gladlyCode

Tag: twitter

NDP 2009 Twitter background

We made two Twitter backgrounds to celebrate the occasion -- Singapore's National Day. We thought we share with anyone who's interested.This is the bigger version that is currently used in @gladlyCode's Twitter.

Singapore NDP 2009 big wallpaper sample

And here's a version with a smaller NDP 2009 logo used in @gladlyCast's Twitter.

Singapore NDP 2009 small wallpaper sample

You can have the backgrounds with big (Save target as) and small (Save target as) logos. Do anything you want with it -- scribble words, put your photographs, just enjoy them. (:

gladlyCast Twitter updates delayed for 15 minutes

Due to the recent Twitter attacks, Twitter is redirecting traffic away.

This pending update takes care of the redirection to increase reliability. gladlyCast will be up again on today (Aug 10), 1:15 am. This minor update does not affect your SMSes, however, your updates to Twitter will be delayed till 1:15 am.

Please be patient.

  • Update 1:11 am: Core Twitter service updated. Now testing update.
  • Update 1:27 am: Everything is back up. Oh and by the way, if you're having problems with signing in with Twitter and happen to have a 3G modem, use it to sign in. The sign in problem is partly due to SingNet or Starhub. You can then use back your normal internet connection to access Twitter subsequently.

Scheduled downtime: Major server upgrade at 3 am

When you're sound asleep, we'll be performing a major upgrade to make our purple gladlyCast server harder, better, faster, stronger:

Scaling vertically at 3 am

We are performing the upgrade on Aug 11 (Tuesday), at 3 am in the morning as that's the time where the least people use our services. The update will take maximum 1 hour.

If you send an SMS during our downtime, it will be queued safely on another server and delivered to Twitter once our upgrade is completed.

SMS will be queued at gateway and redelivered to gladlyCast server as soon as possible.

No messages is expected to be lost during this transition. We treat your SMSes with care and provide refreshments to make them happy. We would update our gladlyCast Twitter regularly during which time. The August 11 plan for the upgrade is to:

  1. 3:00 am -- Pull the plug and upgrade.
  2. 3:20 am -- Move everything over and wake the server.
  3. 3:25 am -- Wake our Twitter service and redeliver all queued messages sent between 3:00 am and 3:25 am.
  4. 3:30 am -- Wake our web server with sign ups re-enabled.
  5. Spend the next 30 minutes ensuring all components are functioning.

(During this transition, this blog will go down too. This is something we haven't thought about and I'm feeling rather dumb right now.)

  • Update 3:30 am: Our web server is up. (: Update 3:33 am: Sign ups are not re-enabled at the moment.
  • Update 3:43 am: Components are functional except for phone association. Still working on that one.
  • Update 4:10 am: Sign up is re-enabled. Upgrade completed.

gladlyCast server is back up

We are pleased to announce that we removed the major bottleneck that slowed down gladlyCast's Twitter status update delivery. The system is now well again, but not without feeding it with some vegetables:

Surely you know this is a vegetable

Did we miss any of your SMSes during the upgrade?

Do tweet us about it. By informing us for these fault, you help us become more reliable for you. :)

LEon reviews on gladlyCast

LEon, of LEongraphy, has written a review review on gladlyCast's SMS-to-Twitter feature and included our screenshots too! Read more at his blog:

How does it work? You send a sms to a local number and it would recognize the subscriber's mobile number and matches that SMS to a specific twitter account. He's also made us an illustration for use for our homepage:

gladlyCast illustration by LEon

Thanks LEon, we really appreciate it. It's the first review coming in and certainly made our day. :) Like to give gladlyCast a try? There is no signing up involved. Click here.

gladlyCast now supports Malaysia

We are happy to announce that another local number has been added to our SMS-to-Twitter service — Malaysia.

Malaysians can now enjoy Twitter via text messages too by sending in tweets to a local number in Malaysia:

+60 12 795 9876 (or 012-7959876, omitting country code).

To begin using gladlyCast, simply go to http://gladlycast.com, sign in with your existing Twitter account and associate your handphone.

Pudu Market (edited version)

To commemorate this, we have also updated our homepage image to the beautiful photograph taken by Goosmurf showing the colourful Pudu market in the busy city of Kuala Lumpur.

Salam sejahtera.

[LEon has also blogged about this here.]

Thank you Malaysia for the wonderful support

Thank you all for the retweets, the comments and the blog posts that you have made. We're thrilled to read every little tweets you have made about us and we took note of each and every single one of them.

Today's response is not without the help of these Malaysians:

You guys have made our day. (:

If you blogged about us, do tell us about it. We like to read your opinion.

Twitter / Plurk picnic in Singapore

If you're in Singapore, you may like to check out a Twitter and Plurk picnic coming August 29 at Botanic Gardens, Singapore. It's potluck-styled so be sure to come with the nicest food and any forms of entertainment you can think of.

You can RSVP for the event here and check out who's bringing what here.

Last we checked, there are 35 attendees and no ants. So if you have yet to make plans coming Saturday, consider joining wonderful persons like jerricklim, simplyjean, yuhui, daphnemaia, uniquefrequency and victan.

Have fun! Sugianto also blogged about this event here.

[If you have any of this sort of social events (tweetups, plurkups etc), just tweet us @gladlyCast, we would love to spread the word for you.]

Scheduled maintenance 03-Sep-2009 @ 3 AM

We are scheduling a maintenance on September 3, at 3 AM, lasting about 15 minutes.

This update enhances our Twitter message delivery functions. The gladlyCast website should continue to work.

The SMSes you sent us during which will be queued and delivered once our Twitter message delivery functions get activated again.

So once again, it's Thursday morning 3 AM, 15 minutes.

  • Update 3:00 am: We're performing some maintenance and have chosen not to go offline.
  • Update 3:05 am: Update completed. No problems encountered.

How to use SMS to update Twitter in Malaysia

A few of our friends in Malaysia have mentioned us on their blogs. Some even included screenshots and instructions on how to get started with gladlyCast.

Here are some that we have found other than those mentioned in our previous post: