You can login to the application to see how the API works from the perspective of a user, or you can view this video that walks through a sample scenario.
Related to the work I was doing on calculatorbot, I just put together an application stub that implements login through twitter. It works great!
The process goes something like:
user clicks a link on your site to login
user is taken to twitter for login, if they are already logged in proceed to the next step
user is asked to allow your application access, they accept or deny (only happens once)
user is taken back to your site, where your site can ask twitter for information about the user (name, screen name, etc) and create a user-profile based on that.
Recently I saw a question on linkedin, where the person asked how to scrape some contact data off of thomsonlocal.co.uk. Several people responded that this was a straightforward thing to do and I agree. I thought it would be good to do a short demonstration of how to approach the problem.
I’ve done a short video series that follows me through the process. These were done “on the fly” as I worked through the problem. FYI – no source code will be provided for download, and please remember to review the terms of service for any site that you scrape.
I mentioned several weeks back that I had released a project in the employment space. Well today is the day that I’m announcing the release of that project – Rhinogator – Your next, best destiny now. Check out the site!
Calculatorbot has received some updates in the last couple of days. Now in addition to handling math problems, it can look up the definitions of words for you.
For example, I tweeted “@calculatorbot define capricious” and calculatorbot responded “http://xr.com/d4es capricious: (2 defns) Adjective: determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason”
Calculatorbot includes a url to the word’s definition and the first definition of the word in its reply. Also note that the url returned is a shortened url.
The first version of calculatorbot is up. It can answer mathematical expressions for you by tweet. For example, I tweeted “@calculatorbot min(pi(),1000.0)” and it answered back with the correct value of pi. This is just an experimental project at this point, more updates to come.
I’m pleased to announce that another project I’ve developed is entering an invitation-only beta. The project, which I can’t discuss the details here, is focused on improving the employment and job search process. I hope to share some screenshots in the next couple of weeks.
Sorry the details are scarce, but it will just have to be that way for a while.