For my app WristTweets, I implemented a feature where the user could press a button on the LiveView microdisplay to open a URL if one appears in the tweet. If there is no URL shared in the tweet, ideally I wanted to instead open their preferred Twitter client on their phone showing the tweet so that they could take further action (eg retweet, reply, block).

Several clients (‘official’ Twitter app and Plume) successfully capture ACTION_VIEW intents for any twitter.com URL and will display the tweet as desired. Other clients capture various other intents but don’t appear capable of opening a specific tweet via an intent. In some cases there are other undocumented intents that will allow a user profile to be opened via an intent – this is what WristTweets falls back on for clients that can’t directly open a tweet via an intent.

Since others may find this useful, shared below are the intents I discovered for Tweetdeck, Plume, Seesmic, Hootsuite, Twidroid Pro / Ubersocial, and the ‘official’ Twitter app. As far as I know none of these are officially documented, and they obviously may change without notice in future updates.

Read the rest of this entry »

The GrandMasterPixel rankings are supposed to give a view of the greatest pics that players have sent into battle. This also includes subcategories such as “three colour” pics and “black and white” pics, so you can see how people have made the best use of a limited palette.

I ain't getting on no plane, Hannibal!

Unfortunately, it’s been hard for new pics to get to the top of the rankings. This is probably because of the changes to scoring a while back, and what I would call an ‘early adopter advantage’. As a result the rankings really haven’t moved much over the last year or so … until now.

Today, I’m shaking things up just a little. The front “Rankings” page will now show only pics submitted within the last year – as a result there should be more movement as dominant pics get old and younger successful pics get a shot at glory. The best pics of all time will still be shown under the ‘all time’ rankings. There are also now “Most successful dead pics of all time” and  ”Most successful living pics of all time” so you can see the best of the best that are still battling it out, even after a year.

So, don’t be shocked if next time you check out the rankings Mr. T is no longer on the front page. He’s had a good run .. it’s time for him to step aside and let the younger pics steal the limelight.

Update: Annnnnnnnd we’re back. Feels good.

Apologies: GrandMasterPixel iswas temporarily offline while the domain name (along with four others) iswas transferred off GoDaddy to another registrar. All going to plan, it should be back up in a few hours. The transition was mostly painless (once I figured out how to deal with the new registrars zone files).

I’ve been dissatisfied with GoDaddy for a few years now – I particularly dislike their horrible user interface which is actively designed to trick or confuse you into buying some extra service you probably don’t want. The last straw that prompted me to change was their support of the SOPA internet censorship bill, a proposal currently working it’s way through the US Congress which would have wide ranging implications for internet freedom as we know it. Oh, that and the fact that Bob Parsons shoots elephants.

So, sorry about the downtime, but it’s “for a good cause”.

Nice article in the latest (Fall 2011) issue of Game Career Guide:

http://gamedeveloper.texterity.com/gamedeveloper/fall2011cg#pg39

Some gadget fetishism got the better of me recently, and I decided to pick up a Sony LiveView. It’s like a watch (“microdisplay”) that syncs with your Android phone via Bluetooth and can provide notifications, remotely control the music player etc. Although it has it’s frustrating moments, it’s fun little device, and I like the simple clean design.

It comes with a bunch of handy default notification plugins: text messages, missed calls, calendar notifications, Facebook status update notifications, RSS feeds etc. There is also a Twitter plugin provided by Sony, but I felt it was a little substandard and didn’t really meet my needs. So, I decided to write Wrist Tweets – my own personal version of what the stock LiveView Twitter plugin should have been.

Wrist Tweet supports:

• Timeline notifications
• Mention/@reply notifications
• Direct message notifications
• Opening the first URL in a tweet on your phone
• Authentication via OAuth – no locally stored password
• A choice of sensible update frequencies, from 1 minute up to 6 hours
• Notifications of tweets on a Twitter “list”

Read the rest of this entry »