Recent Posts
Make Your Own Tweet Cloud
New site creates a word cloud from your Twitter feed.
There's a great new Twitter service called Tweet Clouds, that will make a word cloud out of your Twitter timeline. Here's mine:
It's neat to see which words jump out. Some are obvious (iTweet, iPhone) but I am surprised at the weight of a couple words ("new" is one of the biggest words, I don't know what that's all about). It also shows the people that I converse with the most and that's kind of cool to see.
I also like that "love" and "lt3" are right next to each other - "lt3" being how Tweet Clouds reads "less-than-three" <3 hearts.
This is an inventive and useful way of analyzing the content of your Twitter posts. Kudos to John Krutsch for the scripting and Jared Stein for the design.
You can see my full-size Tweet Cloud here.
You can follow my Twitter updates here, my Twitter handle is @colbypalmer.
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It's neat to see which words jump out. Some are obvious (iTweet, iPhone) but I am surprised at the weight of a couple words ("new" is one of the biggest words, I don't know what that's all about). It also shows the people that I converse with the most and that's kind of cool to see.
I also like that "love" and "lt3" are right next to each other - "lt3" being how Tweet Clouds reads "less-than-three" <3 hearts.
This is an inventive and useful way of analyzing the content of your Twitter posts. Kudos to John Krutsch for the scripting and Jared Stein for the design.
You can see my full-size Tweet Cloud here.
You can follow my Twitter updates here, my Twitter handle is @colbypalmer.
Tags: twitter, tweetcloud, colbypalmer
iTweet on Wired.com
iTweet featured in "The Best Web Apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch"
There's no shortage of Twitter clients out there that will work well on your iPhone. Twitter even offers its own: m.twitter.com. But iTweet takes the cake for us. The client offers a great UI, and most importantly, the ability to download only new tweets each time you refresh, saving a lot of time and bandwidth if you're using AT&T's snail-slow EDGE data network.
I just saw this really nice mention of iTweet, my Twitter UI and iPhone web app, here on Wired.com's Epicenter blog. Thanks guys! (This article contains a voting system for "best app". If you enjoy using iTweet, please visit this page and click the green "UP" arrow to vote for iTweet!) I've also received a few requests now for a BlackBerry version of iTweet. I have never made a BlackBerry app before but how hard can it be, right? I will try to create a BB iTweet as soon as possible for those of you who don't have iPhones yet. ;) In other iTweet news, I'm working on a complete rewrite of the desktop app (and the iPhone app pending a review of the upcoming iPhone SDK). It's lean, mean, and Ajaxy. My favorite...Flash & iPhone Workaround
Use swfObject to "hide" accessible content behind your site's Flash pieces.
I recently had a client ask me to adjust her site to be iPhone-compatible. The navigation of this site uses Flash to apply a cosmetic animation on the text, so her site wasn't navigable via iPhone or any other non-Flash equipped device.
At first I thought I would advise her to forget about the slight effect that the Flash provided and change to a non-animated, but fully accessible navigation system. But I knew she really liked this small detail of the site, so I thought I would try another way.
...are you using swfObject to embed your Flash content, anyway? Because you probably should be. swfObject is an XHTML-valid javascript method of displaying Flash content without using unwieldy tags. The script will fill any old with your Flash, and changing the layout is as simple as adjusting the
with your style sheet. It detects Flash player versions and will help a user upgrade or install the Flash player "in-window" if necessary. It is a fantastic workaround for the annoying IE "Eolas patent dispute" requirement to "activate" Flash content by clicking it once before any buttons are active. And -- thanks to the way that...
Twittory: The Darkness Inside
Twittory: An "Exquisite Corpse" story - Twitter style!
Internal mechanisms began making adjustments. Muscle relaxants, serotonin. What to calm her mind? Focus...her son, where had they taken him?This was my 140-character contribution to Twittory #1, "The Darkness Inside". This is a Twitter-based Exquisite Corpse story written in 140 sentences of 140 characters or less (this is the amount of space allotted to a tweet). Fun idea! The story so far has elements of mystery, action, science fiction, humor and romance. Also blood, swearing, kissing, treachery, and time travel. And Lou Reed. Twittories are a production of The Podcast Network, and the game was begun by Cameron Reilly of the "G'Day World" podcast. My sentence is number 54, which I entered sometime around December 22. Right now the game is up to number 86...so check back in March or April to read the final product!
Tags: twitter, twittories, twittory, writing, exquisitecorpse
Walking Tall in Hot Couture
The VonStilt family featured on Boing Boing TV!
Firefighters, models in flaming pasties and blowtorch antlers, hot contortionists, and geisha stiltwalkers all gathered for a fire-themed fashion show at The Crucible in Oakland. Xeni was there, and brings back this report.My friend Megan Murray was interviewed (as Peekaboo VonStilt) by Xeni Jardin for BoingBoing TV! Her stilt walking troupe, the VonStilt Family, have been entertaining the masses for a while now and they deserve some attention. Go BoingBoing! This "Hot Couture" fire and fashion show at The Crucible in Oakland looks like it was amazing. I was not able to go and it looks like I really missed out! Click here to watch the original on boingboing. There are also some great pictures here on Flickr. Leave comments on this blog, or let's talk on Twitter or Facebook.