First, the look and feel has changed quite a bit. I always do funny things with colors and rounded corners when I first start, but then get sick of them and go back to shades of grey very quickly – so there you go. Easier to read.

Next, which is more like 4 in 1, you have configurable options!

• User Settings: You are now able to change or remove your email address and manage your OAuth connection to Twitter through preferences.
• Ping Settings: If you’ve started to develop your own rss Cloud server and want to try a different client, these settings can be changed to work with your server. Only http-post is supported at the moment, but I’ll be working on a SOAP and XML-RPC version soon.
• Subscription Settings: Another option for those who have started to implement their own rss Cloud server. These settings allow you to play with the actual cloud element in your My Status Cloud RSS feed. Also with this- only http-post is supported for the time being.
• Publishing Settings: This is the best part, I think, brought on by what I was thinking in last friday’s post… You can now enter FTP settings to publish your My Status Cloud RSS feed to your own server. If an FTP server exists, the application will attempt to upload your feed (username.xml) to the server specified.

Ponder those changes for a second if you didn’t grab it the first time and I’ll add all the previous pieces together for the overview.

The overview…

1. You can cross post updates into the rssCloud and/or Twitter at the same time.
2. Links can be attached as metadata to the update so you can use ALL 140 characters.
3. These updates, Twitter or not, are saved into an rssCloud compatible feed.
4. An rssCloud server, rpc.rsscloud.org, is notified every time you update either the cloud or Twitter.
5. The My Status Cloud client/aggregator shows you the updates immediately after being notified by the server that it has been updated.
6. You can publish (or backup) your feed anywhere via FTP.
7. You can start to manage your feed through an rssCloud server other than rpc.rsscloud.org.

There you have it. Try away and report away if you see anything unexpected.

Anyhow, that’s been added to My Status Cloud, so feel free to test away with both rssCloud only updates and updates to both the cloud and Twitter.

Also, the aggregator has been souped up a little bit so that it’s starting to become pleasant to use. Not completely usable yet, just pleasant to use. If you attach link data to an update, it will be displayed separately in the time line. And any twitter usernames or links in text should be picked up and linked to automatically.

Next on the plate is editable publishing options (among other things), something I touched on with my #blogpostfriday post earlier today.

So keep testing away, and drop me a note if you have something to note about.

Sitting in my chair watching myself type status updates to myself along with Dave’s automatic lifeliner feed that does a wonderful job of showing different state names and times go by is great and all, but playing with some real content would also be nice.

So. As of now, anybody can signup for an account at mystatuscloud.com and start using the concepts of the rssCloud in tandem with Twitter. Or without Twitter, that’s always an option too.

Yes, yes, this is too early. And it’s probably buggy. But you can still give it a go if you want. I’ll try to sum up what it does in a few blurbs.

1. It is a basic authentication Twitter client. You can Tweet and push to the rssCloud at the same time.
2. It is an rssCloud client. You can push to the rssCloud without Tweeting.
3. An xml feed is generated on your first update.
4. A cloud server (rpc.rsscloud.org) is notified of every update.
5. A 24 hour subscription is maintained with that cloud server.
6. Every user is automatically subscribed to every user. This is temporary, but should be fun to watch the flow.

That should get you by for now. If not, sign up anyway and play around. Then, checkout the material at rssCloud.org and my personal Week 1 status report to get caught up on what this is all about.

Beyond fixing bugs that should be fixed when found, these updates are coming within the next few days:

• OAuth. Then you may feel comfortable using your main Twitter account.
• Aggregation Code. It will work by streaming or refreshing, but streaming is on the fritz a bit.
• Subscription maintenance.

I got a late start, but it looks like Week 2 is still shaping up to be a productive one.

If you’re experiencing weird/broken stuff with your PHP SESSION variables, and if you check the error log and see a message about headers….

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie – headers already sent by

… then you are starting your session after some kind of output has already been sent to the user. For the visual example, take a look at the following before smacking your forehead. The first example is correct, the second is probably wrong.


session_start();
include ('header.php');

———

include ('header.php');
session_start();


Consider myself reminded. That is all.

The original TopTwit has pretty much failed for the time being, but that doesn’t mean the idea is dead. Soon I’ll head back into that code and clean it up (a year later). It does still work if you want to try it out– sign up and build your twit lists and you have a nice page to keep track of your favorites.

On the other side of things, I’ve been having fun playing copycat to the 40 most recent links from @davewiner. You can see my version over at 40 most recent links from @jeremyfelt. I’ve recently added support for bit.ly and post.ly in addition to the default tr.im functions. I have categories built in (using hash tags), but I took them off of the display for now because it seemed like a waste of characters. Not sure what new features will show up here in the near future, but it definitely needs a design overhaul.

I immediately got to work, registered the domain, and pounded out the site. TopTwit.com is the result of that work. It’s fairly basic right now, but pretty easy as well. You can sign up for an account, add the Twitter users that you want to follow, and then go to the front page and browse through each user’s last 5 tweets to the world.

A full writeup explaining everything is available on my TopTwit page. Please comment there or here with any feedback that you have. I’ll be adding more features and tweaking throughout the week.