5 Minute Hack: Update Your Twitter Account With New Box Files
Sure, we’ve got new documentation for our API. But hacking your Box account for productivity purposes can be much simpler and faster, rendering API usage unnecessary.
Here’s a simple hack to get a customized Box feed fed into your Twitter account using your Box RSS feed
There are a myriad of RSS-mixing and filtering tools, but the best of the bunch is most likely Yahoo! Pipes, because it offers a range of simple to advanced utilities that make RSS remixing a snap.
For this 5 minute hack, you’ll need the RSS feed of the shared folder you’d like to monitor. There’s two ways to get an RSS feed.
1. Grab and Customize Your Feed
A. Easy - Box.net GUI
Did you know that RSS feeds are available for you through the Box.net user interface?
Click on the options tab for a folder, and select “Get Link” or “Get Public Link”.
You should see an RSS option, as in the picture above. Copy the link and paste it into the Fetch Feed module in Pipes.
B. Advanced - Use the API
This method is more difficult, but allows you to create customized feeds for other Box users, programatically. (This means you could open up a 3rd-party application to turn this 5-minute hack into a 5-second hack!)
Use the Get Account Tree method. For a folder with a shared RSS feed, you’ll get a link like this:
http://www.box.net/shared/cje09cp3qo
Add the string ‘rss.xml’ to the end so the link becomes http://www.box.net/shared/cje09cp3qo/rss.xml.
You can then supply the RSS feed as a URL Input in the HTTP address of your pipe. If the URL Input is connected to a Fetch Feed module, the pipe should automate the rest on its own. You can retrieve the results of your pipe almost instantly (it often takes a couple of seconds) by using the following address:
Whether you’re using the GUI or the API to get your feed into Yahoo! Pipes, there are many different filters and operators you can perform to get your feed the way you like it. Many of these are simple, but can be surprisingly useful.
For instance, in the example at the top of the post, I used the String Builder and Regex modules to add James’s Facebook Files to the title of each item. See the Pipes documentation for more ideas.
2. Send Your Box Feed to Twitter
Using Twitterfeed makes this a one-minute, zero maintainence affair. Simply navigate to www.twitterfeed.com, follow the instructions, and either insert your provided Box RSS feed or your customized Yahoo Pipe feed.
Presto chango!
The TinyURL will now link to your document, giving easy access to your Twitter friends and co-workers.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more ways you can use simple hacks to improve your document productivity. If you have any home-brewed RSS hacks for your files and docs, tell us in the comments.
