobby: zero day security vulnerabilities.

I guess it's only fair that if Yahoo! passed on a virus to Microsoft during whatever activities they were doing together that they should do the right thing and partner in a more official capacity with them.

The Grand Debacle Of 2008

For the record, I'd still like a none of the above option for this election. Since there is little chance of getting a truly decent candidate in office we're left with following the current candidates as they vie for our votes. Google is going to make following the election even easier this year and their Super Tuesday coverage is a great, innovative example. I do find it strange that they've partnered with Twitter rather than a certain other social networking service.

At least we have yet another example that the even gravitational mass of Google is not sufficient to prevent folks from finding what works best for them.

Now, if only Google or Microsoft would buy and then kill off Facebook...one can dream.

Two ironies and the day has just begun.

If the Net builds it, the users will do anything they can to access it, even if it means violating their corporate policies and flying in the face of their code of ethics.

Digital Inspiration provided friendly advice on how to get access to Twitter (if it's blocked) and uses the big, bad UAE as the justification.

Users need to understand that their jobs are at risk more than ever when they attempt to bypass company restrictions on computer and Internet usage. Companies want to control bandwidth costs, maintain IT security and increase productivity and are spending more money than ever on controls and reporting facilities to ensure that you are focused on work. While Twitter is fun and all, it's only a useful business tool for a subset of organizations (now, an *internal* Twitter-like system would be cool) and is a hard sell to management. Is it worth your job - and personal integrity - to violate an agreement that you have signed and promised to adhere to just to IM, e-mall or tweet some friends?

If you *really* need to use blocked services, put together a case and talk to your IT security folks about it - maybe even over coffee or lunch (you may even find that the IT security folks are cool, interesting people). They may be able to help push a reasonable request through or you may discover why it's a bad idea to allow, say, Skype to flow with wild abandon on the company's network.

From the land of cheesesteaks (boy, do I miss cheesesteaks since moving to Seattle) comes SimpleWeather. Taking the Google-ish approach to current conditions and forecasts, the site is amazingly fast and highly readable in all browsers. Just input your ZIP code or location (it's world-savvy) and get your weather stats fix.

If you are a Twitter fan, you can follow your closest city (they explain everything here).

If you do check them out, be sure to poke them for an iPhone-friendly page. Right now, i.wund.com is kicking their butts with their mobile CSS/layout.