Tag Archive for 'mynetflix'

26
Nov

MyNetflix20 (beta) how-to

A few days ago my family signed up for Netflix. I had some spare time to play over the Thanksgiving weekend, so I installed and set up MyNetflix2 on my blog. Here’s how I did it. These instructions cover installation of MyNetflix2.0 beta on my web server (running FreeBSD 4.8). YMMV

  1. Download and uncompress the plug-in: cd my_wordpress_dir/wp-content/plugins fetch http://amphichon.com/wp-content/media/mynetflix20b.tar.gz tar -xzf mynetflix20b.tar.gz
  2. The source file needs to be customized before it can be used. (I guess this isn’t technically a “plug-in” because of this.) First change needed is adding your personal Netflix RSS feed URL’s. To find these, login to your Netflix account and follow the link labeld “RSS” at the bottom of the Netflix page. Below the “Personalized Feeds” heading, you’ll find the RSS URL’s. Copy and paste them into MyNetflix source code.
  3. You may also need to modify other settings, particularly if you don’t have the “3-at-a-time” plan.
  4. Activate the plugin from the admin / Plugins page.
  5. Add some code to your WordPress theme (typically on a sidebar) to display however much of your queue, current DVD’s, and/or recent rentals that your wish. I’m using the code below to display the DVD’s we’re currently watching:
        <?php if (function_exists('mynetflix')) { ?>
            <h4><?php _e('Recent NetFlix Activity'); ?></h4>
            <?php mynetflix('out'); ?>
        <?php } ?>
    
  6. I’ll probably add some code to display recently returned DVD’s in the future. (We haven’t returned any discs yet, so this breaks the MyNetflix code right now.)

That’s all there is to it. I’m going to see if I can hack up an Options page for this code to make it a true plugin. This would handle the RSS ID string(s) and the $plan settings, and possibly the image layout options. If/when I finish that, I’ll send the changes to herichon for inclusion in the next release.

18
Nov

Who needs Blockbuster when Netflix is available?

Well, we finally got around to joining Netflix yesterday, and we’ve already got 60 movies in our queue! Initially we signed up for the 3-at-a-time plan, but we’ll probably change to the cheapest plan once the novelty wears off.

Several of our friends already use Netflix, and they all had good things to say about the service. The only words of caution I received had to do with “throttling” of the movie pipe. This is spelled out in the terms of service, and basically says that if you burn through your queue they reserve the right to take their time sending your next movie. Fair enough, I guess.

Of course, this gives me another feature to hack/play with here on the blog: displaying our Netflix queue and/or recent activity. I was initially thinking of using Jimbo’s mynetflix 1.5 plugin, but he’s been pretty busy lately. It looks like development work has been taken over by Herichon, who recently released mynetflix2. I’ll be fiddling with this plugin and squeezing it into my page somewhere. Of course, this is going to be another customization that needs to be maintained for each theme, sigh.

If you’re a Netflix user reading this blog, feel free to add us (my wife and I) to your friends list. Our Netflix address is netflix@thisblogsname.net (In case that’s not clear enough, you’ll need to replace thisblogsname with SonicChicken.) My wife and I also have personal profiles to cover movies that we disagree about, for example I like Dr. Strangelove and she doesn’t. If you want to add us individually use our name instead of “netflix” in the account, e.g. jim@thisblogsname.net.




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