All a-twitter-ed

So there I was today, working with Mike (the Art Director/Webmaster) and Bill (the Web Programmer) on inserting some RSS feeds onto the company website (http://www.stonebrew.com/) and I was having some difficulties... mainly with the feeds from twitter and WordPress blog not... well, feeding into the Google AJAX feed API (http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxfeeds/). It was coded, it just wasn't working right. The feeds were there, but the window was blank. What the heck?

"How hard could this be?" I asked myself. "I mean, really? This should work." So I get the source code and host it on the web server a couple of meters* away from my desk. "There, that should eliminate some variables." Right?

Wrong! The same problem. The window is there, but the message says "waiting for feed" So... I'll look into the possible sources of the problem... the feeds. Well, the WordPress blog is working fine (again, on said server in the server room). Let me double check that somehow... aha! Feedburner is reading everything fine. Maybe the other feed is somehow breaking the JavaScript or Google's aggregator. Who knows?

Off to the next problem feed: twitter. So I Google the issue and find a document on twitter's site. I click the link and... ::RRRRNNNNNNTTTTTT:: (in my best Dr. Steel buzzer impression) Wrong answer! Thanks for playing. I got a crappy copy of the login screen game! You have to be a member of twitter to look at twitter content. That includes any solutions to tech issues you might have. Seriously? W... T... F, huh?

"Sherman, set the WABAC machine to two weeks ago."*** I am quite sure I stated at the time that I didn't have a use for twitter. Furthermore, if I could get into twitter to see what was there, I would find my suspicions confirmed, by a bunch of "ooo, me too" and "::giggle-giggle:: he's a q-t." chatting, texting, googly-eyed, teen-ager nonsense. I'm too old for this new "digital note passing" part of the social web. I didn't like it in high school and I don't like the idea of it now.

On the other hand, people say I should be more social and not "hate people" so much. As I've explained to many people along the way, "I don't hate people. I hate stupid people." For clarification's sake, when I say stupid, I am referring not to someone with less... um... "processing power" in their "CPU". I mean people who know something, choose to ignore it, and do what they want anyway. I digress... where was I? Ah, twitter and work.

For business purposes, what could possibly be there that doesn't show up on a company's main web site?

Well, as I've learned in the ensuing two weeks, a lot. It's essentially "micro blogging", something even I could get into because I don't always have time to write or read a blog in depth like this. I've seen everything from CNN and other news agencies talking about their twitter pages and (wherever) blogs. Heck, I even found out about a name change to a book I'm looking out for via a web page link to a blog that referred to a twitter account. That name change happened quite a while ago and I could have known about it if I was I twitter.

::sigh:: "Am I the last computer/web techie to use twitter or what?"

So... I was sitting there, staring at a twitter join/login screen separating me from an answer to my RSS feed difficulty. "Alright, alright, alrightalrightALRIGHT. Fine. I'll do it. I'll do it.I'll do it.I'll do it!"**** I created an account.

It didn't even hurt.

I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, but I will now have access to all kinds of information, delivered in short bursts.

Oh, and Mike found a better looking twitter RSS feeder anyway. Now we just need to get one for the WordPress feed.

* Hey, why not use the metric system in this case? I like the system, though I sometimes have to do a little conversion in my head to really 'get' how far away something is.

** Dr. Steel. He's better than Dr. Horrible any day! I'll share... just not today. Or, you can look him up yourself. It's worth your time.

*** If you don't understand the reference, I'm sorry. You're too young to read this blog. Oh, all right... here's the requsit wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_machine

**** That's one heck of an obtuse and bastardized "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" reference.