Freeloader Friday Download of the Week

Twitter on your own Server and Teach your iPhone to back itself up

In its first year, Twitter has become one of Web 2.0's most interesting communication tools. Its so popular it is almost impossible to use during events like the Macworld Keynote. Why not bring it home to your own server?

DIY Twitter

If you remember way back to the days of blogging, you'll be familiar with WordPress. This flexible, Open Source content management system has just graduated to version 2.5 with some cool enhancements.

We'll use it to build our own twitter-like engine on our own server. With a recent version of WordPress, you'll be able to install Prologue, a WordPress theme from the creators of WordPress that transforms your WP blog into a twitter-style stream. The theme kills your titles and adds a quick post box at the top but keeps comments and permalinks.

This is a perfect setup to run your own tiny twitter for your company or Lamaze group. But, part of the draw of Twitter is the network. So, after loading the Prologue theme, grab the Twitter Tools WordPress plugin.

With Twitter Tools, you can post to Twitter using WordPress, post to WordPress and have it simul-post to Twitter or even sync your Twitter tweets to WordPress as posts. Dizzy?

TimeCapsule (iPhone app)

This iPhone app is a great idea. It backs up user data by application. That includes addresses, calendars, bookmarks and even installer.app sources. The free version has a couple nag screens, and only backs up a single instance of each app, but is still extremely useful. If you use it regularly, consider the $15 (about) to register it.

That should be plenty of tweet for you.

Brian   


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