Do you like twitter a lot like me? It is great yeah… the next BIG thing on the Internet.. maybe?

Oh… In case that you did not add zakeh’s twitter account yet to your twitter friends, then do this here.

Why not sharing your website’s updates or your blog’s RSS with your friends on twitter? That would be awesome for your friends to get notifications on their twitter accounts and getting some sms notifications for your website

Here is a code that might makes this happen

I used the PHP curl features to do the same thing from PHP (obviously with a real username and password):

<?php
// Set username and password
$username = ‘username’;
$password = ‘password’;
// The message you want to send
$message = ‘is twittering from php using curl’;
// The twitter API address
$url = ‘http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml’;
// Alternative JSON version
// $url = ‘http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json’;
// Set up and execute the curl process
$curl_handle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, “$url”);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, “status=$message”);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, “$username:$password”);
$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
curl_close($curl_handle);
// check for success or failure
if (empty($buffer)) {
    echo ‘message’;
} else {
    echo ’success’;
}
?>

Obviously you could do more with the return than print out a success or failure message. The $buffer variable has the returned XML or JSON for you’re parsing pleasure.

The code has been tried many times and it works great on WordPress. Feel free to edit, change, and share the code.

Microsoft’s analytics piece of their adCenter product has just received an update, and a quick run-through shows some new features, significantly improved performance, and the end of the $5 sign-up fee (although I’m not finding a link to the free account setup as of yet, but here is the Project Gatineau sign up page).  Amit Fulay, a Lead Program Manager on the adCenter team, posts some more information:

Some of the key Beta 2 features are:

• Free analytics-only account. We listened to the customer feedback and have removed the $5 adCenter sign up fee.
• New tool for auto-tagging your web site
• Commerce ROI reports
• 3rd party paid search campaign import for Google and Yahoo! paid search campaigns
• Campaign timeline report
• Tree-map reports for Traffic and Inbound referrals
• Age-Gender composite segment
• Domain white-listing (only data from domains you specify are included in reports)
• Visitor loyalty metrics (depth & length of visit, frequency, loyalty, new versus returning visitors)

We have a LiveSide account set up, here’s one screenshot:

And in some related web analytics news, Bret Grinslade will be in a panel at Mix 08 talking about Silverlight and web analytics - “how to incorporate … web analytics services into Silverlight applications and then take advantage of the separation between the design in XAML and code in JavaScript to do effective A/B testing.”  Only problem is that there are so many sessions worth attending, many at the same time.  Mix 08 sessions are slated to be available 24 hours after they are presented, however.

Source: liveside.net

Microsoft has just posted a press release announcing that IE8 will support standards by default, which is a change from what had been previously announced (that IE8 would support IE7 “mode” by default, and render to standards only with the inclusion of a <meta> tag - read more at A List Apart).  Ray Ozzie explains, from the press release:

“IE8 has been significantly enhanced, and was designed with great support for current Internet standards. This is evidenced by the fact that even in its first beta, IE8 correctly renders the popular test known as ‘Acid2,’ which was created by the Web community to promote real-world interoperability,” said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect. “Our initial plan had been to use IE7-compatible behavior as the default setting for IE8, to minimize potential impact on the world’s existing Web sites. We have now decided to make our most current standards-based mode the default in IE8.

“This is obviously a complex issue, with important considerations on both sides,” Ozzie said. “On one hand, there are literally billions of Web pages designed to render on previous browser versions, including many sites that are no longer actively managed. On the other hand, there is a concrete benefit to Web designers if all vendors give priority to interoperability around commonly accepted standards as they evolve. After weighing these very legitimate concerns, we have decided to give top priority to support for these new Web standards. In keeping with the commitment we made in our Interoperability Principles of being even more transparent in how we support standards in our products, we will work with content publishers to ensure they fully understand the steps we are taking and will encourage them to use this beta period to update their sites to transition to the more current Web standards supported by IE8.”

While of course this is not strictly Windows Live news, it will be a big topic at Mix of course, and will also play an important role in Microsoft’s standing in the web space.

You can read more on the IE Blog.

The strategy to get its rich Internet app on cell phones is part of Microsoft’s effort to make the browser plug-in a cross-platform, cross-browser product. Microsoft’s bringing Silverlight to cell phones, partnering with Nokia to bring the rich Internet app browser plug-in to devices that use Nokia’s popular S60 software platform. Nokia will also make Silverlight available on its Series 40 devices and its Internet Tablet devices, the companies are expected to announce Tuesday.
The strategy to get Silverlight on mobile devices — and particularly on the Symbian OS — is part of Microsoft’s effort to make the browser plug-in a cross-platform, cross-browser product in order to get as much penetration as possible on the Web. The company is also working on a version of Silverlight for Windows Mobile, a beta version of which is due out soon.
Microsoft is coming from behind. Adobe has had a strong mobile presence for Flash for years. It has distribution agreements with 18 of the top 20 device manufacturers worldwide including Nokia, and according to Adobe, 450 million devices have been shipped so far with Flash Lite, which is a trimmed down version of Flash. That, of course, compares to zero for Microsoft. According to Adobe, Flash Lite has seen a 150% growth in the past year.

View: InformationWeek

Microsoft will release a set of best practices for administrators running data centers, focusing on energy-saving strategies the company is implementing in its own operations, CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday.
Those tips will covers issues such as how to pick a good site for a data center, how to deal with heat and manage power consumption, Ballmer said during a keynote presentation at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany. The move is in response to growing concern over the release of carbon dioxide, one of the byproducts of burning fossil fuels to create electricity. In addition, power demands are ever-increasing, Ballmer said.
“If you look at non-travel power consumption in the world today … information technology is one of the most rapidly growing power consumers on the planet,” Ballmer said. “We think we have a real responsibility … to reduce power consumption by the IT industry.”

View: The New York Times