Developer Challenge: Make SageTV "Tweet"?

[Brent]

I've been thinking about this for a while now. I've been using twitter quite a bit over the past months and while at first I was skeptical about twitter, it's really turned into an awesome way to keep up with the goings on in the tech world and with people of common interests.

Beyond "socializing" though, there are many other uses of twitter. ZatzNotFunny! had an interesting story about a guy who developed a tool that allowed his TIVO to twitter. So how difficult would it be to do this with SageTV? I would imagine you could use the xml and/or rss feeds from web server to feed twitter posts.

I could see having setting that would have it send a twitter message for upcoming shows, upcoming conflicts, a saved search that finds a show you've been searching for etc.

Question is, does anyone have an idea of what would be involved to do this? Is it something that's already possible even? Making SageTV a little social - hmm.

UPDATE:
SageTweet has arrived thanks to Slugger. GeekTonic writeup is here and more info at the bottom of this thread

[QueOnda]

Brent,

K10ck3r developed a plugin called sagetray. He has email setup so it can email you on schedule conflict and on system error and recovery. I don't know how twitter works but maybe you can talk to him to see if he can add code to get the result you want.

[GKusnick]

This probably would not be that difficult to implement, but I guess I don't see the point. I can already use my phone to find out what my Sage server is doing via the Mobile Web Interface. Why would I care what somebody else's Sage is doing, or want the world to know what mine is doing?

[gplasky]

There already ways you can access SageTV information about what Sage is doing, what it is recording, etc. After reading the article on Zatz2Funny and thinking about it a bit here is what would be cooler. So actually I was more intriqued by this hack Washing Machine Twitter Hack Imagine this: the activity streams catches on and I have my washing machine, oven and microwave doing activity streams. Now someone comes up with a Sage plugin for Twitter and receiving these streams so that when they come in Sage will actually start a ticker near the bottom of the screen that scrolls the Twitter message across. This ticker remains on the screen for 30 seconds (adjustable) or the time it itakes to scroll across the screen once and then fades away. Maybe have access to a menu choice or a icon (like the conflicts icon) that leads to a screen that can list all of these streams or alarms over the past half hour, etc. Now that would be cool. (or maybe base this off the caller-id plugin to pull the info from Twitter)

Gerry

[QueOnda]

Originally Posted by gplasky

(or maybe base this off the caller-id plugin to pull the info from Twitter)

Gerry

The additional work shadeblue did for the callerid which allows messages form home automation and such. But does Brent what to send ino (post #2) or get info?

[Underfunded]

Brent, I follow your tweet's, do you really need more?

[Brent]

Gerry's thoughts on the Twitter connected home are interesting and yes that would be cool, but my original thought was something more simple. I'll address a few of the comments/questions others made above (a few months ago I know) in my comments below:


Why Twitter for SageTV:

• Because choices are good. While we already have web server, mobile webserver for the phone, SageTV Placeshifter and probably other options, SageTweet will be used differently. More of a "feed" of sorts that you will follow. You would want two accounts - one primarly Twitter account that you use all of the time and a secondary Twitter account for your SageTV updates. You then follow those HTPC updates with your primary Twitter account.
• Webadmin and the others are great to look up certain information about what's going on with your SageTV and even executing commands. SageTweet is more of a way to keep track of what the server/clients are doing/watching as well as monitoring the "health" of your SageTV twitter. You can see history of whats going on from anywhere you have access to your twitter account.

I don't want others to see what my SageTV is doing:

• Then "protect" your SageTV twitter account and only "friend" your primary twitter account. Keeps prying eyes from seeing that your SageTV is recording the golden girls or worse

Why wouldn't you just do this with RSS?

• I personally like Twitter a lot. And I tend to check twitter on occasion from my blackberry (twitterberry) and iPod Touch on the go much more than I do the mobile webserver. I use mobile webserver to see what is scheduled, browse the guide or schedule a recording. SageTweet shows me what my SageTV is doing currently and what it has been up to lately. If my daughter has been wasting time watching TV all day when she was supposed to be cleaning her room - I'll see that without going into the logs. And then I'll get in trouble for "spying" on her but thats for another conversation.

Anyone else interested or think they might use such an app?

If so, you'll be happy to read about the work Derek has been doing on this - I just wrote about it on GeekTonic

[Skirge01]

I'm really trying hard to understand the usefulness of this. The only use I can really see is for spying on your users. That may very well be what you're really after, but I don't see the interest beyond that particular item... unless someone's just utterly hooked on following Twitter feeds, no matter the reason.

[Clift]

This would be useful if you are away for whatever reason (business, vacation, etc) and want to make sure you SageTV is still recording. That way if anything goes wrong you could always call your neighbor (or designee) and have them reboot your machine...

If you do a search on the forums you'll see a lot of people are concerned when they have to go away. And getting a tweet on your mobile phone would be a lot easier than logging in to the webserver, IMHO.

[Skirge01]

I definitely agree that logging into the Webserver to check Sage's status is the wrong route to be taking. I even have the mobile version installed, but it's very cumbersome to log into with a secure password!

While I understand the benefits you're mentioning, I think error reporting would be better suited for that purpose. Wouldn't the SageTray Utility's email capability be better for checking the status of Sage (assuming it covers enough reporting)? I'm not using it yet, so I don't know.

Using WHS Event Monitor, I have email alerts already set up for my WHS box anytime there's an event logged in Windows. SageTray seems to fill the need for Sage itself.

Again, not trying to say Twitter is a bad idea in any way. I'm just trying to openly discuss and get some understanding behind people's reasoning.

[Brent]

I posted my personal reasoning above but I'll repeat briefly:
I have two twitter accounts. My main one I use and keep open to the public. A second one for my HTPC which is currently open to the public but eventually will become "protected" so only I can see it. That way I avoid everyone "spying" on my poor television choices .

Why do I think its a good idea for me?

• Crazy-easy way to track what my server is doing and what shows are being viewed on my six different TVs (including placeshifter). I can view history - not just whats happening right now
• I can view this without digging through the logs
• I can view the info from my mobile phone when I'm away from home (most of the time these days). Part of it is seeing whats being watched while I'm gone, but also is a way for me to know when there might be a problem.

It's definitely not for everyone, but since I'm a twitter user and a SageTV user and like lots of info all of the time its pretty darn cool to me. YMMV

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I even have the mobile version installed, but it's very cumbersome to log into with a secure password!

I don't find it cumbersome at all. I entered my password once, the first time I logged in, and now my phone remembers it for me so I don't have to re-enter it every time.

I think the bottom line is that if you're already a Twitter addict, then naturally you want everything in the world (including Sage) to tweet at you. But if you're not into Twitter, there's no compelling reason to adopt it just so you can get tweets from Sage. There are other ways to get status updates on the go. If your phone does email, then email alerts suffice. If not, you can probably still direct email alerts to your phone through your carrier's email-to-SMS gateway.

[evilpenguin]

I don't know, I think you could accomplish something pretty cool by mashing Twitter and Sage.

Say if, rather than diagnostic information, Sage were to Tweet when you added/removed a favorite or liked/disliked an episode. Then say you were to have your Sage Twitter account follow other peoples Sage Twitter accounts. Then you could have a streaming list of shows other people are watching/recommending. Throw in a STV plug-in that lets you monitor tweets and It'd be like Boxee's social media implementation without having to build our own server for keeping track of everything.

[Skirge01]

Now, I think I'm starting to get this concept. I appreciate you guys being patient with my questions. I was trying really hard not to come across like a troll.

Anyhow, I understand Brent's reasoning a little more and I think Greg somewhat confirmed my "hooked on Twitter" theory.

@Greg - I'm a security nut (as you may've noticed from my other thread you've been replying to), so having my phone save my password is an issue to me. I'm still trying to get the secure mobile web working, so I have it disabled currently.

With that level of logging EP is getting at, I'm really beginning to see some unique opportunities for this. I'm wondering about a group of friends following each other's Sage Tweets and weeding out the status stuff, but instead focusing on what's being watched, recorded, and 'don't like'-d. If Sage could incorporate such Tweets and act on them (by choice, obviously), that'd start some serious social TV watching. If my best-bud "Johnny" is Twittering (Tweetering?) about the premiere of some new show and I'm following this Tweet, Sage could add that premier as a suggested recording. Ideally, it'd also let me know it came from someone's Tweet so I don't ignore it as a Sage IR, but you get the idea.

[Brent]

I can see a possible future feature for this being the ability to DM your "HTPC Twitter account" to add a show as well. There is a Netflix twitter app that does this.

Again this is something you can do with webadmin very easily already, but take EP's ideas and integrate this sort of thing into that concept and it gets quite interesting.

[dougshartzer]

I love this add on, it's really great for keeping track of what I'm recording while I"m at work. However, I'm having some trouble and wanted to see if anyone else might be having an issue.

Every time I reboot, it seems to forget the settings. It'll stop tweeting and the settings will be cleared out.

Has anyone else had these problems? I have read through the instructions on Geektonic again and again, but can't seem to find anything that I forgot to do.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[gplasky]

Make sure you have stopped the SageTV service or have quit (not sleep to the tray) the SageTV application. Whichever way you run it stop it before installing any plugin or modifying any files.

Gerry

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by dougshartzer

Every time I reboot, it seems to forget the settings. It'll stop tweeting and the settings will be cleared out.

Do you happen to be running on Vista? Just a guess. The plugin writes its twitter.properties file to the SageTV base installation dir (typically C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\). It's my understanding that Vista may end up moving that file somewhere else under certain circumstances? Is the file present in that location after a reboot? I don't use Vista so I can't really test/diagnose if this is indeed the problem.

[Slugger]

Just a little background on this plugin. I never actually saw this thread before writing it - it came about for something completely unrelated to Sage that required me to learn the Twitter API and figured whipping up a quick little Sage plugin would be a decent enough way to fiddle around with the Twitter API. After I was done playing I saw some benefit to having Sage alert me when conflicts arose or disk space got too low, etc. Figured I'd release what I had in case others found it useful.

I don't plan on taking this plugin too much further, but for those who find it useful, feel free to request support and/or feature requests through my SageTV plugins project site on Google Code. Small/easy feature requests will probably be addressed, just not sure how quickly as this plugin will not be my top priority when I find myself with some SageTV "play time."

http://sagetv-addons.googlecode.com

[dougshartzer]

Actually, I'm running XP Home SP3.

I checked that directory for a twitter.properties file, but there's nothing there. I even searched the whole hard drive, but came up empty. That's both after I make the settings and after I reboot (which makes them go away).

Also, I definitely stopped the service. Not through the MMC console, but using that tool in the start menu's sage folder that controls the service.

Thanks again for your help. If you want me to migrate this over to that google page, just let me know.

Doug