PMTvoice

Ever since I read this article on Engadget (DIY Plant updating Twitter as to its watering status), I have wondered what I could come up with that would automatically update Twitter that might be useful to me. Finally, a few weeks ago, I found that a website monitor would be nice to have, and since I have my Twitter feeds up all day, that would be a good place to get the notification when this blog PMTVoice goes down (and subsequently comes back up). So, I set about finding the necessary tools to do so…Here’s what I came up with (warning: sort of rube goldberg in approach).

Step 1

Create a separate Twitter account (so updates could be kept private, as I don’t need to be broadcasting how good or bad my host is). Make sure you have another email address to use because Twitter won’t let you use the same email as your regular account. I called my account, fittingly, @pmtalerts.

Step 2

Create account with a website monitoring service that allows for email alerts. I use Pingdom. Follow their instructions to setup a Check using a Contact to send the email to. I have the alerts come to a gmail account because they make it really easy to setup an auto-forward.

Step 3

Connect @pmtalerts to Twitter Mail. You simply use your Twitter login and it automatically connects to Twitter (you get a chance to confirm through Twitter).  TwitterMail gives you a “secret” email to use to update twitter status through email.

Step 4

Setup your email to auto-forward all uptime alerts. Pingdom sends all alerts from alert@pingdom.com. See screenshot of how I setup my gmail to do the auto-forwarding.

Step 5

Login to your regular Twitter account and follow your Alert account (you’ll have to logout and login to the alert account to approve the follow if you previously made updates private)

DONE! – you’ll now receive your website monitoring alerts as status updates through twitter…and it’ll be only for you unless you decide to share with the world.

My next goal is to simplify this process so that there are less 3rd party tools in play (less that can go wrong), so if anyone has some thoughts or experience with the Twitter API and wants to share…let me know.