Tag Archives: Twitter

It Seems I’ve Become Addicted to GetGlue

GetGlue StickerAs many have figured out by now, I’ve managed to get myself playing around with GetGlue. As the About page states: GetGlue is a leading social network for entertainment. Users check-in and share what they are watching, listening to and reading with friends; get fresh recommendations, exclusive stickers, discounts and other rewards from GetGlue partners.

I’ve been using it for awhile now and my profile is http://getglue.com/mrheadrick. It’s kind of cheesy but it’s fun and addictive (surprise.. I get addicted to things easily). You’ll also notice to the right (if you’re looking at my blog’s main page and it’s still there) a GetGlue widget that shows my latest check-ins. As you check into, like, or review items you unlock stickers. Some stickers are always available, such as the Ice Cream Superfan while others are only available for a limited time such as a TV special or while a movie is in the theaters. To date I have earned 220 stickers. At the moment, after every 20 stickers you’ve earned, they will mail physical copies to you. So far I have received 4 batches of GetGlue stickers. They are about 1.5 inches in diameter.

So far I’ve been pretty much on the up-and-up and only check into items that I am actually watching, listening to, eating (yes, you can check into food and drinks), or doing.Β  There seem to be some that just check into things to get the stickers as there’s not enough hours in the day to watch all those shows LOL.

As of this moment, it has the ability to send updates to your Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr accounts and you can check which, if any, to update with each check-in. There is a GetGlue API that I’ll hopefully be able to figure out at some point to allow my Winamp now-playing script to automatically check into artists with song title and album information. Doing it manually is somewhat of a chore LOL.

Anyway, check it out and you might get addicted to it like I have. I think the fact that it’s unique and not trying to be another Facebook, like Google+, helps. πŸ™‚

My FriendFeed Account Is Going the Way of the Dodo

Dodo BirdAfter some thought, I’ve decided to get rid of my FriendFeed account. There are a few reasons why:

I mainly used FriendFeed as a bridge between my Twitter and Facebook accounts and the various RSS feeds from my blog, gallery, and shared Google Reader posts. However, some of this functionality has been lost. FriendFeed used to be able to have its own tab in my Facebook profile which allowed those who did not use Twitter to see my Twitter updates if they wished without leaving Facebook. (Yes, I am aware of the many tools to have Twitter updates show on Facebook and I use Selective Tweets for this purpose when I want a tweet to show there.)

It has also been very problematic in grabbing Facebook items and forwarding them to my Twitter account and did not seem to be consistently getting new items from my RSS feeds and sending those to Twitter. I have since started to use Twitterfeed (site removed) and RSS Grafitti (not active it seems) to send RSS feed updates to my Twitter and Facebook accounts and have disabled this part of my FriendFeed account as a result.

It also seems like 90-95% of the content in my FriendFeed stream is being generated by people’s Twitter updates, most of whom I am already following on Twitter anyway LOL. As such, I hardly even look at the FriendFeed site anymore.

So, yeah, it’s time for my FriendFeed account to go the way of the Dodo Bird. πŸ™‚ For those that follow me on FriendFeed, feel free to follow me @mrheadrick and/or on Facebook if you’re not already.

My NASCAR Inspired DestroyTwitter 2 Theme

Now that DestroyTwitter 2.1.0 supports themes, I decided to make a NASCAR inspired theme. It’s very similar to the one I made for DestroyTwitter 1.X. You just need to download, unzip the file and install the theme through preferences.

Download DestroyTwitter 2.X NASCAR theme

mrheadrick's DestroyTwitter 2.X NASCAR theme

Since these are just CSS files, they are very easy to modify how you see fit. Enjoy! πŸ™‚

How I got NASCAR RaceBuddy working in Firefox.

Update July 14, 2012: Thought I should mention that the issues I had below were under Windows XP Home/SP3. Currently, I have a completely new system running Windows 7 Pro/SP1 64-bit (hardware specs) with Firefox 13.0.1 and Adobe Flash 11.3.300.265 with Protected Mode enabled. I’ve never had a problem with RaceBuddy not working other than the Flash plug-in crashing once or twice; however, during some races, like today’s Nationwide race, no issues. This and the previous two versions of Flash have caused some grief amongst some users just watching normal videos in Firefox, Chrome, and even IE but nothing specific to just RaceBuddy.


During the NASCAR Truck race on Friday, NASCAR.COM made TruckBuddy available.Β  It was very similar to RaceBuddy they had last year during the TNT races. You get a choice of several live video feeds along with a mosaic feed of 4 video streams at once and a live chat feature.

Problem:

When I first tried it with Firefox (version 3.6 or 3.6.2), the video portion did not work and the live chat portion on the right side would not work properly either. It would let me attempt to login via Twitter and provided the typical Twitter Allow/Deny Connection authorization window; however, upon returning to the application it did nothing and acted like I had never logged in.

Solution:

I solved the video problem by disabling Adblock Plus on the NASCAR.COM site. Apparently, if the video advertisement does not play first, then nothing else will or at least problematically.

I solved the chat problem by enabling 3rd-party cookies which I have disabled by default (Tools -> Options -> Privacy). Upon further examination, I could disable 3rd-party cookies again if I gave exceptions to the following:

  • gigya.com
  • livechat.gigya.com
  • socialize.gigya.com

After the race was over, I re-enabled Adblock Plus for NASCAR.COM :). Hopefully this helps anyone else trying to get RaceBuddy working with Firefox should they have it again.

Configured Winamp v5.57 and website to use new Now Playing plug-in.

After upgrading Winamp to its latest version (5.57), the Now Playing v2.1.2 plug-in I was using would cause Winamp to crash every time I closed Winamp which caused none of its settings to be saved. After some googling around I came across Brandon Fuller’s Now Playing: A Winamp Plugin (site gone) which seemed to do what I needed. It would allow me to FTP a XML file containing information about the last X number of songs I played and would also let me send a HTTP post request to run a PHP script with the current song’s information contained within the $_POST variable. It calls this HTTP request a “ping”.

When this “ping” is sent, my PHP script parses the newly uploaded XML file to create the now playing images and song history (as seen on my Entertainment page), as well as a prepared Twitter message in a separate file should I choose to send a tweet out.

You can also send Twitter and Facebook updates using this plug-in. I’ve only tested it with Twitter and it seems to work; however, I use a separate PHP script to manually Tweet the song I’m currently listening to so I don’t fill my Twitter stream with song spam.

This plug-in does lack a couple things that the older one would do:

  1. Send an album cover image along with the rest of the song’s information in a $_POST variable such as a folder.jpg located in the same directory as the song; however, it will send a link to an Amazon album image if the information matches (sometimes it doesn’t match correctly or just can’t find one). I am working on a mechanism to get around some of these pitfalls by uploading album images and having my script check for the existence of the local album image first.
  2. Work with Shoutcast streams to extract out song information.

Even so, I will continue to use this plug-in for its compatibility and continuing support by the developer. It also seems to be a bit more reliable and stable than what I was using. Yes, I did purchase a license key. πŸ™‚