I recently learned an interesting fact as my family was up visiting. Apparently people a few of my friends and family have been wondering..
Is Brad on facebook all the time? It seems every 20 minutes he updates his facebook status!
Figured I'd clear up a few misconceptions.
I rarely use facebook, twitter, or any other social media software. Except maybe to upload new pics of my daughters once in a while.
My facebook status is automatically updated and in sync with my twitter. Twitter is a simple service that allows you to easily answer the question "What are you doing now?". For example you can 'follow' someone and find out what they are up to at any given moment.
BUT, I'm not on twitter all the time either. I use another service called ping.fm.
Ping.fm lets you automatically update several social media services at once, including facebook, twitter, Linked In, friend feed, etc
Following me so far?
Okay so here is what happens:
1) There is an automated script on my computer (both at home and work), it is a simple utility that gets called when certain events happen
If I start Firefox (my favorite web browser). It will automatically tweet "Surfing the web"
If I turn off my screen saver, it automtically tweets "At home on the computer"
When I'm at work, it wil tweet "@ Work", or "Working on my timesheet", when i start my timesheet software.
2) My cellphone and computers (work and home) communicate with each other via bluetooth. When I arrive at home my computer detects my cell phone and automatically tweets "@ Home", it also runs some other scripts to check various things and reminders for me
Likewise, when I'm at work, my work computer detects my cellphone and tweets "@ Work", when I leave work it tweets "left the office", and then automatically runs a backup routine to backup files on my work machine (since it knows i'm not there)
Sometimes, it will check my calendar, and announce that I am "In a meeting", or "Out to the Library with the kids", sometimes it does a countdown to a specific time "Eg: 2 days till Chloe is born"
Other times, it will grab a random quote and display it, or it might post a blog entry that I found interesting to others. Regardless of what you see; it's all automatic. I'm not doing anytnig
My latest and greatest program, ties into the GPS I got for Fathers Day. Now every so often when I walk around with the GPS, it will find my location and update my twitter/facebook to say "At the mall", or "Picking up Groceries". The GPS gathers my current Latitude and Longitude, looks this up in a database to associate it with a named place (eg: Sobeys), and then automatically twitters my location. Again totally automatic. (Seeing the geekiness of it all now?)
Oh, and when I'm watching TV with my PVR, yep, you guessed it, the current channel and show are added to my twitter/facebook as well.
My MSN Personal message is also in sync and updated as well as new things happen using this tool that I created here.
So there you have it! I just go about my daily business, and my computer(s) keep track of what I'm doing and update my facebook automatically!
So now the only question you may have left to ask? Where did I find the time to write all the programs to do this stuff?
I rarely use facebook, twitter, or any other social media software. Except maybe to upload new pics of my daughters once in a while.
My facebook status is automatically updated and in sync with my twitter. Twitter is a simple service that allows you to easily answer the question "What are you doing now?". For example you can 'follow' someone and find out what they are up to at any given moment.
BUT, I'm not on twitter all the time either. I use another service called ping.fm.
Ping.fm lets you automatically update several social media services at once, including facebook, twitter, Linked In, friend feed, etc
Following me so far?
Okay so here is what happens:
1) There is an automated script on my computer (both at home and work), it is a simple utility that gets called when certain events happen
If I start Firefox (my favorite web browser). It will automatically tweet "Surfing the web"
If I turn off my screen saver, it automtically tweets "At home on the computer"
When I'm at work, it wil tweet "@ Work", or "Working on my timesheet", when i start my timesheet software.
2) My cellphone and computers (work and home) communicate with each other via bluetooth. When I arrive at home my computer detects my cell phone and automatically tweets "@ Home", it also runs some other scripts to check various things and reminders for me
Likewise, when I'm at work, my work computer detects my cellphone and tweets "@ Work", when I leave work it tweets "left the office", and then automatically runs a backup routine to backup files on my work machine (since it knows i'm not there)
Sometimes, it will check my calendar, and announce that I am "In a meeting", or "Out to the Library with the kids", sometimes it does a countdown to a specific time "Eg: 2 days till Chloe is born"
Other times, it will grab a random quote and display it, or it might post a blog entry that I found interesting to others. Regardless of what you see; it's all automatic. I'm not doing anytnig
My latest and greatest program, ties into the GPS I got for Fathers Day. Now every so often when I walk around with the GPS, it will find my location and update my twitter/facebook to say "At the mall", or "Picking up Groceries". The GPS gathers my current Latitude and Longitude, looks this up in a database to associate it with a named place (eg: Sobeys), and then automatically twitters my location. Again totally automatic. (Seeing the geekiness of it all now?)
Oh, and when I'm watching TV with my PVR, yep, you guessed it, the current channel and show are added to my twitter/facebook as well.
My MSN Personal message is also in sync and updated as well as new things happen using this tool that I created here.
So there you have it! I just go about my daily business, and my computer(s) keep track of what I'm doing and update my facebook automatically!
So now the only question you may have left to ask? Where did I find the time to write all the programs to do this stuff?
1 comments:
Very cool! Hopefully that'll clear it up for a few people, as long as they happen to see your post :)
Glad you got your GPS software working!
- Jay
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