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Tweets (and whatever else you want) on the desktop with GeekTool

by Mike Schramm Mar 10th 2009 at 12:30PM


Mat posted a while back about the magic of GeekTool -- it's an app that allows you to run Unix scripts and show logs in a good-looking pane right there on your desktop. Mac OS X Tips recently did a post about how to put your iCal events up there using a script called iCalBuddy, but industrious reader Ben G. has taken this even a step further, and sent along a link to a similar script called twitterbuddy, which -- as you may have guessed -- will send your latest tweets to GeekTool.

As a result, he's got the desktop you see above -- both tweets and iCal events sitting in a transparent pane on top of his desktop background. It will require a little Terminal tripping, but it's pretty easy to do. Just install and set up GeekTool the way you like it, and then make sure the buddy scripts are installed. From there, you can create a New Entry in GeekTool, and run whatever commands you want. It's incredibly flexible, too, because it'll put any Terminal commands you can throw at it right there on your desktop. If you're looking to fill in some of that unused Desktop space, give it a look.

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Mat posted a while back about the magic of GeekTool -- it's an app that allows you to run Unix scripts and show logs in a good-looking...
 

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Thom

I'm with Todd and Nicholas. No luck when I want to see my friends' tweets. The bizarre thing is, though, when I enter the search string, everything works fine.

Hhhhmmm........

June 02 2009 at 4:04 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nicholas

I get this error.

"Tweets

ERROR: Could not connect with twitter. Did you specify a username and password?"

And I did.

May 27 2009 at 9:19 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Nicholas's comment
Todd

I have the same problem as #40 Nicholas. Can't figure out why it is not connecting.

June 01 2009 at 10:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
awakebyjava

I keep getting this when I try to install.

ERROR: Error installing twitter:
httparty requires jnunemaker-crack (>= 0.1.0, runtime)

Sorry, I don't speak code. I did update RubyGems as per the previous comments. Anyone have an idea? Thanks!

April 01 2009 at 4:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Matt

Ah... Thanks for that!

March 16 2009 at 5:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
blackdiamond

thanks brecka

March 16 2009 at 4:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Matt

Mine is having trouble connecting as well. I remember someone saying that after ever so many API pulls in a 24 hour period, Twitter will lock you out. But I don't remember where or under what circumstances.
I could also be completely wrong about that...
If someone has a fix I would love to hear it!

March 16 2009 at 8:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Matt's comment
blackdiamond

The problem is that Twitter won't let you refresh more than 100 times in one hour. So if you set the refresh rate to once per second you'll quickly exceed that limit and Twitter won't let you connect for a while.


Setting the refresh rate in geektool to ~36 seconds will come close to the 100 per hour constraint.

March 16 2009 at 4:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
blackdiamond

now it seems to be having trouble connecting to Twitter. anyone else having the same problem?

March 11 2009 at 8:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
blackdiamond

awesome! works great. My only question is how can i display a trend with this? Like if I'm watching 24, and want to see all the tweets with #24 in it, how can i display it with geek tool?

March 11 2009 at 8:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to blackdiamond's comment
brecka

For #24 tweets use:
twitterBuddy -u username -p password -s '#24'

March 16 2009 at 2:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Matt

When trying to run twitterbuddy -h in the Terminal I get:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_require': no such file to load -- twitter (LoadError)
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `require'
from /usr/local/bin/twitterbuddy:6

Any idea what I'm doing wrong? So far all I did was double click the Install.command file, enter admin password and let it install.

March 11 2009 at 7:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Matt's comment
Adam Schoales

Man I love the concept of geek tool but have never found a good tutorial to set it up... and when i find an ALRIGHT tutorial it never ends up working right.

We just need an rainmeter for OS X

March 10 2009 at 10:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Adam Schoales's comment
Adam Schoales

that and I'd love a way to display my "today" tasks from "Things" in Geektool (or embed them into the desktop right from Things itself)

March 10 2009 at 10:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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