Blogging / Twitter / Viewranger and integrating them !

A few folks have asked how I integrated a OSGB grid reference from my Nokia Mobile loaded with Viewranger into Twitter and the sidebar of this blog.

It was a kind of natural addition rather than something I set out to do - I first had this blog, then added a twitter feed before figuring out the last bit but anyway ...

1. I assume you already have a blogspot account and a twitter account as well as being a Viewranger user ...if not well you need all three !
2. Working back ...from the dashboard of blogspot choose "layout" and then click "add a gadget" to the area of the layout you want the twitter feed to appear. Search for "twitter updates" and a series of gadgets will be available - I recommend the ones from Blogger Buster. Once you have this as part of your blog you should be able to tweet updates into the sidebar !
3. You need to set up your mobile phone to be able to post tweets via text message. Log into your twitter account and under settings, there is a "mobile" tab - follow the instructions and you should be able to update twitter via text message from your mobile.
4. My account is with Orange and being a Dolphin contract, I have an unlimited text message package (hence I do not pay for texts to update twitter). Basically I send a text to 86444.
5. From Viewranger, I have set up the "0" key as a shortcut to sending a text message - so out on the hill (or wherever) you can send a OSGB grid along with any message to twitter and the gadget updates your blog.

Viewranger already have a fantastic beacon and facebook plugin - but for my purposes, the text message thing in the blog works well as a way of letting folks know where I am.

Hope this helps but any queries, please feel free to ask !

Cheers for now ...

Graham K