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QR Codes API – automatically generated for given content

There are a lot of  QR Code generators on a web and there is also listed our generator – available at http://qrcode.good-survey.com

It already went over simple generator functionality and new features are adding.

QR Codes Generator and API

QR Codes Generator and API

Basically, beside QR Code generation, we are offering as addition:

  • Tracking of generated QR Codes – for marketing managers ti know which locations work best (i.e. posters with printed QR Code)
  • Dynamic QR Codes – if some QR Code is already printed you can make it point to completely different URL without changing the printed code
  • Adding your logo inside QR Code (with readability testing) – branding feature
  • All types of content are supported (hyperlinks, custom text, vCard, Bizcard, Mecard,  vCalendar, social networks – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Geo locations and maps, SMS messages, phones,…)
  • Strong use of API – automating generation process and possibility to use from your application/website – this is what we will talk about a little bit more in this article…

Using API is not complicated at all, we wrote a tutorial which is easy to understand.

Here is an example how you can have instantly QR Code image on your website:

This are direct links:

This how it could look like inside your website (just put this hyperlink inside your IMG tag)

<img src="http://qrcode.good-survey.com/api/v2/generate?content=
http%3a%2f%2fmaps.google.com%2fmaps%3ff%3dq%26q%3d46.043286%2c14.492791300000022%
26q%3d30%2bTeslova%2bUlica%252c%2bLjubljana%2b1000%252c%2bSlovenia&
format=png&padding=2&size=10&em=byte&ec=m" alt="Avivo location" />
Try it also by yourself – just download DEMO API application from CodePlex and you can play with supported API features.

How to get Twitter statuses and Retweets together?

Use Twitter API

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.xml?screen_name=avivo&include_rts=true

Where avivo is Twitter username (replace with yours)

Check API Rate limitation (anonymous: 150 requests/hour, authenticated: 350 requests/hour)

http://api.twitter.com/1/account/rate_limit_status.xml

Written by Avivo

May 3rd, 2011 at 11:00 pm

Publish from Twitter to Facebook automatically

First, go to your Facebook profile page

Your Facebook profile page

Click on the left on Adverts and Pages and you will get something similar like this screen
Facebook adverts and pages

Facebook adverts and pages

Click on the left on Pages and you will get this screen
Your Facebook pages (applications)

Your Facebook pages (applications)

Now click on chosen page/application (logo or title) where you want to display Tweets – we chose QR Code Generator and Tracking
Overview of Facebook page/application

Overview of Facebook page/application

Click on Edit page command at the top and you will get
Editing Facebook page/application

Editing Facebook page/application

Now click on the left Apps and you will get
Facebook Apps overview

Facebook Apps overview

Click on Notes icon and you will get
Facebook Notes App

Facebook Notes App

Finally click on Edit import settings on the left and you will get
Facebook edit import settings

Facebook edit import settings

So, you need to enter RSS url to your Tweets and check that you agree…. (that is is your content). You get RSS to your Tweets from your Twitter Profile (you need to be logged and, this is important, to use old Twitter look)
Old Twitter look

Old Twitter look

If you already using new Twitter look you will need to find out what is your Twitter ID and then to use this URL: http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/[YOUR_TWITTER_ID].rss like http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/72515576.rss
You can get Twitter ID like we described in one of the previous posts: http://tech.avivo.si/2011/02/where-is-the-twitter-users-rss-button-or-how-to-get-twitter-user-id/

Happy merging!

How to migrate your Twitter account or joining (merging) two Twitter accounts?

We faced a problem (when Twitter started his way) that we created @avivo Twitter account and we didn’t use it for one year. When we wanted to start using it we forgot the registration e-mail so we could not change our password. So we opened a new @avivosi account and we used it until today.
Twitter helped us freeing today our old @avivo account (that means deleting it) because it was inactive for years. So, immediately after we got a confirmation e-mail from them (that account is now free and that it will be taken by fastest person) we registered it immediately.

But, we faced a problem that we have now @avivosi with all followers, lists and tweets and completely empty @avivo account we would like to use from today.

So, how to migrate from @avivosi to @avivo?

First thing that is important to know is that changing your Twitter username is safe operation (all things you have – followers, tweets, lists remain but under new username)

  1. Login as @avivosi in Firefox and go to Settings
  2. Login as @avivo in Google Chrome (note that browser is different because you do not want remembered Session @avivosi) and go to Settings
  3. Change in Google Chrome (@avivo account) username avivo to some other, i.e. avivo2
  4. Now quickly go to Firefox (@avivosi account) and change username avivosi into avivo (it is now again available after changing it to avivo2)
  5. Do these things when most of the Europeans and Americans are sleeping (we have done it on Saturday at about 07:30 CET)

So, now you have what you wanted you need to change everywhere

  1. Your Retweet buttons (they have reference to old account @avivosi) to point to ne account @avivo
  2. You need to change everywhere you used a promotional Twitter link “Follow us”
  3. We have also renamed @avivo2 (remember that it was original @avivo) back to @avivosi in order to inform people who come from old links to not used anymore account: http:/twitter.com/avivosi
    We just put one tweet that they can follow us on @avivo and we also created warning info background.
  4. Possibility is also to complete delete your old account (maybe we will do it in future)

Facebook link (website) thumbnail not shown (problems)

When you enter once your URL to Facebook (to share it on your wall) Facebook will cache it.

It is logical because there is more than 500 million users online.

Facebook have a nice tool which you can use to check if your website will be properly displayed (it will not be cached!): http://developers.facebook.com/tools/lint

If you already enter URL and make a share you will need to enter slightly different URL ie.
Instead of http://www.yourwebsite.com try http://yourwebsite.com or http://www.yourwebsite.com/?some_param

There are also useful META tags for sharing on Facebook – put them in the HEAD:

<meta property="fb:page_id" content="161855783870360" />
<meta property="og:title" content="QR Code generator and tracking, vector formats." />
<meta property="og:type" content="product" />
<meta property="og:url" content="http://qrcode.good-survey.com" />
<meta property="og:image" content="http://qrcode.good-survey.com/Content/images/qr.jpg" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="QR Code generator and tracking" />
<link rel="image_src" href="http://qrcode.good-survey.com/Content/images/qr.jpg" />