My keyboard went offline when I plugged in my BB today. I started mashing keys to test it out, and Google made some interesting search suggestions.
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I've been using the MT-Twitter plugin for a while now, so that when updating the MissingLinks page, a corresponding twitter posting is made. It used to be using bit.ly to shorten the URLs (prior to the big server crash, I was using icanhaz.com, but lost all my code when the RAID controller on the server failed). Sometime in mid-November, the bit.ly URLs just disappeared, making me thing something went wrong on twitter's API. Either that, or something went wrong on my server, which I hadn't even touched that month.
So, I looked around for some suitable Perl code to re-introduce the bit.ly API calls that mysteriously went missing. The answer was a chunk of code from openclue.org (now apparently defunct). I'm reposting it here, so it might help someone out (myself included -- I'm backing stuff up properly now).
The twitter.pl script just needs a few extra lines. I inserted this code just after the "my $intro" line in the _update_twitter function:
my $bitly = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $url_response =
$bitly->get("http://bit.ly/api?url=" . $obj->permalink);
my $small_url;
if($url_response->is_success) {
$small_url = $url_response->content;
} else {
$small_url = $obj->permalink;
}
Then you have to update the part of the script which creates the twitter message. Replace the original $text string with the $small_url string:
# my $text = $intro . $entry->title . ' ' . $obj->permalink;
my $text = $intro . $entry->title . ' ' . $small_url;
Presumably, you can use any URL shortener API you want -- just insert the proper API call. Or, if you're enterprising, make your own URL shortener. That way, you own all the links.
Someone even came up with an idea to use .htaccess 301 redirects to bounce a link ending with <mt:EntryID> to the proper <$mt:EntryLink$>. Of course, this really only works if your domain name is short to begin with.
... or "What do I want to be when I grow up?"
R sent me to the Kitchener Public Library's career cruiser questionnaire. I don't know, maybe it's a slow day or something. Essentially, you answer a bunch of questions about what you like or dislike in a job, and it throws you a list of things you might be good at. I kind of wish I had one of these things in high school.
After answering 39 questions, they had me pegged as a guy who mainly fixes things. Not too far off from what I do, but I guess they couldn't decide on what I liked fixing:
1. Race Car Mechanic 2. Appliance Repairer 3. Cable Installer and Repairer 4. Farm Equipment Mechanic 5. Aircraft Mechanic 6. Diesel Mechanic 7. Lifeguard 8. Motorcycle Mechanic 9. Small Engine Mechanic 10. Automobile Mechanic 11. Heavy Equipment Mechanic 12. Industrial Machinery Mechanic 13. Elevator Installer and Repairer 14. Taxidermist 15. Recreation Vehicle Service Technician 16. Computer Support Person 17. Veterinarian 18. Millwright 19. Agronomist 20. Food Inspector 21. Veterinary Technician 22. Curator 23. Film Processor 24. Hairstylist 25. Fitness Instructor 26. Home Economist 27. Diving Instructor 28. Boilermaker 29. Automotive Painter 30. Special Effects Technician 31. Technical Writer 32. Tilesetter 33. Website Designer 34. ESL Teacher 35. Welder 36. Foreign Language Instructor 37. Historian 38. Industrial Designer 39. Choreographer / Dance Instructor 40. Director of Photography
Pretty varied list, if you discount all the ones that said "mechanic". At the very least they got Computer Support Person in there somewhere. I decided to fine tune the list a little. It asked me 57 more questions, and I got to fill in my level of education.
The next list was much much closer to what I do now (especially since I do a lot of artistic things in my spare time).
Cool. Much closer to stuff I'd like doing. I wonder how much more fine tuning I can do with this list? I already do most of these things either during the day, or after hours. OK, maybe I'm no stuntperson or dance instructor, and maybe I don't know what an electroneurodiagnostic tech does, per se, but all in all, a pretty good list; I'm interested in, or have done more than half of the things on the list, and maybe 10 of the jobs reflect what I do in my current job.
1. Critic 2. Multimedia Developer 3. Writer 4. Director of Photography 5. Special Effects Technician 6. Choreographer / Dance Instructor 7. Director 8. Historian 9. Video Game Developer 10. Desktop Publisher 11. Technical Writer 12. Driving Instructor 13. Camera Operator 14. Business Systems Analyst 15. Database Developer 16. Website Designer 17. Computer Programmer 18. Webmaster 19. Researcher 20. Makeup Artist 21. Web Developer 22. Stuntperson 23. Computer Support Person 24. Curriculum Specialist 25. Association Manager 26. Audio-Visual Technician 27. Artist 28. Communications Specialist 29. Computer Network Specialist 30. Print Journalist 31. Electroneurodiagnostic Tech 32. Cardiovascular Tech 33. Diagnostic Medical Sonographer 34. Photographer 35. Dietitian 36. Cable Installer and Repairer 37. Microbiologist 38. Foreign Language Instructor 39. Film Editor 40. Chef
On the other hand, this doesn't really inspire me to look for my ideal job. I kind of feel like Philip J. Fry being told he'll be a delivery boy.
I'll admit, there were times I fancied myself a writer. I even once thought the idea of getting published in print was a lifelong goal, and failing that, getting published on the Internets was a close second. And yeah, once, maybe just once, I thought about what it would be like to publish my blog (going on 9 years now) in hardcopy. You know, a book, or something. This brief flight of fancy soon dissolved as reality set in; I'm pretty sure no one's actually reading my blog, and that's fine ... but it makes the prospect of releasing it in print kind of, well, laughable.
Which might be why I found this article so funny:
Printed blog publication fails; world dies of shock
It turns out the idea of printing blog posts and distributing them in newspaper form wasn't such a good idea after all. The Printed Blog, a hybrid blog/newspaper, has announced that it's ceasing publication after running into funding trouble only six months after it was launched.
I'm pretty sure someone wasn't thinking if they thought that printed blogs (like, anyone's blogs, not something geared to a specific industry or trade publication) would succeed where failing print newspapers weren't. Apparently, Josh Karp had just returned from visiting Bizarro World:
"Last year, I had an idea. I wondered what would happen if some of the business model principles that work online were applied to the troubled newspaper industry... Everyone said I was nuts, but I did it anyway," The Printed Blog founder Josh Karp wrote in a letter on his site.
OK, got to give the guy props for following his dream, but consider this: Sometimes those fools/bureaucrats/doctors at the university/research institute/hospital were on to something when they called you mad.
Though it does bring me back to that one fleeting second I thought it might be a good idea to see this blog in print. Maybe as a monthly magazine, with articles, ads, and editorials. Maybe with a cool cover or something ...
Well, turns out the people at http://bighugelabs.com have just the thing: A magazine cover generator.
Why, yes, Vigilant Assassination is my middle name.
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