This week was mostly devoted to bug fixing, UI prototyping and improving the workflow management system.

Here’s a list of activities:

• The new workflow management system was launched, having numerous improvements over the previous version, including parallel execution;
• The TinyURL connector was launched.

Regarding the possibility of opening the connector development, we’ve listened to your suggestions and have decided on a model to follow, inspired by github’s services integration.

To avoid facing potential security issues, third-party connectors will only be able to communicate with OAuth capable services. More on this subject next week.

We’ve also been testing on variations of the workflow editing interface. With the growing number of connectors, the interface needs to be simplified.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Hello again. This week we finally deployed our OAuth library, making possible the development of OAuth based connectors.

Here’s the activity list:

• Ruben Fonseca and Tiago Pinto joined forces and launched the TarPipe API for Ruby;
• Alcides Fonseca launched Dropipe, the first tarpipe desktop application;
• The Jaiku connector was launched;
• The Pownce connector was launched, being our first OAuth based connector.

We’ve been getting a lot of requests to let outside developers implement and deploy their own connectors. We’re currently studying a possible solution and will come back with news about this next week.

Thanks for all your suggestions and bug hunting.

Dropipe is the first desktop application that uses tarpipe’s API to upload pictures to the Web. It was written by Alcides Fonseca using the TarPipe Python API and is being shared with the AWL license.

It’s very easy to use:

1. Install it by dragging it into the Applications folder;
2. Optionally drag it to your dock;
3. Drag and drop any picture into it;
4. The first time it will ask you to enter your API key;
5. Just copy the API key from one of your workflows and you’re done.

For more information, and download instructions, please visit the Dropipe project page.

Do you have ideas for more applications or ways of using tarpipe on the desktop?

Hello everybody, it’s time for a wrap-up of what we’ve been doing lately. Besides small bug fixes and interface tweaks we used your suggestions about new services when choosing which connectors to launch.

So, here’s a list of activities for the passing week:

• The flickr connector was launched;
• The del.icio.us connector was launched;
• José Silva launched the Tarpipe.com PHP API, adding it to the previously launched Perl and Python implementations;
• We’ve created the tarpipe workflows flickr pool dedicated to workflow screenshots;
• We’ve created the tarpipe Google Group, a place to discuss and share thoughts about tarpipe.

Next week we’re moving into OAuth based services and adding more improvements to the user interface.

As before, if you have any suggestions, please let us know. Thanks!

We just released the flickr connector. From now on you can use it inside your workflows.

I’m sure you have plenty of workflow ideas, but here are two suggestions:

1. Send a picture from mail to flickr and announce it on twitter;
2. Send a picture to flickr and photobucket in one step.

To start using it, you need to give tarpipe permissions to upload pictures to your flickr account. As before, you can do that on the accounts tab.

tarpipe is co-sponsoring the First International Erlang eXchange 2008, which will be held on June 26th-27th. This conference is aimed at anyone interested in Erlang, concurrent and sequential programming.

Here’s a partial speaker list:

• Joe Armstrong — Erlang creator;
• Jan Lehnardt — CouchDB;
• Matthias Radestock — LShift;
• Simon Thompson — Wrangler.

Tickets go at GBP 300/delegate for 2 days, packed with workshops and sessions. Please use the promo code ERLA-TAR3130 when you register to get a Go! Gameboard with your Erlang eXchange ticket.

Only two days have gone by since the developer preview was launched and there’s already so much to tell. We’ve been receiving lots of invitation requests and we’re trying our best to answer to everybody on time.

While we were fixing bugs and writing code, you were busy creating workflows and using the API with your favorite programming language. Here’s what happened on these two days:

• Andy Armstrong launched the WWW::TarPipe Perl module, available through CPAN;
• Alcides Fonseca launched the TarPipe Python API, available at Google Code;
• Alexandre Loureiro Solleiro wrote a very comprehensive quick how-to, to help first time users start their own workflows;
• Lots of bugs were fixed thanks to numerous reports sent by you.

You guys rock! Thank you for all the support and involvement.

One last thing: we’re almost finishing the flickr connector and will be adding others right after that. Which new services would you like to see featured inside tarpipe?

Do you like to try things before other people? Do you feel happy when you find a bug? Do you code until you fall asleep on your keyboard? Do you know that 1337 is not really a number? Then you’re the one.

We’re still developing tarpipe but we’d like to share with you everything that’s going on behind the scenes. That’s why we decided to invite a number of developers (like you, right?) to start experimenting early on, when there’s still room for lots of changes.

So, if you’re a developer, introduce yourself and we’ll get back to you with an invite code so that you can try tarpipe from the beginning. Remember that this is an alpha version, which means that everything can stop working or behave unexpectedly. Just don’t use our API inside any production code. Yet.

Oh, by the way, the screenshot is from our workflow editor. In case you were curious.