Twitter illiterate

[Grumpy Moose]

OK, so I set up a twitter account for my website (I think).

On the Cumulus internet configuration page it says enter my twitter username and password. What is my username?

on my twitter homepage, it says the following at the top:

Alaska Weather Watch
@AKWeatherWatch
The number one source for Alaska Weather!
Anchorage, Alaska · http://www.alaskaweatherwatch.com/index.php

Is it Alaska Weather Watch?
Is it AKWeatherWatch?
Is it @AKWeatherWatch?

I've tried all three and nothing seems to be happening (set the time for 5 minutes just to test). I am assuming Cumulus is supposed to be creating tweets or twits or whatever they are called, and these will show up in on my twitter homepage? I have no idea whats going on here!

[Grumpy Moose]

OK, so I think I've got it working. Didn't know I had to manually create the twitter.txt file. Now however the twits are coming out like this:

Wind 4.0 mph SE Gust 8.0 mph. Barometer 29.814 in, Steady. Temperature 48.1 °F. Rain today 0.21 in. Humidity 75%

wierd because the first twit displayed the "degree" symbol correctly, now they show &deg. Anyone seen this before? Here is my twitter.txt file:

Wind <#wlatest> <#windunit> <#wdir> Gust <#wgust> <#windunit>. Barometer <#press> <#pressunit>, <#presstrend>. Temperature <#temp> <#tempunit>. Rain today <#rfall> <#rainunit>. Humidity <#hum>%

[steve]

Didn't know I had to manually create the twitter.txt file.

You only need to create a twitter.txt file if you don't want the 'standard' message.

the first twit displayed the "degree" symbol correctly, now they show &deg. Anyone seen this before?

Yes, it sounds familiar. Try changing <#tempunit> to °F

[Grumpy Moose]

You only need to create a twitter.txt file if you don't want the 'standard' message.

Hmm...interesting. There wasn't any txt file, and the twit thing didn't start working until I manually added one.

Yes, it sounds familiar. Try changing <#tempunit> to °F

Yes, that's the solution I stumbled upon.


In any case, the Cumulus part appears to be working now. The main probalem lies in my complete ignorance of twitter. Foer example:

I wan't to have the twits from my weather station visible my mobile phone, not just my twitter homepage - absolutely no idea how to do this.

What the heck is the difference between @ and #

I tried downloading the twitter "app" (no idea what that is) to my mobile phone. It says it was installed correctly, but I sure don't see anything new on my phone.

I could go on...

As the title of this thread suggeests, I am a complete social media illiterate!

[steve]

As the title of this thread suggeests, I am a complete social media illiterate!

Me too; I avoid them. I only update Twitter for Cumulus testing purposes.

[gemini06720]

And me three - no Twitter, no Facebook, none of the social media...

[tobyspond]

The # is called a "hashtag" which is used to mark keywords in a tweet. Keywords are searchable.

The @ symbol is to refer to user names.

For more info see:
http://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics#

As for your mobile phone look for the bluebird where your apps are located that is the twitter app. You'll need your account information to set it up.

Twitter is the only social media I use, primarily because the tweets are automatic.

Kerry

[Grumpy Moose]

The # is called a "hashtag" which is used to mark keywords in a tweet. Keywords are searchable.

Thanks Kerry. That makes sense.

So, could I add say #Alaska and #Weather to the twitter.txt file and have those show up automatically in my twits? Or will the "#" mess up Cumulus?

[steve]

Hashtags will be OK unless you wanted to add "<" just before one for some reason. The "<#" combination would likely cause problems.

[Grumpy Moose]

Thanks Steve! I'll give that a try.

[tobyspond]

Just remember you have a 140 character limit and that includes spaces, punctuation, etc. If you exceed the 140 character limit, your twitter feed will not update as I know all to well from experience.

I copy the text file that is produced by Cumulus and paste into Microsoft Word and check the character count there. I'm sure there are other ways to do the count, bu that works for me.

BTW you live in a beautiful place. Do you like/ are you happy with your all sky cam?

Kerry

[steve]

If you exceed the 140 character limit, your twitter feed will not update as I know all to well from experience.

Cumulus automatically truncates at 140 characters - does something extra get added somewhere that makes that not work?

[tobyspond]

Hi Steve,

I stand corrected - mea culpa. I just altered with my twitter feed to exceed 140 characters and Cumulus did truncate to 140 characters.

I did have that problem with the twitter feed not updating a few months ago when I was first starting out on twitter. If I exceeded 140 characters, it would not update. Maybe it was something else entirely and/or quite possibly something on my end and not Cumulus related.

So Grumpy Moose, please disregard my last post.

Kerry

[Grumpy Moose]

Do you like/ are you happy with your all sky cam?

It's OK, though is not the highest of resolution cameras. However high resolution All-Sky camera's are very expensive and use lots of bandwidth. The controls are somewhat finicky, and the documentation left alot to be desired. I'm still tweaking it to get better results. I mainly purchased it so if we get an Auroral display in the middle of the night when I'm asleep, it will at least catch something.

BTW, I don't know if you saw on my photos, but I also have a second all-sky camera installed. This one doesn't upload to my website, it's actually part of the New Mexico State University all-sky camera system:

http://skysentinel.nmsu.edu/allsky/