2004 April

“I am absolutely obsessed with the potential for XML news feeds causing an “informational awakening” on the Internet. However, unless we get our collective act together, I do not see a bright future for the budding technology ahead. In order to assuage the dilemma, I have developed a new XML document type that I hope can achieve a solution. It is called “Streaming Document Format (SDF)” and its name conveys exactly what it does to most any web surfer. Some will consider it an insult and an upset, but I see it as a gift. Please allow me to tell you why…”

NewsGator has finalized a major deal with Microsoft Outlook search tool X1 to complement its news aggregation capabilities with the phenomenal speed of X1 in searching through large amounts of email. The partnership leverages NewsGator’s Outlook-based RSS aggregation capabilities and provides users with a way to find any content in Outlook using X1’s cutting-edge search […]

From one of my discussion lists, Joel Schonbrunn (Programmer / Analyst IV from the Computing Technologies Research Lab (CTRL) at David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA) sends word that MSDN now has a feed for the latest subscriber downloads.

RSSQuotes:
"allows you to create and save a list of stocks, then delivers the quotes to your favorite RSS Reader during market hours. Most quotes are in REAL-TIME. Those not traded on the ECNs are 20 min. delayed."
I already do casual quote tracking with Trillian, and when it’s time to trade, many people use dedicated applications […]

Anyone that wants to syndicate RSS and Atom feeds on their web sites would be well-served to take a look at FeedSweep, a new free service provided by Howell Developments. The only JavaScript-based system I’m aware of that provides support for parsing Atom Feeds, and in addition, the only one I know of that will let you fully customize CSS style. Also comes with an easy configuration for novice web masters. Aggregates multiple feeds, actually caches (most of the JavaScript-based services don’t, to my knowledge) and comes with a bunch of pre-made styles! Oh, and I wrote it, but I don’t feel shameless for mentioning it because it is IN FACT, free.

RSSJobs is a new service that helps you keep track of new postings on Monster.com (kinda like the eBay RSS service a couple posts back). It is my understanding the Monster already provides a search agent that will e-mail you; but none of like giving out our e-mail addresses to big scary corporations any more, right? Post your resumé ahead of the crowd with little help from RSS. Yippie! (I love all these great new services.)

MailFeed is a PHP script that checks a POP3, IMAP, or NNTP mailbox on demand and returns an RSS feed containing the messages in the mailbox. This is great if you run a controversial web site that gets tons of hate mail, because now posting it to make fun of people is like, no hassle at all.

For all you security guys out there, it should come as good news that Microsoft is now publishing Security Bulletins in RSS. Now if they could just include server patches as enclosures… (hehehe, just kidding).

Now you can sign-up to get a dandy RSS feed for all your hot eBay searches. Run out, children, with vigor, and tell all your buddies that are huge eBay nuts that they need to get an RSS Reader! I think even my Dad would use this…

Yet another RSS primer, this time, ironically enough, released by Mark Nottingham–even though it is worthy to note the copyright on the document is circa 2002 (which means this just may be the first time LG has seen it). Some of you may recognize him as the author of the specification for the Atom Syndication Format. Therefore, it should come as a suprise to almost no one that comprehends the current state of politics in the “syndication world” that this primer focuses on the RDF side of RSS feeds (0.9x and 1.0). Fancy that?

Matt Mullenweg writes: “Watching my logs, I’ve been getting random requests from Googlebot for atom.xml and index.rdf files on this site and others. It’s always in the root or in relevant subdirectories (usually /blog or similar). All of these sites run WordPress, and I can promise there is no mention of or links to atom.xml or index.rdf anywhere. This means Googlebot is guessing that these files will be there. Now I’ve come to expect random flailing for syndication files from Feedster and Kinja, but Google? Et tu, Googlebot?”

RSSOwl (free Java-based RSS Reader): The owl is a traditional symbol of wisdom, and a quiet, efficient hunter. You’ll find RSSOwl’s “big eyes” a big help when scanning the Web’s vast array of RSS sources.

Howell Developments updated Syndication Studio 2004 to version 1.0.23 today. New features include OLE Drag & Drop opening from Windows Explorer and OPML Directory Alphabetizing, petitioned for by “Syndication Aficionado” Chris Pirillo. Syndication Studio is a Windows desktop application that allows web developers to generate, edit, validate and update RSS, Atom and OPML files on any web site.

Lockergnome now has a Hot Downloads RSS feed. Enjoy!

These are so much better than our Amazon ones…!

RSS Top 100 Products

RSS Top 50 Computers

RSS Top 50 Electronics

RSS Top 50 Video Games

RSS Top 50 Movies

RSS Top 50 Music

RSS Top 50 Software

RSS Top 50 Toys

RSS Top 50 Office

RSS Top 50 Photography

Fagan Finder provides us with a Great New RSS Primer: “Before you go any further, realize this: RSS is really simple. Just because it is an acronym doesn’t mean that it’s complicated. Don’t get scared away, there’s really nothing to it. I said it was an acronym, but depending on who you ask and what version of RSS you are speaking about, it may stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, or a variation on one of those. None of that matters to you anyhow…”

Lance Tracey writes: “Developer Brent Simmons has revealed that the next version, presumably version 1.1, will offer numerous new features, including: Browsing in place, an option that enables you to open links inside NetNewsWire instead of a Web browser; a tool for searching news items; Flagged items, which lets you flag items for later viewing; Per-feed refresh settings; and support for Atom feeds.”

On the RSS Winterfest Wiki, read contributions by attendees of the conference listing great quotes of the speakers.

[Show people how it’s done - when they see it, they want it too.] “and soon enough, you’ve got a furby on your hands” - Chris Pirillo
“E-mail is where knowledge goes to die.” - Bill French

John Crocker writes in an informative article on The Code Project: “After seeing numerous applications available on the Internet to download and view RSS Feeds off the Internet, I wondered what would be needed to develop a .NET component to Read, Parse and Display RSS Feeds in aspx Pages. The Component development is beyond the scope of this article, Which will cover the base class that is used by the component to render the detail…”

To debut sometime in mid-May, a new RSS Reader for Mac OS X called Pulp Fiction brings a simplified interface (similar to Mail, which ships with Mac OS X). It also brings support for RSS/Atom, interoperability with the Mac Desktop through AppleScript, and filters (I love those). For more info, check out Erik J. Barzeski’s Weblog.