Dougal Campbell's geek ramblings

WordPress, web development, and world domination.

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-21

Dec212007
  • Going in to pack up the office. W00t! #
  • Change in plan: had to pick up son from school. Will go back to office next week. #
  • Last minute stuff before we hit the (crowded) roads. You know, minor stuff like *packing*? #
  • Kids stuff is packed. Now to pack *my* stuff. Then load up the kids, the dog, and us, and hit the road! Shutting down. Happy holidays, all! #

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Twitter Updates for 2007-12-20

Dec202007
  • Updated the out-of-date Pidgin OTR plugin on my laptop. Now I can chat in secret again. Shhhh! #
  • @laughingsquid Will your wifi router let you open up on a per-MAC address basis? So that you could let the OLPC in, but nobody else? #
  • @gfmorris I feel your pain. And I’ve got an 8+-hour drive ahead of me tomorrow. #
  • @jwestfall I think @gfmorris knows everybody 🙂 #
  • @jwestfall I gave up on Twitux after a couple of days. It needs some UI luvin. Hyperlinks would be nice. #
  • Tomorrow is a big day. Last (half) day at current job. Hitting the road to visit family for Christmas. Right now: going home. #
  • @alexkingorg Hmmm… Just had an idea: Modify Twitter Tools plugin to recognize a #hashtag. Only include those tweets in auto blog posts… #

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Twitter Updates for 2007-12-19

Dec192007
  • Feh. Tasked with trying to integrate SSO into a third-party app I’ve never seen before, with no documentation. Not likely to work. #
  • @gfmorris It might be more fun if they didn’t want it yesterday, and I wasn’t in my last week at this job 😉 #

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Merry Christmas to me!

Dec182007
Crowd Favorite

I get to unwrap one of my presents early this year, and it ranks up there with some of the best — a new job! I’ll be working with Alex King and the other fine folks at Crowd Favorite. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to work with this crew to tackle some great projects.

Four years ago, when I joined in on the development of WordPress, it was just a fun thing to do on the side. There was never any expectation of any kind of reward, it was just fun to be a part of a project that so many people found useful. As time went on, WordPress evolved into a more generally useful web site development platform, and businesses like Crowd Favorite have sprung up to help organizations take advantage of its power and flexibility.

I’m sure Alex would agree that it is truly rewarding to be able to take what previously was hobby, and turn it into a livelihood. Of course, it’s not just WordPress — there will be projects based on other web application platforms, and I’m sure we’ll be dealing with Perl code as well as PHP, just as I have in my other work for the past many years. I enjoy the variety, so bring it on!

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-17

Dec172007
  • The heat was off in our office this morning (a fault in the thermostat). It’s freaking freezing in here! Need another bowl of coffee… #
  • Office thermostat now reads 72F, but it doesn’t feel like it. I’ve still got my coat on, and my fingers don’t want to type. #
  • Getting ready to head home. L:34.159132,-84.464441 #

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Twitterings

Dec132007

You might have already noticed, but I finally hopped onto the Twitter bandwagon. You can see my latest tweets in the sidebar (it’s the “What I’m Doing” section), and I currently have it auto-posting a daily summary here on the blog (courtesy of the Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress). I’m not sure if I’ll continue that or not, though. Of course, if you are also on Twitter, you can just follow my tweets with whatever method you prefer.

When Twitter first started, I didn’t think I’d see much value in it. Like many, I figured, “I’ve already got a blog, why would I need another service to maintain?” Then, Alex King asked me to look at a couple of things in his Twitter Tools plugin, so I signed up, just for testing things out. And also like many other people, I discovered that the deliberately small messages draw you in to making quick updates. Even though I’ve found it hard to make longer regular posts (like this one), posting a quick tweet on Twitter doesn’t distract me for long enough to interrupt my work flow in any significant way. Eventually, I’ll probably start reading and posting tweets from my phone, but for now, the web view, IM notices, and RSS feed serve my needs.

If you’re using Twitter, what was your reaction — was it similar to mine? Or did you immediately jump in? Or did you decide that you didn’t have a use for it? Do you use it more for posting your own thoughts, or for following others? If you haven’t tried it yet, why not?