Last year I coded techognized (above) to integrate twitter posts and traditional longer form blog posts on the same page, and more recently, Boing Boing Gadgets (below top) has just redesigned their site to display tweet-like mini posts in the same column as normal posts. In hindsight, I like BBG’s approach better, so with simpler.me (below bottom) – my latest site design – I coded twitter inline with other blog posts.

Here is how to do that.

It’s actually pretty simple, if you know the basics of editing WordPress theme files. Before breaking out your text editor of choice to code, here are a few steps to lay the groundwork:

1. Create a WordPress category (I named mine “Twitter”) and note the category ID number.
2. Install the Twitter Tools plugin and configure it to create blog posts from your tweets, filed in the category you created in step 1.

Now to the coding. Our objective here is to remove the blog post’s title based on if the post is a tweet or not. To do this we will use a simple PHP ‘if’ function in the site’s index.php file:

<?php if (!in_category(‘[Twitter category ID number]‘)) { ?>
[Information your are cutting out in Twitter posts goes here -- title/header, etc.]
<?php } ?>

Basically, we are saying “If a post is NOT in the Twitter category, show the header/title/etc information”. Here is how that would look in the default WordPress Kubrik theme’s Loop:

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<div <?php post_class() ?> id=”post-<?php the_ID(); ?>”>

<?php if (!in_category(‘[Twitter category ID number]‘)) { ?>
<h2><a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark” title=”Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>”><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<?php } ?>

<small><?php the_time(‘F jS, Y’) ?> <!– by <?php the_author() ?> –></small>

<div class=”entry”>
<?php the_content(‘Read the rest of this entry &raquo;’); ?>
</div>

<p class=”postmetadata”><?php the_tags(‘Tags: ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘<br />’); ?> Posted in <?php the_category(‘, ‘) ?> | <?php edit_post_link(‘Edit’, ”, ‘ | ‘); ?>  <?php comments_popup_link(‘No Comments &#187;’, ’1 Comment &#187;’, ‘% Comments &#187;’); ?></p>
</div>

<?php endwhile; ?>

<div class=”navigation”>
<div class=”alignleft”><?php next_posts_link(‘&laquo; Older Entries’) ?></div>
<div class=”alignright”><?php previous_posts_link(‘Newer Entries &raquo;’) ?></div>
</div>

<?php else : ?>

<h2 class=”center”>Not Found</h2>
<p class=”center”>Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.</p>
<?php get_search_form(); ?>

<?php endif; ?>

Your blog now should display posts from twitter without the title/headline, while leaving your other posts untouched. You can use this same method to edit out the author and timestamp if you wish. Remember, you may have to touch up your CSS afterward in case removing the header fouled up your margins or spacing.

Hope this post has been useful!

Just a quick tip for today. The site TinyURL is a great website (and super convenient for long web addresses that are annoying to paste into emails/IM/etc) but if you don’t trust the source, sometimes clicking on it may be risky.

To solve this, before clicking on the link, go to this TinyURL preview page and enable previews. You can then go back and click the untrusted TinyURL link, and it will safely take you to a TinyURL-hosted preview page where you can view the original web address before deciding whether to visit it or not.

Giving yet another great reason to use Firefox, WikiHow shows how to block Facebook Beacon using Firefox extension BlockSite.

[image courtesy Consumerist]

Before getting intimidated by podcast production startup costs, know that all you really need for the most basic podcast is an internet-connected computer with a built-in microphone – that’s it!

Personally my podcasting setup is a computer, a portable digital recorder (optional), and an external mic. You can of course use your built-in mic to try out podcasting, but if you ever do want to upgrade the sound quality of your podcasts closer to professional-level, the very first thing you should get is an external mic. A good external mic is usable on your computer recording directly and also with any good portable recorder, so make sure you get a decent one! I recommend the Shure C606WD, as it is a good basic microphone that has given me excellent audio quality and is fairly affordable.

Podcast production can be split into three basic steps: recording, editing, and publishing. You can read my basic instructions to do each one, but for any specific, technical questions (EX: How do I record audio directly into Audacity?) just search for them on the internet or in forums. I don’t want to write specific instructions here as they will inevitably change with time and become obsolete.

[1] Recording -
Basically in this step, you plan out and record audio however you want (externally, straight to computer, etc), then get it onto your computer in an Audacity-compatible format. The main 3 formats you should be using throughout this project are:

-MP3: Everybody knows what this one is! It’s a compressed format to save space, and it will playback on almost any portable device or computer you’ll ever find. This can be the format your recordings are in, and most importantly should probably be the format you export your final product in. MP3 files can be different bit rates, usually either 64, 128, or 256 kilobytes per second (kbps)

-WAV: This is an lightly-compressed format, leading to superior audio quality at the expense of disk space. You can record and edit in this, but only export using this if you never will stream it over the internet and only store it on the hard disk as a high-quality archive. WAV files are so large they cannot easily be streamed over the internet, so if music quality is very important to you I recommend still going with MP3, and just raising the quality to 256 kbps or above.

-AUP: This is Audacity’s proprietary format. This is the format you should save to during editing in Audacity. It saves separate track information, and is a great format if you want to keep an archival copy on your hard drive for possible re-editing. Even though you should export as a flexible mp3, I’d keep an AUP copy saved as your “original”.

If your raw audio recordings are in a different format, don’t worry you can convert it to a compatible format. For example, my portable Olympus recorder outputs to .wma only, so I use iTunes to convert it to mp3.

[2] Editing -
Once you have all your audio in a compatible digital format, download Audacity (available for Windows, Mac, or Linux) and install it on your computer. Make sure and get version 1.3.3 or later. I know that’s an “unstable beta” and yes it may cause you problems (if so, uninstall and get the earlier version) but 1.3.x+ versions contain the most important feature of all: nonlinear editing!

Import all your audio into Audacity, and start editing! The way I do it is to first import all my audio as separate tracks, then crop them down and cut out the junk I won’t use in each clip. Then I create two “final” tracks and eventually edit all my other audio into these two. I take the first clip in the podcast (EX: narration) and put it at the beginning of my first “final” track, then the second clip (EX: interview) in the second final track, but staggered as to pick up where the first clip left off. Then I put the third clip in the first track, basically putting clips in alternating tracks and using the “drag-to-reposition” tool (not a technical term!) to line them all up properly.

[3] Publishing -
By now, you should have a completed, edited podcast hopefully in MP3 format. The simplest way of publishing would be to just upload it to your web server, then post a direct link to it and users can “save link as” to their own computers.

A slightly more advanced way to publish would be to embed a flash player or mp3 player plugin on your website. Like I said with the specific instructions, use websearch to find something good for you, but as an example, I’ll probably be using the wordpress-based Audio Player plugin for posting podcasts on this blog.

The largest audience for podcasts is probably on Apple’s iTunes store, so if you want to get yours listed there, check out Apple’s FAQ. I haven’t tried it yet, so if you have any additional tips for iTunes-aspiring podcasters, email me.

I’ll post a few podcasts I’ve made using this method soon. I hope this quick walkthrough has helped you get started and you enjoy it!