APIs Tutorials
Retrieve Google Analytics Visits and PageViews with PHP
Google Analytics is an outstanding website analytics tool that gives you way more information about your website than you probably need. Better to get more than you want than not enough, right? Anyways I check my website statistics more often than I should and it ends up taking a few minutes to get logged in, select the right site, select the current day, etc. I found a great Google Analytics PHP API that allows me to get just the statistics I'm looking for.
Create an “Add to TextMate” Widget Using MooTools
If a sword is a soldier's best friend, the best friend of a programmer is a his text editor. TextMate has been my text editor of choice and a big reason for that is the ability to add snippets for quick use later. Since I provide a lot of snippets on my blog and many of my readers use TextMate, I've created an "Add To TextMate" widget using a mixture of MooTools, AJAX, CSS, and PHP.
Test Twitter Friendships with PHP
Another awesome functionality provided by Twitter is the ability to test friendships between two people. I mean testing if two people follow each other, not if one spams the world with crap tweets. Just as with every other Twitter API call, executing this test is easy with PHP.
Retrieve Your Gmail Emails Using PHP and IMAP
Grabbing emails from your Gmail account using PHP is probably easier than you think. Armed with PHP and its IMAP extension, you can retrieve emails from your Gmail account in no time! Just for fun, I'll be using the MooTools Fx.Accordion plugin to display each email.
Twitter Direct Messaging Remotely Using cURL
Twitter's direct messaging functionality is great. While simple tweeting communicates "just a clever quip," direct messaging communicates "listen here b*tch, this is important enough that you need to get this message NOW via text message." Twitter's API allows you direct message remotely so now you can let your website DM you (and call you a b*tch) any time you want!
Create a Basic Web Service Using PHP, MySQL, XML, and JSON
Web services are taking over the world. I credit Twitter's epic rise to the availability of a simple but rich API. Why not use the same model for your own sites? Here's how to create a basic web service that provides an XML or JSON response using some PHP and MySQL.
Represent Your Repositories Using the GitHub Badge!
Update: The badge includes jQuery which breaks any MooTools on your page. Be aware before including...as I wasn't.
Create Short URLs Using U.Nu
I was recently referred to another URL shortening website called u.nu. As far as shortening services go, u.nu seems to have the field beat as far as the shortest base URL. If you're really intent on creating the shortest possible URLs, look no further than u.nu's API.
Create Bit.ly Short URLs Using PHP
One of the more popular URL shortening services is Bit.ly. I've showed you how to create short URLs with TinyURL and Is.Gd, so why not show you how to create Bit.ly URLs remotely?
Update Your Twitter Status Remotely Using PHP
The reason Twitter is so hugely popular is because their API allows for you to do almost anything. Here's how you can tweet remotely using PHP.