IFTTT and Twitter work around

 

Going power mad with ifttt.com (Photo credit: deusx)

I like my tweets archived to Evernote. Really I do. It’s like a personal journal that I don’t have to remember to update because it auto clips everything from the day.  I don’t have to work so hard to create my journal or duplicate anything. Also I have Facebook, Foursqure, Flickr, Goodreads and many more locations feeding my journal as well.  So when I learned that IFTTT was not allowing you to use Twitter triggers anymore I was sad… Then I started to search for a work around. You see, I remember Twitter used to have an RSS feed!!! And, well, I have my WordPress RSS feed pull through IFTTT into my Evernote journal so surely I can do the same with Twitter.

Twitter has gotten cagy. It’s more difficult now to find your RSS feed. After some poking around and looking at blogs I found my answer. My twitter handle is @tanyabook so the RSS feed for it is

http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/tanyabook.rss

You can swap out “tanyabook” for your own username.

I just created a new Recipe with IFTTT  with a Feed as the “IF THIS” trigger. Inserted my Twitter RSS url. Picked Evernote as my “THEN THAT” action. I have it as appending the same note as that’s the format I prefer. IFTTT also gives you the choice to have each instance create its own. I found that this created many more individual notes without much information, but whichever of the two it creates the archive. Which was the main goal of this exercise.

IMO Twitter’s tightening may not do good things for the service in the long run. Honestly I don’t care what Justin Bieber or any of the twitter celebs are tweeting. What is this “promoted” crapola? I use twitter as a personal journal/open chat with friends. I don’t care about the hottest trending topic. In fact, I still get text messages from twitter for my closest friends. So get off my twitter lawn!!!!

Related articles

• How to Automatically Archive Your Life with IFTTT and Evernote [Journaling]
• IFTTT forced to remove Twitter triggers to comply with new API policies

 

ShopKick iPhone App

I’ve been using a new iPhone app lately. The name of it is ShopKick. It bills itself as a rewards program for just walking into stores. You have the app open and walk into a store and presto, you get “Kickbucks” which you can exchange for prizes. You can also in select shops scan products and get extra kickbucks. It also occasionally has coupons and discounts within the app. You also level up to unlock better rewards and more bonuses.

The Pros

• They have some big name retailers backing this project. Best Buy, American Eagle Outfitters, Macy’s, Sports Authority and Simon Malls.
• There are bonus sets to collect and a few of the sets are donations that Citi will make a donation to Feed America or the ASPCA.
• You can redeem your kickbucks for charity donations; Facebook credits; Gift Certificates to Restraurant.com, Best Buy, American Eagle, Sports Authority; or DVDs.

The Cons

• I am using it in Arlington, VA, but have yet to find a store where I get credit for walking in automatically. I have been in Best Buy once, two different May’s stores and an American Eagle. No luck with the automatic check-in.
• For the badges you earn there is no progress bar or anything else that will let you check how close you are to earning your next achievement badge.
• Winning a free song means you have to use Napster to redeem it.

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Visible Vote

Doing a travel assignment in Washington DC has made me more aware of government issues and the need to be active on these issues, but keeping up with everything can be difficult. This app simplifies it.

You just launch the app & let it know your zip code. One thing I like is it uses your hand entered zip code & not your location. Cause I actually vote in my “home” location & not where I currently am. You see your president, senators & representatives. See how they voted compared to your entered votes. If you touch their names. You can touch their name to go to their profiles including their Twitter accounts. You see their Real Time Approval Rating (RTA) & can vote yourself. Also you can click to call your congress person.

But the true meat of the app is bills & the voting you can do on them. Read over the main points of the bill. Find links to new sources on the bill. Then VOTE! for yourself.  Your votes are collected & weekly faxed to your representatives so they know the opinion on the individuals they represent. Also you are asked to rate how important the issue is to you. This can be important to your representative.

There’s also polls on current hot topics.

Also you can write your congressional representatives right inside the app.

Don’t have an iPhone???? Facebook can be useful, because there is a facebook app for Visible Vote. http://apps.facebook.com/visible_vote/

Or if you run Windows there is a windows application downloadable at http://visiblevote.us/windowsinfo.php

There’s also an Android version http://visiblevote.us/googleinfo.php

And Blackberry http://visiblevote.us/blackberryinfo.php

A Mac version is in the works.

Twitter Rambling summary

Image via Wikipedia

Just my random twitter scribblings for today.

• 01:09 McDonald’s being cute under the covers. #
• 01:37 Burn After Reading I turned it off. It wasn’t even funny for a black comedy. #
• 09:48 I need to go out and get cat food #
• 10:12 @ottom I’m up for it. As long as cat food shopping will be done after. #
• 10:20 @ottom up IHOP is closer to my place. Why don’t we meet there? #
• 10:24 @danabrit Arizona Cardinals #
• 11:08 I am setting next to a 17 day old little boy. His first big trip out of the house. #
• 11:43 @demonasolace oh no!!!! #
• 11:45 @demonasolace agh. Did dave sabotagge it? #
• 13:57 @demonasolace And that’s why you need to move to ATL #
• 15:48 SLFN: +Plus:
  So it’s my monthly update . School is fun, it just soaks up a lot of energy.
  We have a .. ping.fm/s1ecH #
• 16:26 @lethann I am in the Mac section. #
• 20:48 @demonasolace Was it saying that through facebook? It’s a phishing site. They’ve had a lot of that scam happening recently. #
• 20:50 @demonasolace Your photos aren’t there, they want your username/password. Then they hack into your account and post that to all friends #
• 20:52 @demonasolace It wasn’t your friend who posted. It was your friend who’s account got hacked. #
• 20:55 @demonasolace tinyurl.com/595p9m #
• 22:01 @Amelia_Book We were discussing this over pancakes this morning. #
• 22:57 @Amelia_Book That’s after he ate so many treats that he threw up. #
• 23:41 @wilw My cats want all doors open. Including closets. #
• 23:51 It’s midnight and I’m hungry. Anyone want to go out for food??? #
• 23:52 @lethann photo when you’re done before you go to bed then. #
• 23:53 @lethann Anything else open besides Steak & Shake? #
• 23:54 @lethann k. thanks #
• 23:58 @lethann That’s what I get for passing out and sleeping the evening away. #

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Products I can’t live without

Image via CrunchBase

Every year Michael Arrington at TechCrunch does an article on Products he can’t live without.  So I made my own list. They are in random order.

1. iPhone
This was the game changer in the cell phone market in 2007. In 2008 with the opening of the App Store & 3G it took off even more.

2. Instapaper
Read Later. Never has there been better words when you are in a hurry. For those times that you don’t want a full bookmark, but you’d like to read it in detail later.

3. Evernote
Remember Everything. Notebook service. Much more useful than Google Notebook’s abandoned development. Offline/Sync-able clients are available for Mac, Window, iPhone & Windows Mobile. Will also store PDFs. More files types available if you pay for Premium membership.

4. WordPress
Wordpress runs my blogs. Nuff said. Can’t publish without it.

5. Delicious
Bookmarking service. Social bookmarks. Thanks to the Delicious extension for Firefox I use instead of the local bookmarks. That way if I go to someone else’s computer I can still access all my bookmarks.

6. Facebook
Thanks to Facebook I’ve caught up with a lot of people I had lost touch with. I just out of the blue received a friend request from a guy I was friends with in high school. I hadn’t seen him since high school. Now if I can just get all my cousins on facebook instead of myspace…..

7. Gmail
Email. I can’t live without email. I don’t always use the web interface, but I get it in Apple Mail and in iPhone Mail as well as the web interface. I use the IMAP to keep it all in sync.

8. Google Reader
My RSS reader of choice at the moment. I’ve strayed, but as they keep updating it I keep coming back.

9. Pandora
Internet radio. I’ve used it more on my iPhone than online, but I have discovered a few songs I like through it.

10. TripIt
I kept up with my work schedule and hotel bookings when I worked out of town.

11. Remember the Milk
There is a reason I pay for the premium service. There is an iPhone client for premium members. It will send me SMS texts & twitter reminders.

12. Twitter
I use twitter as an asynchronous group chat. Now that most of my RL friends use it we bounce messages back and forth. Arrange going out to eat.  And it sends their updates straight to my mobile.

Mourn
1. I Want Sandy
I miss Sandy so much. Email her something to remind you in plain english. And it would translate it into a to do, appointment or a contact. I was upset when it shut down.

So what do you use????????????

Twitter Rambling summary

Just my random twitter scribblings for today.

• 03:57 Overheard:
  W
  1: Are you pregnant?
  2: No it’s not a do it yourself project. #
• 04:35 Overheard at work:
  1: Peeing like Niagra Falls
  2: The Canadian side or the American side? #
• 19:47 @lethann I like Tweetie but it is paid. #
• 19:50 @lethann I like ping.fm for posting to multiple places. Like Plurk & Twitter & Facebook status, but you don’t get everyone else. #
• 20:17 @lethann do we need to go get you an iTunes gift card. #
• 20:25 Can I beat up this computer at work? #
• 20:40 Watching the presidential ball at work. During first dance, I tried to read Obama’s lips. I think he told Michelle “I love you” #
• 23:17 @Amelia_Book did you hit McD with the water or something else? #
• 00:57 @amelia_book no you’d throw the cats. #

Automatically batched by LoudTwitter

[Review] iPhone app: LOLCats

App Store link: [1]
Cost: Free

I must confess I’m addicted to I Can Haz Cheeseburger. This lets you access Zoomr or the Flickr Can Has Cheeseburger group to see the kittehs. You can thumb through them. The downside? You get whatever photos get added to the public group. I saw a guitar once. No animal, no caption, just the fretboard of the guitar. And occasionally you’ll run across a LOLpolitician.

[Review] iPhone app: Diggnation On The Go

Website: www.diggnation.com
iPhone site: N/A
App Store link: [1]
Cost: Free
Uses: 3G Network

Diggnation is a video podcast that cover stories from Digg.com. With this app you can play the video without downloading the file and syncing with your computer. Diggnation On The Go app is NOT made by the folks who produce Diggnation, but by a third party.

[Review] iPhone apps: AirMe

Website: www.airme.com
iPhone site: N/A
App Store link: [1]
Cost: Free
Uses: GPS & Camera

This was an app I was underwhelmed with. I seriously have considered uninstalling and deleting it. All it does is geotag the snapshot your are taking. It can post to Twitter in the latest version. It does allow you to set a Title & Tags, but not add a description. It uploads to Facebook or Flickr as well as AirMe’s own site. It also allows you to email the photo if that’s your thing.

Suggestions for improvement:
-Do something original to set yourself apart

[Review] iPhone app: Facebook

Website: www.facebook.com
iPhone site: iphone.facebook.com
App Store link: [1]
Cost: Free
Uses: 3G connection or Wifi

Facebook has the social network to really embrace the iPhone. Now I’ve heard the whole Facebook is Mac and MySpace is PC debate. But honestly I have different folks who use different systems. I got started with the whole MySpace & Facebook thing when I was a sorority finance advisor. You’d hear about Girl A posting something to Facebook and it got to be a big thing. So when it opened up both the chapter advisor and I made profiles. Even now a vast majority of my friends on Facebook are my sorority sisters. Honestly I’m not like the folks at TechCrunch who live in Facebook and Twitter (ok maybe twitter, but not Facebook).  That was before apps which can make things more interesting, but spammy. I honestly don’t care about a ‘Lil Green Patch. However, I do love the little Free Gifts application and the Twitter application.

Suggestions for improvement:
-Ability to confirm friends who add you with groups (ie, limited profile)

My Facebook Profile

More app photos:

Web app photos: