cliptwit - post the clipboard to twitter

I use cliptwit to post the contents of my clipboard to twitter ever hour from 9-5. In addition to the short python script, this requires the tweepy python library and a cron task.

Note that this only works on linux, and that I have only tested on Ubuntu 10.04. Clipboard access would work differently on windows, and windows doesn't come with cron.

Installing tweepy

Follow these instructions, also mentioned in the authentication howto link.

Authenticating with twitter

1. Follow the steps here to grant access to your account
2. Copy local_keys.py.template to local_keys.py
3. Enter the {consumer, access} {keys, secrets} in local_keys.py; be sure not to check this in

Setting the cron

Mine looks like:

00 09-17 * * *		DISPLAY=:0 /workspace/cliptwit/clip.py

A good cron reference is here, and most importantly, this link explains why you need DISPLAY=:0, and why cron won't work with X without it.