So, first things first, you need cURL which formats the http request to the Twitter API.  To install on Ubuntu (will probably work for most Debian systems) type the following into the command prompt:

sudo apt-get install curl

Once the installation is complete, you need to create a shell function, I won’t cover the how’s and whys here but you can find out for yourself.  Below are the contents of a file I named tweet.sh and placed in the directory /home/conor/shell on my linux server.

#!/bin/bash
function tweet {
curl -o /dev/null -s -u username:password -d status="$*" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml
}

The twitter URL should be on the same line as the cURL command above, username and password are obviously your twitter username and password. The switches -o and -s redirect the response and hide the status meter, respectively. You can leave them out to see their effect if you like.

So, now you need to be able to trigger the function. Edit your .bashrc file in your home directory and add a line near the end like the one below

source shell/tweet.sh

You should already have other ‘source’ lines in there so you can add it under these. This loads the ‘tweet’ command at login time, to load it now you can just type source ~shell/tweet.sh and that’s it, you’re done! Now to tweet you can just type the following at the bash command line:

tweet I'm tweeting from the command line!

Check your twitter page and your status should be updated, if it isn’t there immediately, wait a moment. Sometimes Twitter is slooooow!

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial, and I’ll be back when I’ve figured out how to make my server tweet by itself, till next time…

So, let’s start with the Zend Framework itself.  Download the framework zip file, unzip it to your PC and have an FTP client at the ready.  So, assuming you’re connected to your hosting account for your site, upload the zend folder from the downloaded framework into the a folder called ‘frameworks’ in the root folder of your hosting account.  It is important if you are following this example that you place the framework in the correct place.

That’s it!  Zend is now installed, so now you need to tell your Flex app where to look for the Zend files when it connects.  This is done with the index.php file.  So lets confirm your file structure:

Where ‘/’ is your webroot folder you should have the following

/frameworks/Zend

/mySite/amf/index.php

in the index.php file you need the following contents

error_reporting(E_ALL|E_STRICT);
ini_set("display_errors", "on");
ini_set("include_path", ini_get("include_path") . ":../../frameworks");

require_once 'Zend/Amf/Server.php';
require_once 'MyService.php';

$server = new Zend_Amf_Server();
//adding our class to Zend AMF Server
$server->setClass("MyService");
$server->setProduction(false);
echo( $server -> handle() );

This file is what brings the Zend framework into play.  Now, you also need a service file as referenced in your flex app.  Here is a copy of my service file, ‘MyService’.

class MyService
{
public function doSomething(){
//do nothing for now
}
}

more to follow…