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Archive for the ‘protocols’ Category:
An Answer for Twitter OAuth-pacalypse
For your smaller Twitter API projects, bash scripts etc, we have launched SuperTweet.net in case you don’t get OAuth implemented by the time Basic Auth goes away June 30, 2010. It’s a Twitter proxy – you use Basic Auth to talk to the proxy, and it uses OAuth to talk to Twitter.
SuperTweet.net Access Credentials
For example, to send a tweet, use the http://api.supertweet.net/1/statuses/update.format such as:
curl -u user:password -d "status=playing with cURL and the SuperTweet.net API" http://api.supertweet.net/1/statuses/update.xml
The password shown in the example above is never your real Twitter password, but a separate password you set up just for use with the SuperTweet.net API – As with Twitter OAuth, you can revoke, change, or disable that password without any impact to your real Twitter password or Twitter account. Also, you can deauthorize the SuperTweet.net API application itself on Twitter.com if you think it’s being bad, again, without affecting your real Twitter password or other Twitter applications.
Learn more: http://www.supertweet.net/
Wishlist for hypothetical replacement P2P Skype core
SkypeJournal speaks about the JoltID conflict. The post has lot a lot of good analysis of the legal battle and I encourage you to read the original post.
Phil also suggests it’s an opportunity for a new P2P core for Skype, listing a number of possible improvements. I second that list, but let me also add a few things I’d like to see in a new Skype P2P core:
- Published protocol specs, whether a open-standard or proprietary protocol, supporting network-layer interoperability (whether free or licensed).
- Less obfuscation, especially in terms of security.
- Ideally, open-source or or at least published peer-reviewed source.
Frankly, having the original founders of Skype out of the picture is probably ultimately a good thing for the Skype community and the Internet at large. It’s unbelievable that Ebay made a multi-billion dollar deal and still didn’t obtain control of the technology. I expect that will go down in textbooks some day as one of the dumbest (or smartest, depending on which side of the table you sat on) negotiations of all time.
Twitter #fixreplies and “intelligent” networks
A few weeks ago, I said “Twitter is a “Stupid Network” (the good kind)”. It turns out I was wrong.
Twitter created the #fixreplies problem (see here and here) for themselves when they decided to treat these tweets specially from the start, breaking the end-to-end principle.
These are tweets by people I follow – they are public tweets, not direct messages. They are in the public timeline. If I follow that person, they should be in my timeline like any other tweet from that person (whose tweets I follow), regardless of the content of that message.
I follow this person. That means I follow what they say, the updates they post. If Twitter never treated a post that starts with @ special in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. In that case, if I wanted to filter such tweets, I could do that in my client, at the “edge”.
Now Twitter has pulled those tweets out and so I can’t “filter” them – I have to go looking for them.
This is the kind of mess you get yourself in when you go around breaking the end-to-end principle all will-nilly.
Rejected by Skype
I didn’t make the grade. They’re not going to let me play with “Skype for SIP”.
I guess I’ll find a way to make it through another day, somehow.
Skype For SIP Beta
Via Pat Phelan, I signed up telEvolution Inc. for the Beta. We’ll see if we hear back or if they accept us.
It looks like Skype For SIP supports calling from Skype into a SIP PBX, but not calling a Skype user (free call) from a SIP PBX. It supports placing calls from SIP using SkypeOut, though, so we’ll see.
Skype For SIP now available in Beta
UPDATE: via Skype Journal, I see that “Skype for SIP” maps one Skype username to one IP address (SIP address?) – this is basically for “Skype Me” buttons and to let Skype users ring your PBX.
It also lets a businesses use SkypeOut for outgoing calls. As Phil notes, Skypeout rates are higher than what businesses can already get from typical SIP termination providers, so I’m not sure what the win is there.
So, all in all, “Skype for SIP” is not the SIP interoperability everyone is asking for. For better SIP/Skype interoperability, we still need to turn to third parties like OpenSky. On the other hand, while “Skype for SIP” appears to be a pretty small step toward Skype/SIP interoperability, it is at least a step, and we should give them some credit for that.
