Archive for April, 2009



Twitter Hack – DIY Tweeting Washing Machine!

April 8th, 2009

A perfect Twitter application is the one that uses 9 volt power for BS2 (Basic Stamp Microcontroller), connected serially to a server, and also “tweets” when your clothes are done, thus DIY Tweeting Washing Machine is born.

I am sure you can recall countless times waiting helplessly at a laundry room, now there’s a better solution, make yourself one of these tweeting washing machines.

tweeting-washing-machine

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You will need the following and a little hacking will be involved:

BS2 – Basic Stamp 2 or even CUBLOC modules work too. (or Arduino) – These are basically microcontrollers you can program in BASIC language, very easy to program.

BetaBrite – BetaBrite sells these giant LED modules which can easily be hooked up to a Basic Stamp to display messages.  Of course, these might actually have ethernet connectivity too, in which case you can “tweet” the status to Twitter.

Here’s a screenshot of what kinds of tweets you can expect after washing your clothes: (@pimpy3wash)

pimpy

Can you imagine now how helpful this gadget would be for you?

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Twitter Hack – How to Make a Tweeting Cat Door!

April 8th, 2009

More and more hackers and engineers are learning the value of  Twitter’s microblogging platform and this Tweeting Cat Door is another such great feat that will update you the status of your cat door.  Whether your cat is leaving town or coming home with his/her friends, you will be sure to be tweeted if they go through the cat door.

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Here’s a screenshot of the updates on the Tweeting Cat Door, you can follow @GusAndPenny.

Each cat has a small RFID tag on the collar. When a cat is in the close proximity of the door, a small RFID reader reads the tag and if the cat is authorized, a servo will unlock the cat door. The RFID reader and the servo controller are connected to an old laptop. The software on the laptop is written in Delphi and for each “cat door event” is sending a Twitter message and a picture to twitter.com

via diy blog

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Twitter Hack – Baker Tweet Updates Baking Status on Twitter!

April 8th, 2009

Twitter Hacking has been going sorta crazy lately, with cool hacks like the Botannicals which can tell you when your plants need watering.

Of course, don’t forget about Baker Tweet, this gadget will “tweet” whatever is coming out of your oven, you can follow @albionsoven to see what Albion’s Oven is cooking.

According to the Baker Tweet page:

BakerTweet allows businesses to use Twitter to communicate in real-time about offers, pricing and stock from a device that can withstand kitchen peril and is much simpler to operate than a laptop or a mobile.

Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

baker-tweet-1

And here’s a video demo:

How It Works:

it’s a bakery-proof box that sends messages wirelessly to Twitter. The clever bit is that the baker can update their messages and things they’re selling using a simple web interface. Obviously not something that you’d do mid-bake but it’s an important feature for future-proofing the device.

This might come in handy for those of you bakers who need to know what’s coming out of your oven in real-time.  I see a lot of good applications for this in the near future for many bakeries out there.

via hackedgadgets

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Twitter Soars Past 14 Million Users!

April 7th, 2009

Twitter hasn’t been exactly popular “all” of last couple years but media-hype seems to have added another 4 Million users in the last 30 days to total at 14 Million users. (via @Andrew303)

Web traffic doubling every month of this year certainly proves that Twitter might be onto something here, sorta like a rocketship about to take off.

facebook

Of course, Twitter is still far behind Facebook but it’s certain that Twitter is on a sharp-rise this year, Facebook may succomb as Twitter’s lunch in couple years.

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Twitter Hack – How to Monitor your Plants with Botanicalls!

April 7th, 2009

Botanicalls is a new ethernet-device kit you can buy to monitor your garden plants via internet or Twitter.

You can see an example of it working on Twitter here.  You will find interesting messages such as “URGENT water me.” and “Thank you for watering me”.

I can see how this Botanicalls device and Twitter can both benefit remote control of all your garden plants and maybe there will be similar devices for lawns.

Twitter, sorta medium between e-mail and IM, serves as the perfect communication medium for monitoring stuff including the garden, your home applicances, and probably more to come.

This $99 Twitter gadget might be just what you need to monitor your plants while you are traveling so you can tell your spouse or your kids to “WATER THE DAMN PLANTS!”.

botanicalls

Here’s a video of the demo:

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To date, Hartman and Faludi have sold nearly 100 of the Botanicalls kits for $99 each with the device needing to be assembled from basic parts which Faludi said can be challenging but worthwhile in the end.

“Actually receiving a message from a plant is just very engaging, and I think kind of unexpected. There’s a magic to it that people really enjoy,” said Faludi.

via eco blog

Press Release

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Posted in Twitter Gadgets, Twitter Hacks | 2 Comments »

Twitter Surpasses Digg, Stumbleupon, and New York Times!

April 7th, 2009

Is Twitter hot these days?  You betcha it is!

During the last couple months of 2009, Twitter has EXPLODED into the World, almost doubling its web traffic every 30 days.

Here’s a couple graphs why Twitter might be just starting out:

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Digg versus Twitter – Note that Digg has been around for awhile but Digg never got as big as Twitter.  (Think of getting twitted instead digged these days…)

twitter-3

StumbleUpon versus Twitter – StumbleUpon has been a good source of traffic for many bloggers and alike but nothing compared to Twitter at this point.

twitter-1

NyTimes.com versus Twitter – Thought New York Times got a lot of traffic?  Think again, Twitter just surpassed NYTimes.com.

The great news is that the “peak” of Twitter might not be reached for another couple years.  If that’s the case, it’s going to make Digg, StumbleUpon, and NYTimes like pins in haystacks.

One thing I am worried is, can Twitter keep up with the traffic demands of the world?  Seeing the birds and the whale frequently is not a good sign, they really need to upgrade servers or make things run faster.  I am sure they will in time but in the meantime, we will just have to be satisfied our favorite Web 2.0 communication platform flat out beats all other Web 2.0 social networking sites.

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Posted in Twitter News | 1 Comment »

Twitter Hack – How to Deal with Twitter Spammers!

April 7th, 2009

Okay, you’ve probably noticed that some Twitters who follow you are “pure” spammers.  For example, they have “zero” updates with hundreds of followers.

I guess it’s acceptable to automate direct messages but sometimes you really need to filter out the good Twitters from pure spammers.

Here’s a couple great tips I found over at Twittercism on how to deal with there Twitter spammers:

1. Report any suspicious spam activity to @spam.  @spam is Twitter’s spam handling department.

2. Block them, use that “Block” button to block the spammer, this will also send a “red flag” to the Twitter spam handling department.

There a couple more tips but I will let you simply head over to Twittercism to check them out if you must.

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TweetHacking.com Launched!

April 6th, 2009

Hello world!  TweetHacking has been launched as of 6:12 PM April 6th 2009!

A little background about myself, my name is Max Lee, I am a blogger over at Zedomax.com.

TweetHacking.com will cover all sorts of twitter hacks and interesting stuff related with Twitter.

As for our first blog post, I noticed that Twitter is actually down right now but do like the new graphics. (the whale was kinda getting old after couple of years)

itscool

My inspiration for this blog?

Well, I have been looking to start new blogs, (as I have in the past Google Chrome Hacks when Chrome was launched in ‘08) I did find that Darren Rowse’s TwiTip.com has become highly successful in a matter of just months.  Great job on the TwiTip blog Darren by the way.

I have been seeing like a gazillion Twitter hacks in the last couple months such as this one so I figured it might be nicer to organize them by making a new blog.

Anyways, enough of launching, let’s get to it, follow my Twitter here to stay updated!

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Posted in Twitter Hacks | 1 Comment »