Oliver Siodmak’s Rants & Raves

You just have to love the simplicity of badges and widgets.  Badges are simply code that allow you to incorporate functionality into your web site. Flickr, Facebook and even Twitter provide you with some simple code that when dropped into an HTML/PHP/ASP/.Net page on your site pull content from those sites into yours.

You can see an example of this in the sidebar of my site.  The second column now displays a Twitter badge that displays my last 5 Twitter postings (affectionally known as “tweets”).The code was provided by Twitter (http://twitter.com/badges).  You can select one of three styles of badges.  I am using the HTML version that immediately leverages the CSS file I use to control my site’s presentation. 

To learn more about Twitter check out this video.

To learn more about badges check out:

• Flicker Badges
• Twitter Badges
• Dilbert Widget

Enjoy. 

I normally don’t have a problem explaining new technologies to people but Twitter really caused me to pause and think.  

A Twitterer for more than a few months now I find it a great way to stay in touch with friends and colleagues.  Now that I use Twitterific I am able to submit and track Twitter posts all day long.

Cali Lewis (of GeekBrief.TV) latest show discussed a video created by the team at CommonCraft Show that does a great job explaining how Twitter works and why you would want to use it.  It is really short and worth watching.