Integrating Google Connect

I’ve been part of the Google Connect beta since shortly after it came out – but it wasn’t until recently that I actually implemented it on my blog and the parent site, www.thepizzy.net. So, if you read this (and I know there has to be at least 4 other people in the world that do), go ahead and hit the Join button on it, and let me know y’all are out there. (it helps to know one is writing to an audience instead of providing technical articles to the etherworld.)

You don’t have to worry about spam or anything – I don’t like it either.

In other news, I’m also working on a tutorial entry that describes how to get data from a Google Docs Spreadsheet. Normally, I wouldn’t worry about trying to release this code, but since it was such a pain for me to figure out (like the UT3 Server setup), I’m sure it’s a pain for others to figure out as well.

The code creates a secure-authenticated session to Google Accounts, and then requests the data from a particular cell on a spreadsheet. My code goes one step further though, and posts that data to Twitter – which means it also creates an authenticated POST request via the Twitter API.

“Why do that?’ you ask…Well, if you want to be able to update a spreadsheet from, say an iPhone or other Mobile Browser, Google Docs will not let you. But I’ll explain more in the coming entry. Be looking for that sometime this week (I hope).