Wednesday 2 May 2012

Updated: cross posting from Diaspora to identi.ca

Diaspora is widely described as the open source version of facebook and google+, however it is disappointing that, using your Diaspora settings, you can link with facebook, twitter and tumblr but not identi.ca. But there is a workaround.

In the spirit of this blog, I always try to keep everything open source, I'm going to link the accounts using brdcst.it a free, open source project by Michele Azzolari or @macno on identi.ca. Whilst brdcst.it is a free service; you need an invite, simply send an email to brdcst@brdcst.it

Once you have received your invitation log in to your new account at brdcst.it We'll do the destination first, trust me it's easier. I'll now break this into steps to make it easier to follow.

Before we can setup brdcst.it properly, we need the feed for your Diaspora posts.

1. On Diaspora, when you are about to make a post, you should see a text box similar to the one shown below:

 


Click on the spanner icon.

2. This will open up a new floating window, click on RSS, this will open up a new page. Take a note of the web page address.





In this example my address is https://joindiaspora/public/kevie.atom
*the recent rss feeds have .atom at the end

3. Go to the brdcst.it website.

4. On the welcome screen you'll see the number of feeds and destinations you currently have setup. Click on Add/Edit beside destinations, this will lead you to a new screen.

5. Click on Add new destination

6. Click on Identica

7. This will take you to identi.ca, log in (if necessary) and the site will display the message:


Click on Allow

8. Now go back to brdcst.it, this time click on Add/Edit beside feeds

9. In the first box add the address of your Diaspora feed that we noted in step 2. In the second box give this setup a name (I have imaginatively called it 'diaspora')



10. Now it's time to choose what you wish to export, for text only enter %s, if you want a link to be posted then add %u (you don't actually need this as it will be added automatically if your post exceeds the 140 character identi.ca limit)



11. On the next screen, put a tick beside your identi.ca username and click on Save


12. Now log out of brdcst.it and your done, your posts from Diaspora will be updated on your identi.ca timeline.

Please note that when you post on Diaspora you must change from All Aspects to Public, only Public posts will be sent to identi.ca

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Tizen 1.0 "Larkspur" is released.

Tizen, the Linux based mobile operating system that is replacing the short lived Meego project, is now out of beta and has announced it first full release codenamed "Larkspur".

In contrast to Mozilla's Boot2Gecko, which aims to use all of it's features on a cloud through a browser interface, Tizen adopts the more traditional format of the applications running natively on the mobile device.

The platform looks like it has been setup to meet the needs of the majority of users, with compatibility for various audio (both MP3 & Ogg Vorbis) and video files.  A full list of all the features of the new release can be seen here.

Tizen's graphics are a window system built upon X11, this includes support for OpenGL and indicates that it has the potential for both 2D and 3D graphics.  Web support appears to be embedded in the new code with full support for HTML5.

The official announcement from Tizen also stated " There are also a number of back-end changes, designed to improve stability and scalability of the infrastructure."

All of the pieces are there to make a decent cake, but developers are still being sought in order to put some icing on.  The SDK is available for download, however at the present time the supported operating systems are limited to Windows XP & 7, Ubuntu 10.04-11.10 and only the 32 bit versions. SDK release notes, along with a wiki, bugtracker, IRC (#tizen at irc.freenode.net) and guide to help you developing your first Tizen application are currently in place in order to aid developers and testers.