Best Blogs Asia » Twitter on Blogs

Make a Twitter Site using Sweetcron

Best Blogs — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:55:30 +0000

I’ve just installed Sweetcron for the first time, I initially had problems with adding my Wordpress Feeds whilst I found adding Twitter feeds was very simple, so I’ve created a step-by-step guide on making your own Twitter website using Sweetcron.

Sweetcron Setup

Sweetcron is a self-hosted automated life-streaming CMS / Blogging tool, which creates blog posts in an instant drawing content from your activities on various social sites like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Tumblr etc. You just have to add the feeds from these sites, do some customization and your posts are automatically created by SweetCron.

Recommended setup

PHP5.
A web host (I use Liquidweb)
A Database.

Download Sweetcron

Download at Sweetcron.com, then follow the Installation Instructions.

Birdbox Theme

I thought I’d design a Free Sweetcron Theme for Twitter only, called the Birdbox.

Download Birdbox Theme

It’s usable since you can display your Twitter Feeds more clearly, allow direct comments on the site and even monetise from it by placing adverts on the site.

The Theme contains…

Own Site Feed, Comment options and Contact Page.
SEO friendly, fast loading and HTML Compliant.
Uses bird graphic from iampaddy site (now defunct).

Setup Birdbox Sweetcron Theme

Place the Birdbox theme in: /system/application/views/themes/birdbox.

Make any changes to the following -

Contact.php: add your email/contact form/photo, Single.php:add the Discussion Form and Sidebar.php: Place adverts on the site.

After uploading, go to admin/ (section) and change the display feeds setting from ‘9′ to ‘10′.

Add your twitter feed only, it’ll be something like:
http://twitter.com/USERNAME

That’s it!

How did you get on?

My suggestion is to create a sub-domain and place your Twitter website there, if you already display “Tweets” on your site you can always link to your Twitter site which keeps an archive.

Best Blogs Asia.

Free Twitter Backgrounds

Best Blogs — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:06:26 +0000

I’ve just started to get into Twitter, it’s a great tool..as long as people have something interesting to say! What also needs to be interesting is your Twitter background, so I had a couple minutes spare and knocked out the following for you to use.

Twitter Backgrounds

I took into account the Twitter layout, basing the background on a standard 1200×1000 setup. For anyone designing a Twitter background, make sure there isn’t too much going on colour and design wise as it’ll be distracting for the viewer. Also remember screensizes are different so there can be no exact layout.

Arty Background

Download Arty (PNG and Jpeg Versions) – ZIP.

Colours Background

Download Colours (PNG and Jpeg Versions) – ZIP.

Lines Background

Download Lines (PNG and Jpeg Versions) – ZIP.

Talk Background

Download Talk (PNG and Jpeg Versions) – ZIP.

How to Install your Background

Click on Settings in the top Right corner, should be under your username.
Then select Design, Change Background Image.
Click Browse, find the jpg or PNG file. Make sure Tile Background is left unchecked and then click Save.
Feel free to edit these backgrounds, preferably giving Bestblogs.asia a hat tip . The PNG version is editable, whilst the JPG version is recommended to upload directly to Twitter.

Best Blogs Asia.

Use Twitter on Blogs

Best Blogs — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:26:49 +0000

Twitter is a “microblogging” service; it accepts only small 140 character posts for quick dispersement of information. Using Twitter has taken off big time in 2008, whilst in 2009 more people are signing up. “Tweets” can be embeded in almost any blogs.

Using Twitter on your Blogs

The easiest way to embed Twitter in a website is to use any of the official Twitter Badges and Plugins:

What to Write about?

Twitter can be used as a great tool for self-promotion, which in the case of blogs/sites can be used to showcase new sites, products and posts. Be warned, don’t over promote yourself on Twitter or post too regularly..this is frowned upon.

My Twitter Feed

My Twitter Feed is http://twitter.com/misohoni, I don’t use it for Web Design talk (it’ll be too boring) or talk about everyday life, but I use it to give short movie reviews. I watch a lot of films, so thought I’d review them and mark them out of 5…it’s perfect for me since I don’t like to write much!

Best Blogs Asia.