Spun

Just enabled PingShot on this blog’s feed to see how fast it really does update in Google Reader. Nothing to see here; move it along.

Like most authors tasked with promoting their new book, checking Lifehacker the book’s Amazon sales rank has become part of my daily routine. But your book’s sales rank is one of those things - if you obsess about it too much, you’ll lose your mind. “It’s total B.S.,” a writer friend told me. “My agent told me it’s a miniscule representation of your book’s sales overall.” That’s probably less true for tech books than fiction, but either way, I wanted a way to capture my sales rank over time without constantly checking myself like an anxious freak. A number alone after awhile is pretty meaningless, and it literally changes by the hour.

So, inspired by PB’s graphing post and a curiosity about Amazon’s API, I set out to write a little something that would help me visualize what’s happening with the book’s sales over time. I didn’t get into the hardcore tools Paul did - just the names RRDTool or SNMP scare me - so I instead opted for the very no-frills, Flash-based PHP/SWF graphs. After registering for a free key, I was delighted to find that the Amazon API is dead simple. In less than 30 minutes of a little PHP/MySQL hacking, I had a sales rank capture-and-graph set of PHP scripts. It’s turned out to be a really nice way to keep an eye out without reloading the book’s Amazon page 4 times a day like a total egotistical loser.

Here’s the finished Lifehacker book Amazon sales rank charter. Screengrab below:

Social timeline maker Dandelife is really cool but I’m anti-social, and anti-hosted data. Happily, with the open source, fancy pants SIMILE Timeline one can create and host their own timeline. Fabulous.

I’ve been using Nokia’s Lifeblog software on both the PC and my phone to post to my cameraphone blog for months now and having a ball with it. (See my review of Lifeblogging with the Nokia 7610 for more info.)

Right now I’m using TypePad to host the web part of it, but if I ever want to build the capability into Scribblish (and I will) Robert Price has a nice walkthrough on how he did it for his homegrown PERL-based CMS. Also of interest alongside this - an Atom PHP implementation.