Twitter API Bug?

Ever since @Jestertunes started messaging me on Twitter while in San Francisco for the 2008 Pride festivities, I’ve been addicted to the micro-blogging/social-networking behemoth.

It really took off when the iPhone apps for Twitter started popping up and even more so once a decent desktop application came to fruition in the form of Tweetdeck.

But recently I’ve been fucked over by the Twitter API limitations.  See, you are only allowed 100 pings to your Twitter account via third party applications such as Tweetdeck or Twitterriffic per hour.

Normally that’s OK for me.  I’d like more but 100 has been enough 95% of the time.

Every hour, on the hour, the API resets.  Except in the past week mine has not reset, which means I cannot update my Twitter, or view my friends’ updates.  Boo!  It also means my Brightkite to Twitter stream isn’t working.

Even with just a minute or two into the hour, I’ve exceeded my API limit.

I changed my password just to make sure there wasn’t another application through the internets hacking my account and loaded up Tweetdeck again.  Tweetdeck had my old password credentials but somehow updated all my replies and friends’ updates.  Doesn’t that require access to the Twitter API?

So I messaged @Twitter for their help and did my best to be light hearted.

Did I succeed?  I sure hope so.  I at least hope they can fix my account cause I’m dying getting all my friends’ updates via text message.  It’s making me crazy having my leg vibrate so much 😉

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I Wanna Be Popular

I began blogging back in 2002 using the site Xanga.  I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and the community behind it was pretty great.  I even paid the $25/yr to get Xanga Premium, and paid for a few friends just to keep them blogging.  It was a pretty sad state, in high school and into college and stuck on Xanga.

It wasn’t long into my college career that I decided to make the move to something a little more powerful.  MoveableType was the answer to my prayers.  For the first time, I was in control of what I wrote, how it was presented and I didn’t even have to pay for it.  I had tried LiveJournal (yuck) and Blogger (not bad but kinda boring) but there was something about another company potentially owning my material, or being able to shut me down, that bothered me.

As I began to grow my blog and needed more flexibility, and when TypePad started to want to charge me for features I used to get for free, I began another search for a great blogging platform.  That is when I was introduced to WordPress, which had only recently changed from b2.

Moving my site over from MoveableType was supposed to be really easy but I was new to the whole MySQL thing and, well I deleted most of my posts, possibly all of them.

Back when my blog first started, I was afraid of people reading it.  Now, my friends and dorm mates all knew the address and read the blog, but anyone outside of that; well that made me quite nervous.  My father had recently gotten a new job in a high position with a boss would was very much against homosexuality and if they found my blog, he could lose his job.  Or so my brother convinced me.

Heck, my family didn’t know I was gay, I wasn’t really out to them; and that’s even a little iffy these days.  But I was terrified that a professor or a family member would find the site and I’d be done with.  So I kept the blog as a subdomain of my main site, Soundwise.  I haven’t updated Soundwise since, oops.

It wasn’t until I moved to California that I felt comfortable with a blog that had its very own domain, and it even had my name in it.  But that was the trick, if someone asked me, “I hear you have a site/blog, what’s the address?”

I would simply respond, “Oh, yes!  The address is really simple, it’s just justin dot com.”

They would go, “awesome, I’ll have to check that out”

Clickity clackity, www.justin.com

Booyah, tricked.  Now, if I wanted them to make it to my site I’d just say, “Oh yeah! just go to www.itsjustjustin.com

Now-a-days I don’t worry so much.  I am more or less completely out to my family and no longer have skeletons in my closet to worry about.  I have made myself public and in many ways that is incredibly freeing.

Not only have I found a way to release stress and tell a story; I’ve found a new way to making friends.  In the past two months I have made so many incredible friends through blogging and through one guy in particular, Jester from Jestertunes.com.

Here’s a quick list of bloggers I have recently befriended or have been inspired by their site…

Winterheart/Sunlight Sucks
ToriBlaine
Jestertunes
UncleMonkeyBoy
Blogography
Down With Pants!
Socially Dead
Snackie’s World
SecondHand Tryptophan
Brainporn

I read these blogs regularly and so do a lot of other people it seems.  Snackiepoo seems to average 20-50+ comments on each of her blog posts, and that’s really nothing compared to some other bloggers who are getting hundreds of comments.

So what I’m here to find out is, how do they do this?  I don’t care about monetizing my blog, that would be awesome but I just like blogging.  I love to write and to post my photography out there and my thoughts on whatever comes to mind.  But it seems that my hiatus a while back where I stopped posting really hurt me, I’m down to 50-300 hits a day.  That’s too big of a range and only a comment or three per post?  How disappointing.

I get the most hits on nerd posts.  If I write about Apple or something totally nerdy, especially if I complain about something nerdy, hits galore.

Something personal, not terrible.

Photography… people love it but rarely comment (sad face)

Political (nothing, zero, zilch)

John Mayer Kissing Adam Levine CRAZINESS!  Tons of hits and comments

So what is the key?  What is it that makes people keep coming back and gets them to post comments?  I’d love some input, especially from the guys on my blogroll.

To me, blogging is like High School all over again, we are all battling to make it to the top and we don’t mind shitting on anyone in order to get there.  Well, I don’t care to be on the top, I just want to maybe make it up the bank of the mountain a bit; and I could use your help!

Much love,

Justin

On a Mission (in the Mission)

Our last day in San Francisco was a busy day.  Ryan had a lot of paperwork to get processed and needed a few LiveScans for a job application and ambulance license so we marched down Powell to the Bart station.

Wow, I guess I forgot all about the Pride Parade.  Thousands of people met us at the Bart station, completely hiding it from our field of vision.  We hung out, watched a few floats go by, reveled in the fun, friendly good times and took a few pictures.

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As with any gay event, not everyone there was there to celebrate equality.  Some religious zealots where protesting the parade, the weekend, the gay marriages in California and just whatever popped into their heads.

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They blamed the fires on the gays.  They blamed the terrorist attacks in 2001 on the gays.  They blamed the salmonella on the gays.  They blamed the storms on the gays.  Apparently it’s our fault.  Sorry guys.  Our bad.

[flv:Religious_Zealots.flv 500 375]

The kicker was when he said, “If you guys are such a loving, kind and friendly people, why do you need all of these police officers?  It’s because you cause hate and destruction that they are here” and then went onto something about paying good Californian’s tax dollars for us to celebrate our heresy…

I guess what he was missing was this.  The police are there not to protect us from ourselves but from people like him.  Pride is about as safest I have ever felt in a city, day or night.  The only thing one gay guy wants to do to another gay guy is fuck him (excuse my vulgarity and obvious exaggeration).

Well anyway, we finally made it to the UPS Store for Ryan’s LiveScan only to find it had closed for Pride.  Haha, a UPS closed for Pride, how awesome.  We took a seat at Squat & Gobble for lunch while we figured out a Plan B.

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Squat & Gobble is the perfect little brunch place.  I always think of Landon when I go there.  I’m pretty sure you would love it Landon, reminds me of The Café in Washington DC only… better.  It was delicious.  While there we found another LiveScan place, hopped on a bus and back to the Mission we go.

LiveScan went easy enough, then back to the hotel.  I’m leaving Ryan here to go to Pride for a bit.  Catch you guys later!

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