I had this widget I used with Twitter to signal that I’m still alive. Using IFTTT, I placed a “Do Button,” a one-tap widget, on my phone, that posted a pre-set image to Twitter with a pre-set message and a variable that stripped in the date and time. So, stirrlng from my pit in the morning, I only had to thumb one button to send the signal.
I created a second button to do the same thing at night.
It is an easy way to signal I’m up and around (or bailing out), which is one of the things internet presence is for, and, honestly, a pleasant way to bookend the days.
I cannot replicate this process in WordPress. IFTTT just refuses to do it, as does iOS Shortcuts. Andy Affleck at WordPress Special Circumstances has looked at it, and we can’t figure out why it won’t fire. But it just won’t.
This bugs me a lot more than it should.
My workaround, right now, is to take a photo, stamp it with Weathershot Pro, load it into a posting screen on the WordPress mobile app — which is now pre-set to post in the timestamp category — and fire. Not ideal, not quite what I was looking for, certainly not one-click, but it’ll do for now.
Why does this even matter to me?
For me, it’s about being able to broadcast, hence the blogchain title. This thing here that I’m talking about, the “I’m alive” signal, has professional and personal use for me. The least we can do is signal to the people we know that we’re alive, awake and vaguely around. It’s that thing I’ve talked about before, when IM systems and early Twitter were punctuated by status lights going on and people sending their “good morning” message as they signed on for the day. I realise those days are gone, of course, but I still feel like that had some utility, and it pleases me to retain that as best I can. Even if it’s only me doing it. Which, let’s face it, it usually is. I’ll be that small, broken down and obscure lighthouse sitting by the misty haunted rocks on the far edge of the Isles Of Blogging if I have to be.
Running my little experiments in the lantern room.