dianaschnuth

Last October, Twitter changed their API and broke the Movable Type plugin I’d been using to pull in my tweets as posts. Back then, there was no way to download an archive of your tweets, and I tend to use Twitter as a microblogging platform, anyway, intentionally wanting these small bits of my life to be integrated in with the larger bits.

So, this was big.

Once the plugin author admitted that he would not be spending any time in the foreseeable future to update the plugin (it was a lot of rework, and a change to the entire backend), I decided that it was time to make the plunge I’d been thinking about for years.

It was time to convert to WordPress.
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I’m writing this post in hopes that someone else who has this problem uses their Google-fu to find this solution. And so I don’t forget what I did.

I’ve had problems with Twitter-Tools for WordPress successfully pulling in tweets, but then failing to post them as blog posts. That’s why I moved from MT to WP in the first place, to ensure that my tweets were archived with my other blog posts after my favorite MT-Twitter plugin went belly-up. So, when Twitter-Tools goes wonky for whatever reason, I’m on it.
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That’s all it took to get my blog migrated from Movable Type to WordPress.

There’s going to be plenty of tweaks in the coming days and weeks, but the must-haves are in place and functional (for the most part). My old MT links should redirect to my new WP links, all my content is in its place (including comments), and my Twitter account is successfully feeding into my permanent blog. Of course, if you find something wonky, feel free to post a friendly bug report of sorts here. (I know about the Monthly Archives weirdness already — it’s next on my list.)

I’m looking forward to alternating some actual writing into the geekery to come.

Anyone who follows my RSS feed (the one that includes all my Tweets, that is) might be wondering if I quit Twitter cold-turkey. The answer would be no.

What actually happened was that, only a few months after I ponied up the $10 for the most recent version of the previously-free Movable Type plug-in that automatically pulls in my tweets, Twitter went and changed its API (basically, the way that developers interact with the service). So, now the plug-in doesn’t work. Yes, I did alert the developer, and he said he’s planning to update the plug-in… but it’s honestly not at the top of his priority list. And I totally understand.

Twitter doesn’t keep tweets forever. At least, it doesn’t allow them to be displayed and searched forever: it only keeps a user’s last 3,200 tweets. I’ve been on Twitter since mid-2008, and I have 9,621 tweets. So, over the past four years, I’ve averaged about 180 tweets per month. If my math is right, that means that Twitter will start dropping off my tweets after about a year and a half? My blog goes back to 2001. That’s not gonna fly.

I can’t program Perlscript. I don’t have time to learn. So, if I can’t reprogram this broken plug-in, I guess I’ll pull in my tweets manually, a few at a time.

Yes, I’m that anal about saving all this crap for posterity. Or at least for my future reference.

At least I’m separating the wheat from the chaff, and only pasting in tweets that really matter. Maybe in the future, when the plug-in is back up and running, I’ll have it skip Instagram photos, to keep things a little cleaner.

Are you sick and tired of all my tweets being mixed in with my actual blog entries? Good news! I’ve finally published an RSS feed that only shows my actual long-form blog posts.

Plug this directly into your RSS reader:
http://www.dianaschnuth.net/archives/index.xml

Or go to this page and subscribe via your web browser or reader of choice:
http://www.dianaschnuth.net/archives/

This is a long-awaited feature (especially by my husband and those others who also follow me on Twitter), so a few people will be mighty glad that I’ve finally carved out the half-hour to devote to implementing this.

Cheers!