Anatomy of a Twitter Replacement

Twitter seems to be all-the-rage in the tech circles these days. When I was trying to find an easy way for Monica and me to update Katie Lynn’s website, I decided to give Twitter a try. It worked well usually, but I noticed the external javascript calls slowed down page load time dramatically. Additionally, customization ability is lacking. I loved being able to send a text message to update the site, but I wanted the ability to email updates as well.

So I set out to find a replacement. I thought that would be simple.

Boy was I wrong.

I searched for a long time and finally found some very basic framework. Luckily, I’m not too shabby with PHP and was able to write everything I wanted:

• Accept text messages, emails, and web submissions.
• Parse the text message/email into variables.
• Insert the variables into a MySQL database.
• Display records any way I want.
• Allow people to subscribe to receive an email upon a new update.
• Load fast!

I then wrote an extremely easy admin interface to be able to edit the entries.

There are five main files to the application:

• Parser – as the name indicates, it parses the text and email submissions.
• Admin – all admin functions including posting via web.
• Notifier – emails subscribers upon all new updates.
• Subscribe – as indicated, performs the subscription action as requested by the visitor.
• Unsubscribe – as indicated, unsubscribes a subscriber upon their request.

The beauty of my system is that it does not need a cronjob. Instead, I simply piped an email address to the parser script’s full path.

And voilà!

I have a nice, simple Twitter replacement.

Katie Lynn

I haven’t posted much here concerning Katie Lynn since we’ve been doing that over at katielynnsepper.com and tomandmonica.com. The updates on the top right-hand side of this site are the same as found on Katie Lynn’s website.

I wanted to take the time though to say thank you to my family and friends for their love, thoughts, prayers, calls, emails, chats, pings, and visits. I am extremely blessed to have absolutely wonderful family and friends.

While I’m at it, I also want to say that I’m so blessed to have Monica as my wife. She never ceases to amaze me, and I am thankful that she is the mother to my daughter.

My Solemn Prayer

Dear Lord,

Thank you for blessing me with an absolutely gorgeous and precious daughter. I pray that you watch over Katie Lynn, keep her safe, and work your healing power over her.

Thank you for giving the doctors and nurses the ability to heal others in need.

Please give me the strength to be the rock that Monica and Katie Lynn need during this emotional and rough time.

I ask that you keep my family strong during the coming weeks so that we can get through this together.

I look forward to the day that Monica and I bring Katie Lynn home after your miracles have been realized.

In your name I humbly pray,
Amen.