Posterous Posting from my Phone

I just finished describing a script I created in order to have a thumbnail image in my Blogger sidebar widget whenever I send a post to Posterous from my phone.  If you are inclined (and have any idea what I'm talking about) please head over there and check it out.

Okay, über-nerd content is over!  Sorry to scare you like that.  From here on out, normal levels of nerdiness only.

I like to post pictures from my phone to the Internet.  To accomplish this, I have been using TwitPic, which takes the MMS message, posts the picture on the web, and then takes the subject and posts that on Twitter along with a link to the picture page.

It's a well-oiled machine, and it works, but it is not ideal.  For one thing, TwitPic has yet to implement OAuth with Twitter, which means that they require you give them your Twitter password in order to use the service.  This fact alone had me looking for alternatives, and I had been considering switching to img.ly. 

Recently, a friend of mine I follow on Twitter started posting videos using TwitVid, and I thought that was pretty cool, so I decided to check it out.  They use OAuth (at least, it's available--they also let you just give them your password), so that was nice.  But I decided to take a look around at other similar services to see what they had to offer.  In my experiment with TwitVid, the video I uploaded never made it to Twitter because it was still processing the video several hours later.  I canceled the account.

In looking around, I found that Posterous came highly recommended for phone content, and so I did some looking.  Normally, I wouldn't have thought of Posterous as the right tool for the job, most of what I see on Posterous is barrages of information that people share, mostly re-posts of others' material with commentary (similar to Google Reader, but much more like Tumblr).  However, I had seen a good example of original content on Posterous, and I liked the format.

So, after looking into Posterous' features, I created an account and started using it.  Here's what I like about Posterous.

• It supports OAuth, so I don't ever have give them your passwords for other services.
• I can post by e-mail, or, more specific to my case, MMS from my phone.
• Like TwitPic, it will post pictures to Twitter.  Like TwitVid, it will post video to Twitter.  Unlike both those services, it will post pretty much anything to pretty much anywhere and everywhere I choose.
• Whereas before, people on Facebook had to click on the TwitPic link on my imported status update to see the picture, now, the actual picture/video is posted to Facebook (and YouTube, in the case of video).
• It supports pretty much anything you throw at it: text, images, video, audio.  It will store, organize, publish, and push my content out to other services in the way that I specify.
• It supports a bunch of other services that I'm not using yet, but would be simple to set up if I started using them.
• If I want, I can restrict a post to show up on only the services I specify for that particular message--on the spot, over MMS.

I like it, and I would recommend it.

Google Buzz Reprieve

Yesterday I posted some of my thoughts on Google Buzz on my other blog.  Basically, I decided to disable it, because the way it was set up, it formed a connection between my full name and my online content.

I did some thinking after that post, and I believe there's a way to get what I want out of Google Buzz without discarding my mantle of online anonymity:  remove all the links from my Google Profile, and only post to Google Buzz privately.

That way, there will be a public profile with my name on it, but it won't be publicly associated with anything that I produce online.

It makes the Google Profile much less useful, but it allows me to use the service in the way that I feel comfortable with.

On a related note, here are two posts from LifeHacker that I found very helpful:

• Hide/Remove Google Buzz Updates from Your Gmail Inbox
• Stop Google Buzz From Showing the World Your Contacts

I don't want Google Buzz in my Gmail inbox.  In fact, I would prefer it to be in a separate page, like Google Reader, so the first article was especially helpful.  I don't think I would continue to use it if it kept filling my inbox with other people's imported posts.

Anyway, I'm going to try enabling it again, after I have purged all of my content sources from my Google Profile.  All of my sharing will be private, and my name will show up publicly on other peoples' public posts that I comment on (which is just fine).  If it annoys me (or distracts me too much), I'll turn it off again, but that will be on preference, not on principle.

Facebook Pet Peeves

Six things on Facebook doth Tim hate.  Yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

1. Profile pictures that don't actually contain the person.  (No, your child is still not you.)
2. Friend requests from people who, though we are in the same social circle, I have never interacted with.
3. Invitations to waste time and/or clutter my profile with some application.  This includes "interacting" with me from applications I have not installed.  
4. Also, lost cows.
5. Event invitations that unnecessarily last for weeks.  This screws up my Google Calendar, which imports my Facebook events.
6. Profiles that are not for people.  (Non-personal entities should have a page or a group, not a profile.)
7. Couples that share a single account.  This one bugs me on a much deeper level than the others.

 Now go, and sin no more.

Firefox Extensions Collection

A while ago, I wrote a post in which I create a list of software to install on a new Windows box.  I did this mostly for my own reference, but it might be useful to others.

The first item on my list is Firefox, but (until now) I didn't include any extensions.  Firefox is all about customizations, and extensions are the most powerful way to customize it.  But who wants to go through the trouble of sorting through the thousands of extensions to find the useful ones?  Well, it's more a matter of keeping your ear to the ground and trying out the ones that sound good and/or come recommended.

After years of research, I've created a collection of extensions!  I didn't write any of them, I just bunched them together because they were all useful to me.

I plan on updating the collection as time goes on, so here's the link:

• burndive's essential extensions

You can choose to install them individually, or as a group.  I hope you find them as useful as I have.

Khaki Campbells and Marans

Today, Elizabeth and I picked up two ducks and two roosters that we got off of Craigslist.

The ducks are female Khaki Campbells, and the roosters are copper black Marans.  Elizabeth has wanted Khaki Campbells for a while, since they're good layers.  It's a breed that her family has had before.

Our rooster, Mr. Darcy, died last week, so Elizabeth asked the seller if she knew of anyone who had a rooster.  As it happened, she had a pair of roosters and was looking for a good home for them.

Does anyone have any names to suggest?  If I name one of the roosters Mr. Knightly, what should the other one be named?  They're a bit young, and they timidly stayed in the chicken coop, and away from the hens.  Maybe I should call them Sheldon and Koothrappali.

The ducks, on the other hand, made right for our Pekins, and they seemed to be getting along fine.