Here is a simple method that will convert the Twitter time string to a unix timestamp:

 
  public long twitterStampToTimestamp(String twitterStamp){
    long timestamp = 0;
    try {
      DateFormat formatter ;
      Date date;
      formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE MMM d kk:mm:ss Z yyyy");
      date = (Date)formatter.parse(twitterStamp);
      java.sql.Timestamp timeStampDate = new Timestamp(date.getTime());
      timestamp = date.getTime() / 1000;
    } catch (Exception e){e.printStackTrace();}
    return timestamp;
  }
 

That should help anyone who needs to convert the twitter timestamp to a unix timestamp in Java.

Also, this can easily be adapted to other languages, as the main structure is found in the Date format: "EEE MMM d kk:mm:ss Z yyyy"

I did this using Regex.
To make use of the regex library, you will need to import:

 
import java.util.regex.*;
 

Here is the full code, pass in the tweet, and it will return the tweet with the proper linking.

 
  public String parseTweet(String inTweet){
    String patternStr = "(?:\\s|\\A)[##]+([A-Za-z0-9-_]+)";
    Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(patternStr);
    Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(inTweet);
    String foundValue = "";
    //hash tags
    while (matcher.find()){
      foundValue = matcher.group();
      foundValue = foundValue.replace(" ","");
      inTweet = inTweet.replace(foundValue, "<a href='http://search.twitter.com/search?q=" + foundValue + "'>" + foundValue + "</a>");
    }
 
    //Users
    patternStr = "(?:\\s|\\A)[@]+([A-Za-z0-9-_]+)";
    pattern = Pattern.compile(patternStr);
    matcher = pattern.matcher(inTweet);
    while (matcher.find()){
      foundValue = matcher.group();
      foundValue = foundValue.replace(" ","");
      String rawName = foundValue.replace("@","");
      inTweet = inTweet.replace(foundValue, "<a href='http://twitter.com/" + rawName + "'>" + foundValue + "</a>");
    }
 
    //links
    patternStr = "(^|[ \t\r\n])((ftp|http|https|mailto|aim|webcal|skype):(([A-Za-z0-9$_.+!*(),;/?:@&~=-])|%[A-Fa-f0-9]{2}){2,}(#([a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*(),;/?:@&~=%-]*))?([A-Za-z0-9$_+!*();/?:~-]))";
    pattern = Pattern.compile(patternStr);
    matcher = pattern.matcher(inTweet);
    while (matcher.find()){
      foundValue = matcher.group();
      foundValue = foundValue.replace(" ","");
      inTweet = inTweet.replace(foundValue, "<a href='" + foundValue + "' target='_blank'>" + foundValue + "</a>");
    }
    return inTweet;
  }
 

And thats it! One method to handle everything.

I use my function from this post: Verifying Twitter Credentials using fsock

See the full article for more!

 
<?php
$emailaddress = 'youremail@domain.com';
public function verifyCredentials($username, $password){
 
$out="GET http://twitter.com/account/verify_credentials.xml HTTP/1.1\r\n"
  ."Host: twitter.com\r\n"
  ."Authorization: Basic ".base64_encode ($username.":".$password)."\r\n"
  ."Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n"
  ."Connection: Close\r\n\r\n";
 
$fp = fsockopen ('twitter.com', 80);
fwrite ($fp, $out);
$buf = fread($fp, 1024);
fclose ($fp);
 $pos = strpos($buf,'Could not');
  if ($pos === false){
  return 1;
}else{
  return 0;
    }
}
 
$u[0] = 'Twitteruser1';
$p[0] = 'twitterpass1';
$u[1] = 'Twitteruser2';
$p[1] = 'twitterpass2'';
$errors = 0;
$total = count($u);
for ($i = 0; $i<$total; $i++){
$TwitterValid = new TwitterValid($u[$i],$p[$i]);
$validation = verifyCredentials($u[$i],$p[$i]);
if ($validation == 0){
$v[$i] = 'INVALID';
$errors = 1;
}else{
$v[$i] = 'VALID';
}
}
if ($errors == 1){
for ($i = 0; $i<$total; $i++){
	$summary = $summary. "$u[$i] - $v[$i]\n";
}
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n";
$headers = 'From: Validation@'.preg_replace('#^www\.#', '', strtolower($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']))  . "\n";
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/plain\n";
$mail_Subject = "Twitter Accounts - Invalid!";
$mail_Body = "At least one account showed up with an invalid password!
Summary:
$summary
";
mail($emailaddress, $mail_Subject, $mail_Body,$headers);
}
 

So basically, you would add an aditional
$u[0] = 'Twitteruser1';
$p[0] = 'twitterpass1';
For each account, obviously incrementing the array size.

I use cronjobs each hour to run this script and it emails me only if any of the accounts appear invalid.

It is called the Mass Tweet Lottery and it is basically a unique style of Twitter Lottery. Once you join, you have the random chance of being chosen daily. If you win, you gain a credit. Credits can be cashed in to Mass Tweet a message through all participants accounts. Account information must be stored for this to work, but it is stored securely and is not shared with anybody.

So if you want the chance to win the ability to mass message hundreds (soon to be thousands) of follwers at once, give it a try.

http://MassTweetLottery.com
Digg It