Sometimes the API is as simple as “Alan Press It”

Sometimes (or more) I sure take the wrong way around things with tech.

It all started because I wanted my dog to have an Instagram account. Yeah, we are going into very important things. I’ve been posting pix of Felix since I got him to my own account:

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A post shared by Alan Levine (@cogdog)

A joke between us is that I keep saying he has to start earning money as a model. He does not listen to my ideas

I was at a local event a few months ago where a Phoenix newscaster was doing a video promoting business in Pine, Arizona (I was taking some photos too). I got a chance to talk with her and made a joke about my dog needing to earn his keep as a model, and she said twice that the way to get noticed was instagram; if I was serious my dog should have his own instagram.

Yeah, right. I know that people go to extraordinary hashtagging, mad following, and follower purchase frenzies to become noticed on Instagram. That’s not for me.

One not, idly, while Felix is laying on the couch not earning money, I thought about that I was able to set up an IFTTT apply that tweets to his twitter account every time I post photos to flickr and tag them felix:

Hey! That's me! I'm Like, So Bored https://t.co/jQ0XCNX1sS pic.twitter.com/5B9kmYhIpi

— Felix (@felixadog) February 9, 2018

So I went to another device and made Felix an instagram account. Or maybe he did it himself.

“Hey! I’m on Instagram!”

But while there are plenty of ways to post content from instagram elsewhere, there is nothing in IFTTT that let’s you post to instagram. After a bit of shrugging and digging it comes down to the fact that Instagram’s API is stingy, it can post out, but nothing can post in. No surprise considering its owner.

More time goes by.

I get another idea; in November, I picked up a cheap Android phone for testing. It has no sim card, but works through Wifi. So my idea was to say screw the API, I will do it manually. I setup flickr authenticated to my flickr account where I send all my photos and added Instagram app logged into Felix’s account.

On Felix’s Android phone he can post photos from my flickr account to his instagram.

That’s how I normally post to instagram– I first process my photos and upload to flickr; them use the flickr app to send to Instagram.

It works, I have to remember now and then to turn on the Android phone, and post some photos of Felix to his acco— no I mean Felix has to remember to post his own photos using the Android phone.

This all comes full circle on when I was looking over Mike Wesch’s beautiful Anthropology 101 site. I read Tom Woodward’s post on how they shifted the way student’s posted to being directly to instagram (not to the WordPress site directly). And then looking at the getting started info for students, under Getting Started With Instagram, I read:

If you would like more anonymity or if you would like to keep your main Instagram account separate, you can add a second Instagram account just for this class (a “Fake Insta” (“Finsta”) or as we like to call it, an “Anthsta”). Here are Instagram’s official instructions for adding a second account:

Go to your instagram profile on your phone and tap the menu button in the top right
Scroll to the bottom and tap Add Account
Enter the username and password of the account you’d like to add

To switch between accounts you’ve added:

Go to your profile
Tap your username at the top of the screen
Tap the account you’d like to switch to

Doh, I never heard of finstas, most of the things you read are all about teens and their secret [dark] worlds.

But woah, I don’t need an API or a second device, I can do it all from my main one. The easiest solution was right there all along (by the way fwitter does not seem to work) (nope, it’s been urban dictionaried).

And my finsta is a dog. Shrug.

Occam’s API sometimes does not involve anything technical.

Now that we have that out of the way, Felix can amp up his rinsta, get a modeling contract, and I can retire.

Featured Image: Pixabay image by skeeze shared into the public domain using Creative Commons CC0. It has no real bearing on this post, I was searching pixaby on “simple” and hopping from image to image. I like cacti.

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