Category Archives: site updates

Twitter updater

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UPDATE: Please head on over to the new home of my plugin: TWITTERUPDATER.COM this post here will not be updated any longer!!!
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So, I found this cool plugin posting updates to twitter once you wrote a new blog post (or edited an old one). It’s pretty nice and can be found on the authors, Victoria Chan, site here (v1.1).

Jonathan Dingman then released an update adding tinyurl support (v2.0) which can be found here.

I just edited this v2.0 and replaced the tinyurl-support with support for the new url-shortening service ZZ.GD which results in even shorter short-urls saving more space in the tweet in case a post title is longer…

My new version (v2.07.1) can be found here (please read edits below for more information!!!): Twitter Updater v2.07.1

Known Issues:

  • None atm

Feature requests:

  • Possibility to include post’s category in tweet

Installation:
1. Download the plugin (see above link.)
2. Unzip the compressed file to your hard drive.
3. Upload the “twitter_updater” folder to your wp-content/plugins folder.
4. Browse to the Plugins page under wp-admin and activate the plugin.
5. Setting the options: Browse to Manage->Twitter Updater.
6. On this page, you can set any options you would like to.
7. IMPORTANT: Make sure you enter your Twitter username and password, then click on “save login”
8. That’s it! Now your Twitter.com status will be updated every time you publish a new post.

Edit (July 15th 2008): Just a quick note…the recent release of WP 2.6 has messed something up. While the plugin continues to work fine in WP version 2.5.1 and older, it keeps firing two updates (one with an invalid zz.gd-short-url) in WP 2.6. I’m going to investigate…stand by for news…and hopefully a quick fix.

Edit #2 (July 15th 2008): I’ve identified the culprit…WP2.6 uses post-revisions (saving multiple instances of the post using autosave)…hence the multi-tweet…working on a fix now…

Edit #3 (July 15th 2008): It’s indeed the post-revisions thing, but the quick workaround I tried (disabling post revisions after all) has had some major side-effects (namely edits of posts were not saved anymore)…so I really need to address this issue by checking the post status and ignoring revisions…fix probably coming tomorrow…for the time being please just manually delete the first auto-tweet.

Edit #4 (July 17th 2008): Sorry about the delay, but my computer fried itself today, so I had no time to fix it yet…exciting news forthcoming…as hopefully the fix…stay tuned.

Edit #5 (July 17th 2008): This little plugin has it’s own twitter source parameter now…so it’ll say “from Ingoal’s Twitter Update” instead of “from web” from now on…you can grab the latest version, version 2.02 above…version 2.03 with the bugfix (double-tweet) is still forthcoming…

Edit #6 (July 22nd 2008): Sorry about the delay…but I had something else going on, so it took me a while to write the fix. I deleted some of the options, from now on out you’ll have the update choice to auto-twitter when posting a new post (with or without link using zz.gd) and auto-twittering when editing old posts…that’s it. Compatible to WordPress version 2.6! So if you’re running WP 2.6, please update to version 2.03!!! …and if you’re running WP 2.5.1 or older, please continue to use version 2.02!!! Hat tip to microkid for his hint about identifying WordPress post revisions and auto-saves!!!

Edit #7 (July 27th 2008): Fixed the post-title issue. In the prior version post titles were truncated if they included an ampersand ( & )…this is fixed now…please update.

Edit #8 (July 29th 2008): Introduced alternative method to retrieve the shorturl from zz.gd (using curl)…please update if you had problems (error message, empty shorturl) and make sure you have a look at the twitter updater page (manage) -> check the new checkbox! If you didn’t have problems you don’t need to do anything…

Edit #9 (August 04th 2008): Introduced a cascading in the shorturl generation. After zz.gd was down the last two days due to server issues, ppl using the plugin were stuck with empty shorturls. To rectify that situation and keep it from happening in the future the cascade of zz.gd — tinyurl.com was introduced. If zz.gd is down, the shorturl will be generated using tinyurl.com. Other cascades might be added in the future, but for now, this one seems to be more than enough.

Edit #10 (October 18th 2008): So…Marco “Saphod” Luthe put up a modded version of the 2.06 version that fixes the future post (and save post) issues. I took the liberty to rename his modded version 2.06 to version 2.07 and I’m officially releasing it here. Thanks again Marco! All you users and readers out there feel free to drop by his site to thank him for the fix…and happy tweeting/twittering….

Edit #11 (November 1st 2008):Corrected tinyurl api url, so that if you’re using tinyurl instead of zz.gd you’re getting the correct short-url…

New Photoblog…

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…not that I had an old-one, lol, but as I got myself a new digital camera today, I thought I’d start a photoblog as part of ingoal.info. It can be found here. Let’s see how long I can keep it uptodate with photos…my plan is to post a photo every day, let’s see how that works out. If you would like to follow my photoblog, check in regularly or subscribe using your favourite feedreader…

Letting go…

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I’m usually a “collector” type of guy, but it’s time to let go. Last week I decided that I would let go of my proxy network (browsetastic.com) and put it up for sale at the MarketPlace of the great SitePoint Forums, where I’m an advisor (moderator).

Although the number of inquiries was huge, the number of bids was little…at least in the beginning. Then, it happened pretty quickly. After I posted a BIN, it was sold within 24hours…which leads me to believe that the BIN (12x net monthly revenue) was a little low, but hey, I’m not the type of guy who’s whining afterwards. I’m happy that I sold it at the price I did and all that’s left is to wait for the money to roll in and then getting everything setup to make the transfer smooth and easy…

…and on the upside, I’ve still got more than 40 sites to my name, so I’m not really retiring from the website business…and with the cash raised in the sale, I’ll get myself a new laptop (among other things) which will be put to good use in my upcoming diploma thesis… ;)

New month, new theme, new outlook

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After the recent lack of updates around here, I thought it was time to bring this blog back to life. I started off by getting a new template, after all the last one has been online for ages now – maybe some tweaks here and there will follow, but I already like the template how it is atm.

So, why so little updates in the last few months? Mostly because I didn’t have much to blog about around here. Now things are getting back to normal, so there should be more updates again as…

  • …the new footie season will start next week
  • …the new fantasy footie season already started
  • …I’m starting an internship in just over a week
  • …I’m motivated to write more again :)

That said, it’s time to wrap up this post with a quick request: if you come across any problems with the new layout (looks good to me in Firefox, Opera and IE), feel free to contact me or just comment on this post..

Roundup

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Wow, it’s been a while since I last posted something around here. With all the christmas, new year and different other stuff coming up, it was hard to find the time, but now I’m back.

Server, Domains, etc: Although Ingoal’s Insight… is still hosted with Dreamhost, I’ve got my dedicated server up and running now, finally. So, I’m probably moving this site over sooner or later, as there’s no point in paying twice, although Dreamhost’s hosting packages have just been updated once again: quatrupled (space) and octupled (bandwidth) to be precise, so you can get 20GB of space along with 1 TB of bandwidth for as little as 7.95$/month. Check it out!

Apple: Does MacBook Pro ring a bell? Intel Core Duo (dual core Pentium M) along with the possibility to run Windows (although not officially supported by Apple). This is certainly good news, and I’m really considering switching to a Mac in the near future (although I’ll wait for the update of the iBook, MacMini and PowerMac series before I make a decision about which way to go).

Fantasy Footie: After the good run in the old year I started to drop in ranking again and it’s going to be a hard fight until the end of the season, I’m not sure I can surpass Mr. Price, but at least I’m giving it my best shot – and one way or another, it’s has been fun.

Uni:ÂÂ I’m currently taking some time off and I’m in the need to find an internship, as this is the last thing on my todo list before I head into the final exams in March/April…then I can start my diploma thesis, which I can hopefully complete before the end of the year.

Ingoalnetwork: The sites are finally completed and some network sites have been added, for news about the network head over to the new network blog.

Chitika: After the bad experience in October I stuck around and since then they’ve been working hard at improving their overall solutions (the product of emini-malls themselves, almost real time audits, etc) and I’m happy to report, that their reports are now much more accurate and with the addition of european support the clicks and hence the revenue has really been stabilised. On another note: I receive the first payment (for november) just days ago, so I’m really satisfied now, I’ll keep you updated about it the following months…in the meantime feel free to check their blog and our give their emini-malls a test run.

Poker: For all the newsworthy stuff about my new passion poker head over to my poker-blog.

Server outage

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I just wanted to let you know that there was a major server problem earlier which caused this blog (along with all of my other sites) to be down for some hours. There was something wrong with the mounting of the hard-drives so the home shares couldn’t be mapped to the domains. Everything seems to be up and running again though and the customer support responded within an hour…so I’m not totally happy, but at least relieved to see the sites all up and running again…

On another note: I decided to get myself a dedicated server for the likes of Proxytastic.com as they’re too resource hungry to be run on this shared hosting account. Watch out for an announcement once the dedicated server is up and running….

Update:…and another server outage, this time the DB server…this is starting to get annoying…

Second Update:Support got to it, although it was sunday morning quite quickly…the db server was filled up…now it’s been trimmed down to around 80% of it’s capacity, but it seems that they need another storage solution or something for this particular server…so…for now everything up and running again…

Progress report on online ads

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As you may have noticed I’ve switched ads to Chitika after I’ve seen them on other blogs. So far I’m really satisfied with the results and I’ve started to add the Chitika eMiniMalls to some of my other sites, too – namely:

If you’re looking for an alternative to Google Adsense, Clicksor, Bidvertiser and similiar have a look at Chitika and their variety of advertising programs (eMiniMalls, RealContext, BlogContext) and if you would like to do me a favour do so by using my referral link: Chitika. Thank you!

One year anniversary!

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Oh my! One year of Ingoal’s Insight… and I totally missed to write about it. Not a biggie though as I’m only two days late :-)

How time flies! Ingoal’s Insight… started on August 23rd 2004 and a lot of stuff happened since then. “The design” of the site was changed numerous times or at least fine-tuned to the point where it is now (latest addition: the too cool for IE button bottom right). I’m planning to do a “facelift” sometime in the near future, but don’t pin me on a certain date (busy times).

Some statistics:

  • 266 posts where made (wow that’s less than 1 post/day, I guess I could be more active again, it’s just hard to find the time)
  • around 1k unique visitors per month
  • PR 5
  • listed in dmoz

I want to thank all the readers, visitors, contributors, friends, family and colleagues who are, at least a little bit, interested in the stuff I write and I’m hoping for many more years to come! As it’s the 1yr anniversary I think there should be some sort of contest/give-away or whatever, I shall think about that and announce something soonish!

WordPress 1.5 Strayhorn

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The new version 1.5 of WordPress is out, get it here.

But be advised – there might be a lot of work to it (if you’ve customized a lot of stuff!).

My To-Do-List:

  • Reinstall AntiSpam-Solution – Done
  • Get site to work at all – Done cheers Aaron
  • Get Gravatars to work again properly – Done
  • Update smilies – Done
  • Get different versions to work again – WAP+Mobile
  • Get about, advertise and contact working again… – Done, you gotta love the new pages function
  • Get WP-Grins again…
  • add WP-Stats again…
  • …

Sidenote: The only thing that bothers me is that they included the whole no-follow thing and there’s no way to turn it off (yet) :tdown: – Fixed thanks to John :tup: !

Blogroll

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I decided it was time to “implement” a real blog-roll as it was really painful to update the link-list manually – and like everything else which is painful: you tend to not do it.

So I created a blogrolling account, deleted the old manual link-list and replaced it with the new, dynamic blogroll.