a tidbit
Okay, that's it. I'm sick of being chained to the web in order to blog. It's time for some out and about (oot and aboot for you canucks), with the ability to post audio, pictures and text from the field. Inspired by this article on the social necessity of keitai, I've begun to think about what it would take to convert email into Berylium objects.
Actually, this is something that Alex Kaledjian asked for two years ago-- the ability to just send an email and have it magically converted into a post. I blew him off at the time because it seemed too hard, but I don't feel that way any more.
There's also Audblog, which uses the Blogger API to add a link to an audio file to your blog. The audio file being a voicemail that you left with the Audblog service from, oh, anywhere. It's all automagical, you just call in and record and bing, it appears as the next entry in your blog.
The real question is, what will it take to implement both the Blogger API and an Email API to Berylium? Both are problematic due to plain-text password transmission. At least with email, the server response could include a one-time password or a key-- replying would generate the next post and so on.
Here's a sketch of the email interface:
Email API Methods:
Methods may apply to documents (d) or images (i).
- new - n
- echo - e
- append - a
- replace - r
By default, they apply to the most recent document or image created by the author, but an id may be included specifying a specific document or image instance to which the method will be applied.
Email API Subject Header Command Syntax
Otk (one-time key) is sent to you in confirmation of your last new post. Replying to that email will put the otk in the Subject header automatically (and we can strip the inevitable "Re:").otk:command:title text
Command is the abbreviated form of the method, plus either d or i, plus an optional object id.
So to cause the text of an email to be appended to document #4968, the Subject header value would be:
The title is optional in the Subject header. If it is not included there, the first line of the message body will be used as the title. On append operations, the title is ignored in the Subject and not looked-for in the Body.otk:ad4968:
Image descriptions may be appended, but additional image attachments sent as appends will be ignored. Or maybe they should become new images? But why wouldn't you just send an ni: command, then?
Conclusion
Anyway, interesting concept.
By Psydeshow on March 8, 2003 at 7:41pm