MWGK DoT CoM

How to get your tweets in RSS

mark — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:15:33 +0000

There are many applications available that give you the ability to read and post tweets on twitter. But I never started using one on a regular basis. I think this is because all the applications I have tried are bound to a single desktop. You could say get a laptop (already got one) and that solves your problem, but my answer would be that I like to travel light.

So there for I’m a intensive user of google apps (more over that in the near future), including the free tools like Google Analytics and Google Reader. When I switched to Google Reader to read my rss feed subscriptions it took a while before I was completely sold.

With the growth and use of twitter I was looking for a easy way to read the tweets of the people I was following. As mentioned I tried the common tools, but they weren’t the One (last week The Matrix was on TV). On the home screen of twitter.com I noticed the little orange box that said rss.

So with the good old copy past keys and google reader I thougt I had ended my search for the right tool. But for some reason the good folks at twitter found it necessary to put basic authentication on the rss friend_timeline feed. As it turned out Google Reader isn’t able to read rss feeds with authentication. I solved this problem by putting Yahoo pipes in the middle.

I was a very happy twitter user until September 1st when twitter (as announced) retired there basic authentication and fully equipped oauth. I tried to modify my yahoo pipes work but the people at yahoo are probably busy with counting there Microsoft $ bucks. Yahoo pipes doesn’t support the use of oauth.

Still looking for a solution or alternative for Google Reader (life goes on) I asked my colleague Elmer what program he used for reading tweets from twitter. He told me he used his iPhone.

After explaining my problem to him we came up with the idea of providing our own rss feed for the twitter friends_timeline. A great programmer as he is a new application called twitter2rss was born.

With Twitter2rss you can read the tweets from the people you follow in your favorite rss reader. Twitter2rss uses the new oauth system and doesn’t store any passwords. In fact this is one of the reasons twitter dumped basic authention for oauth.

So I would say come and get it for free at http://www.twitter2rss.com

follow me on twitter mwgk
follow elmer on twitter ilmart
follow twitter2rss on twitter tweet2rss

What is a browser?

mark — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:53:52 +0000

Recently some folks at Google asked pedestrians on Times Square in New York if they can explain what a browser is. The result was quite disappointing, no one really could give a good explanation.

Today I bumped in to a short Google video that explains a web browser.

If you wan’t to try a good web browser I suggest you give Google’s Chrome a try. Chrome is available from http://www.google.com/chrome

Gmail to Google Docs

mark — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:14:43 +0000

For the last year or so I’m using Gmail as my email client. It is a great pleasure to have all email conversation online and always available. But Gmail is not intended to be used as a archive for documents and files. For this I use google docs.

So my project files sit in google docs and my email conversations about a project are sitting in Gmail. This is fine, but when looking for information it’s more convenient to have everything in one place. In order to achieve this you have to turn on the Create a Document feature on the Labs page in your Gmail settings. Then when you open a email a Create a document link appears on the upper right-hand corner of the page.

While this problem is solved. I’m still looking for a solution to archive pdf attachments to google docs.

How to Integrate Your Google Apps (smarterware.org)
W00t!!! Google Calendar Gets Labs Too (techie-buzz.com)
Gmail Adds a Contact Picker (googlesystem.blogspot.com)

Sign-in trouble with Office Live Workspace

mark — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:55:10 +0000

When I signed up to Office Live Workspace I experienced some problems when logging on. The page kept reloading. The steps below solved the problem for me.

1. On the Tools menu in Internet Explorer, click Internet Options.
2. On the Advanced tab, click Reset, and then click OK (It will disable browser add-ons and reset all the changed settings).
3. On the Content tab, click Clear SSL state, and then click OK.
4. To disable pop-up blocking: click Tools, then Pop-up Blocker, and then Turn off Pop-up Blocker.

Office Live Workspace updated for Mac users (liveside.net)

Moving a physical server to Hyper-V

mark — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:05:06 +0000

A few years ago I started using virtual machines for testing purposes and running none critical servers. All of these servers started there lives as a Virtual Machine. None of them have ever run on dedicated hardware. Last week we took a closer look at our dedicated servers and realized that some of them were more a sleep than awake. So we decided to virtualize these machines to Hyper-V.

At this point we came to the conclusion that Microsoft has no tools available to perform this action. Lucky for us we run in to a very nice tool named vConverter, that does a excellent job in making a vhd of a physical server. You can watch a demo of vConverter over here.

When you are going to convert a physical machine into a virtual machine consider the following:
1. Update your OS before converting
2. Write down your settings like IP addresses

That’s it. After conversion copy the fresh vhd to your Hyper-V server and create a new VM. Assign a existing vhd and point to the location where you copied the vhd file. After booting the VM insert the integration tools. The integration tools will update the HAL and install the appropriate drivers.

Week in Microsoft: Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 hit RTM (arstechnica.com)

The Daily Dilbert

mark — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:17:13 +0000

In the sidebar I have added a gadget that shows “The Daily Dilbert“. Dilbert is a comic strip that appears on the internet and in numerous magazines. For the folks in the Netherlands, Dilbert appears weekly in the Intermediar magazine. If you are following a Bachelor or Master study you can register yourself on the site of intermediar and you will receive the magazine for free.

More about Dilbert over here

Have fun with the Dilbert strip.

PS. I’m using a widget for the Dilbert strip that can be downloaded here

Use your iPhone abroad

mark — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:42:51 +0000

When using your iPhone abroad you may experience difficulties when using GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA/UMTS. This can be resolved by entering the APN settings of your provider. The links below are from a dutch forum thread that points out how to resolve this problem.

http://www.iphoneclub.nl/forum/f18/iphone-internet/f21/gprs-edge-umts-hsdpa-wi-fi/8983-geen-edge-abonnement-buitenland.html

http://www.iphoneclub.nl/forum/f59/iphone-help/f5/wiki-begrippen/1820-gprs.html

Trying out

mark — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:59:12 +0000

MWGK DoT CoM

How to get your tweets in RSS

What is a browser?

Gmail to Google Docs

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Sign-in trouble with Office Live Workspace

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Moving a physical server to Hyper-V

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The Daily Dilbert

Use your iPhone abroad

Trying out