Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with feeds

Help us keep the baby safe from pulling the g button out at night

Snoogylips — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:53:45 -0800

Very active one year old with G button (MIC-key low profile) During night feeds and traveling in car how do I keep her Button from being pulled? It has come out once before in the crib by her moving so much the slack in the feeding tube got caught in crib and pulled out. It was painful for her since the balloon was fully inflated. I want to keep this from happening again. How do other parents keep thier kids g buttons and tube feeding cord protected at night. She is a wiggly thing and often turns in her sleep many times from belly to back and forth. The feeding is necessary and cannot be missed. Have a very active 16 month old LJ (adjusted age is 13 months for preemie birth) who has a MIC-key gastrostomy button used for feeding. She is dependent on the button during the day and night feeds. At night she gets a continuous feed that lasts 9 hours, the problem is she is so wiggly and toss and turns all night. I have tried many things to cover her button and feeding tube cord so it doesnt get caught or pulled by something. We have tried tapes, ace bandages, tucking the tube under a onesie and snapping it closed. None have been sucessful. She is allergic to adhesives, Ace bandages put too much pressure on the button and left marks and left her Grumpy and sore the next morning. She has had the g button since she was 5 months old. She sleeps in a playpen next to our bed and usually ends up co-sleeping with us by the end of the night. Just wondering what other parents do to keep the g button and extension of tubing from being pulled out at night? I have seen this product called a summers life guard. I have considered trying to re create something similar but have no idea where to start. the only difference is i would make it for her belly and not her chest. I have a sewing machine but not sure how to get started making a wrap for LJs belly. Any ideas to keep the button and tube protected during feedings at nite? any patterns or ideas how to make a wrap similar to summers life guard but for a belly? Any suggestions or expierences that you have had with any of this would be helpful.

Is there an Instapaper for feed aggregation?

Orchestra — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:26:14 -0800

I'm looking for a very simple rss updater to replace Rososo. Any suggestions? It looks like my rss updater of choice, Rososo, might be permanently out of order. This bums me out as it's just about the perfect fit for my needs and aesthetic preferences. Much like Instapaper, another can't-do-without favourite, it has a zen-like vibe of doing one thing really well and looking as simple as possible while doing it.

What I need is a robust (little downtime) and easy-to-use service for keeping an eye on my twenty or so favourite blogs and other sites. I like to read my articles on-site, not through a reader interface, so I'm therefore not looking for Google Reader, I think. Firefox extensions and the like are out as I often use different computers and browsers throughout the day.

Also, I want to be able to follow any feed and not just those that are already submitted to the service (like Bloglovin or Bloglines). Some of my feeds belong to sites written in languages other than English and others I'm just not comfortable adding to a public index (personal Livejournals and the like).

Is there anything out there for me?

Data feeds for cricket and other sports

raghuram — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:18:31 -0800

Where can I get sports feeds, especially cricket? I am looking to build a hobby cricket sports site. I want data, both current and historical, for records, one day matches, test matches etc. Where can I get such data, preferably free or very cheap?

Also, are there sites for other sports feeds?

Is there an RSS aggregator that (1) does not require an account and (2) provides a unique URL for the feed?

kingtaj — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:39:31 -0800

Is there an RSS aggregator that (1) does not require an account and (2) provides a unique URL for the feed? I would like to aggregate a group of RSS feeds and then share that aggregation with the public (so that no account is required). A similar example is a link aggregator called Krunchd.

GoogleReader sez that's last week's news. You cannot haz last week's news.

ahimsa — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:37:54 -0800

So frustrated... For the past two months my GoogleReader has been making my unread items expire (i.e., not show up in the "new items" feed view) in far less than the standard 30 days. Right now I've got things about 10 days old, at one point it was down to three or four days. Why? And how the heck can I fix this? Old news is still good news! Setup details -- I'm on Windows XP, Firefox 3.0.10, using Lifehacker's Better GReader usually in the minimalistic view. I have several other add-ons installed, like greasemonkey and noscript, but I don't think any of them should be affecting GoogleReader. I'll give a full listing if someone thinks it's important. [FWIW, the expired feed items don't magically reappear if I switch over to IE or my iPhone's mobile version.]

My understanding from the forum searching I've done is that GoogleReader doesn't allow users to specify when their feed items expire but sets everything to a standard 30-day newness. But I have far too many feeds for my own good, and frequently leave things unread to check back on for days or weeks at a time. (like... hey that's a cool askme question, I'll go back and see what other people said in a few days.) That's usually fine, as I mark the uninteresting items as read, keep the interesting ones unread, and then go back to them later.

But! A couple months ago my feed items started "expiring" far far sooner - as soon as three or four days in some cases. When I have my view set to "new items" they don't show up at all. If I put the view to "all items" and scroll down to force-load additional items, the older ones show up, still unread, just not considered "new" anymore. Frustrating as all hell, because I also have to scroll past all my read items to find them, and keep switching between "all" and "new" views. Ugh!

Does anyone know if there was a change in GoogleReader's settings on expiration of new items? Or is there something gone wonky in Firefox? Or are the RSS gods displeased with me? I know I have a ton of feeds but I don't think I'm anywhere near the upper limit of allowed subscriptions. I've been tearing my hair out looking at the settings and looking at forums but I'm only getting people bitching about the standard 30-day expiration.

Help!!

Policy monitoring for families with kids with special needs

greta simone — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:22:49 -0800

In search of website, blogs, etc that keep up with federal and state (specifically NC) policies that affect families with children with developmental and physical disabilities? I'm interning for an agency that provides support to families with children with special needs (developmental/intellectual/physical/behavioral/etc disabilities), and I am looking for a way to keep the staff up-to-date on current policies affecting the population we serve. I'm hoping to simply find a few comprehensive sites and blogs to whose RSS feeds we can subscribe and review when necessary. This agency serves all of North Carolina, so NC-specific sites would also be helpful. Thanks in advance!

How to edit feeds in Wordpress 2.7?

kmel — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:57:07 -0800

I use Wordpress 2.7. How do I edit the RSS feed(s)? Please help me troubleshoot my situation ... Please help a gal out! I want to insert ads into my feed -- direct ads, not Adsense ads -- ideally every nth post but I'm having trouble getting them to show up at all, so that's my question for now.

I'm using Wordpress 2.7, and OpenX to serve ads. I also use Feedburner Feedsmith to redirect my feeds to Feedburner.

I tried to insert an html ad invocation code (built using these instructions from OpenX) using the Better Feed plugin (which you can use to add various things to your post footer), but all that ended up showing up in the feed was the code. Better Feed does successfully display tags and categories for each post.

I tried to go into the feed template according to these instructions, but they all seem to be redirected elsewhere. But if Better Feeds is inserting tags and categories, doesn't the feed template live somewhere on my server? If so, where? Do I need to get rid of Feedburner to make this all work?

Please let me know what other info/code/etc I can provide.

(Yes, I tried the wordpress forums, but didn't have any luck getting a response.)

Is there an easy way to combine multiple blogs posts into a single, daily RSS item?

viewofdelft — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:45:52 -0800

Is there an easy way to combine multiple blogs posts into a single, daily RSS item? I wrestled in vain this morning with Yahoo Pipes—my arch-nemesis and occasional collaborator—and we've both given up. Is there an automated, dummy-proof method for bundling a set of posts from my blog into a single RSS item?

Ideally, that means I'd post three separate entries on Monday and they'd show up in my feedreader early the next morning.

Why are there no items in the category feeds of my self-hosted WordPress blog even though my overall feed is fine?

raddevon — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:01:10 -0800

Why are there no items in the category feeds of my self-hosted WordPress blog even though my overall feed is fine? I have a self-hosted blog at raddevon.com. My overall feed updates normally with all my posted items. I am using my categories in my posting, but all my feeds for the three overall categories on my site are empty.

The category feeds:
http://raddevon.com/category/gaming/feed/
http://raddevon.com/category/tech/feed/
http://raddevon.com/category/internet/feed/

I'm running WordPress 2.7. I would really appreciate any insight you might have. Other resources have failed miserably to answer this question. Thanks!

RSS Feeds -> OPML -> List of websites...how?

divabat — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:19:03 -0800

How do I get a list of all the blogs I'm subscribed to, plus their URLs? I use FeedDemon/Newsgator. I'd like to generate a list of all my feeds, plus the site URL, into one document. Categorisation doesn't really matter at this moment.

How do I accomplish this? I figure I'll need the OPML file, but how do I turn it into something readable?

If possible I'd like the URL of the SITE, not of the RSS feed. Aside from a bunch of searching feeds, this shouldn't be a problem. However, I do know that a bunch of the sites I subscribe to use something like Feedburner to manage their feeds. How do I get the source URL?

I tried searching Google but I must be missing a keyword because I can't get anything useful.

Pimp my feeds.

jpcody — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:46:57 -0800

How do you arrange your RSS feeds? This has been addressed various times across the Internet, but nowhere I value nearly as much as with the input on AskMeFi. Here are my questions:

1. How should I be reading feeds?
2. How should I be arranging feeds?

I currently use Google Reader, and am not open to a different web-based solution. I love Google Reader, but I worry its browser-ness is putting a cramp in my productivity. It's too easy to start typing "re" in Firefox's Awesome Bar and get to it.

Here's what I would like in a reader/reading system:

1. Keyboard-ninja friendliness
2. Savability for items I want to keep until I can act on them
3. Ability to email things to others quickly
4. (Forgive my shallowness) A beautiful interface

And I currently have my feeds arranged in a category style. (Apple, Politics, Faith, Tech, etc.)

As I fight for my attention and productivity, I'd like to keep it generic and ask the wonderful world of AskMeFi what system you've found most productive and effective. I don't want to check my feeds as often as I do, and I want to just sharpen my system altogether. I realize a good dose of discipline will be helpful, but can you help me help myself?

How can I set up my own 'lifestream' site that I control?

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:20:38 -0800

I'd like to set up a 'lifestream' on my website, logging all my online activities automatically and in real-time, similar to Friendfeed but that doesn't require me to be part of someone's idea of the perfect social network. Is this possible and if so, how? For example, every time I comment on someone's blog, upload to Flickr, favorite a MeFi post, etc., I'd like a post to be automatically generated on my site, with a time-stamp. Ideally, the content of the post would also be mirrored on my site, so at a glance a visitor could see everything I've done on the web recently.

I know Friendfeed and other 'life-streaming' sites have similar functionality, but they all seem to be locked-in walled-garden social networks, online communities I don't want to be a part of, run by people I don't know working at companies I frankly don't trust. I want my lifestream to be one-way and output-only, and while for simplicity's sake I want to continue to use other sites like Facebook, Flickr, Youtube for entering my content, I'd like to be able to mirror that content on my own site. Is there such a system out there, web-based or even a local application, that would fit my needs?

Anonymous only because I'm not sure if I'm being very naive!

Looking for good web- or desktop-based RSS reader that can handle older posts

fsmontenegro — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:26:50 -0800

What options do I have for a good web- (preferred) or desktop(Windows)-based RSS reader that has good options for managing older posts within feeds? I've been using Google Reader as my primary reader for as long as I can remember, but I'm getting fed up with its behaviour around auto-archiving posts after 1 month and not being able to mark older posts as unread.

I subscribe to approximately 100 feeds, some that are chatty (dozens of posts a day) and some that are pretty quiet (1 post every 1-2 weeks or less).

Every now and then I find a new blog to follow and when I subscribe to it I'd like to easily read previous posts as well. Google Reader retrieves older posts, but doesn't let me mark them as unread.

Also, it has the very annoying feature of marking as read anything older than 1 month. This is fine for a chatty feed, but I don't like this behaviour for quieter feeds.

I looked into FeedDemon/NewsGator but it seems to also be limited in handling older posts.

Are there any options for a decent solution that is more flexible for older posts?

Why does my new Google Reader account show me old (read) postings when my old one didn't?

alpha_betty — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:37:45 -0800

Why does my new Google Reader account show me old (read) postings when my old one didn't? I have had a Google Reader account with around 50 feeds for several months. I recently changed my email address, so exported those feeds from the old account and imported them into the new one. In my old account, I would scroll past an item, it would be marked as read, and it wouldn't show up in the feed again.

Now, in the new account, when I scroll past an item it is marked as read, but I still see it and many other previous posts below it. I have googled, looked inside Reader Help, searched MeFi, and gone to every menu I can find on Google Reader. What gives?

(Also, in case it's pertinent: the Show: menu is set to "Updated" and "In expanded view, mark items as read when you scroll past them." is checked.)

Fix my broken blog subscriptions!

softlord — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:00:33 -0800

One of the most obnoxious features of Thunderbird-as-RSS-reader is that when checking feeds it will display "http://feedurl.com/feed.xml is not a valid feed" in the status bar, but there doesn't seem to be any actual log of the broken ones anywhere, nor does there seem to be any way to view the errors as a list. I can export my list of feeds to an OPML file, but the only OPML validators i've been able to find online only tell me if the opml file itself is a valid format, not whether any of the linked-to xml files are either 404-ing or otherwise broken. This leads to me to my followup: 1) Is there any way for Thunderbird to give me a list of feeds it considers to be broken and unretrievable OR 2) is there an online service that can take an opml file and check the links for validity?

Where should I go for the daily news?

cadge — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:09:49 -0800

What is a good newsfeed for daily American news at a national level? I read the BBC's newsfeed for general current events and international news. I read the Boston Globe's newsfeed for New England regional and American national news, but I'm not satisfied with it - it's good for local news, but there isn't enough national-scale content for my taste.

What is a good, relatively balanced/objective daily American news source that can be followed in a feedreader?

I'm looking for an American-focused equivalent of the BBC news site and its newsfeed- the day's headlines, some analysis, the source you'd check to quickly find out what was happening on a given day, but preferably leaning more towards serious issues and not so heavy on the wacky/offbeat/sensational (like whenever I visit cnn.com, it feels like no matter what huge crisis is going on, half of their Latest News headlines are things like "Chicago granny kickboxes mugger!").

Video podcasts are supposed to be easy for everyone

bryanjbusch — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:35:41 -0800

I'd like a Flash video player of my video podcast on the web site, and a high-quality (960x540 should work) video file in the podcast feed. I'm currently using WordPress and PodPress to manage the feed and video. But I can see why some people who don't want to install QuickTime might not be able to see the show. PodPress currently makes me very happy with its stats reporting, but if I have to dump it in favor of something else, I will.

I have tried placing the video in the Revver (site currently down) Flash player and including the video file as a "feed only" option with PodPress, but for reasons I can't diagnose, that doesn't work in iTunes.

Ideas?

My best idea so far is just to include an obvious link in each post that redirects the user to a different site (YouTube or Revver or something) to watch the video, but that's not exactly user-friendly. What would be easiest for both me and the viewer?

Streamlining RSS/Web Browsing?

WCityMike — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:47:38 -0800

I'm looking to streamline my process of browsing RSS feeds and websites. The way I do it now ...

I am subscribed to feeds via Google Reader. I browse through them using the keyboard: 'k' for the next item if I'm uninterested and 'v' to open the item in a new tab if I'm interested. Then I go through the opened tabs. If I'm too backlogged to pay attention to them, I bookmark all open tabs via Firefox's "Bookmark All Tabs".

When I do go through the tabs, if it's a lengthy read I nonetheless want to pay attention to, I may file longer reads into a folder marked, appropriately enough, "Longer Reads"; otherwise, I take action on them if appropriate. If they represent something I need to do, I use a bookmarklet to shunt the URL into Remember the Milk as a task.

If it's something I want to blog, I usually post it to my del.icio.us account using the del.icio.us complete firefox extension. (del.icio.us then sends a daily post of what I've put in that day to my blog.) If something really cheeses me off or is something I think is really great, I open MarsEdit (a Mac OS X blogging application) and climb onto my soapbox.

Obviously, this is recreational and not obligatory, so it's not something I'm feeling under the gun about. I'm nonetheless wondering if it can be done more efficiently; if there are Firefox extensions, Greasemonkey scripts, cross-platform apps, or features I've not noticed or am ignoring that could be used to make the process described above even more streamlined and quick.

The one caveat is that I'm looking for a more universal accessibility. A Mac OS X application might be great, but wouldn't work on my Windows thumb drive. That's why above I suggested extensions, Greasemonkey userscripts, or features of these webapps I may have missed: they can be accessed using any OS.

Also, I do definitely understand that one way of streamlining would be to cut down the number of feeds I browse. Still, I'm at a number I like right now. I do periodically weed through and prune, though.

Also, how do you browse-and-blog?

Portal Systems

juiceCake — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:57:23 -0800

Got a request from a client. They want to create a portal that gets information from various news organizations on a specific subject. I'm looking for information on portal software that is compatible with news feeds and news feed information in general. They will want to pull full articles and perhaps other content from organizations (having obviously made arrangements) and categorize the information appropriately. Is it just a CMS with XML feeds basically? I've worked with CMSs before and understand many of the fundamentals of site development but have no experience pulling data in a portal fashion from other organizations.

Show me the Links!

bleucube — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:14:57 -0800

Looking to parse an RSS feed and pull all the links out, and then turn links into a new feed. I've search around stumbled across magpie, simplepie and carp but not sure if those solutions will perform the actions I'm looking for. Does this seem like a custom script or has anyone heard of any parsers out there that will perform this action?

Thanks!!

Nintendo DS news into my Bloglines, please.

Ufez Jones — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 17:25:53 -0800

Searching through the tags, I don't think this has been asked before. I'm looking for feeds that I can slap into my Bloglines that will keep me updated on Nintendo DS releases and reviews. I don't have the time or commitment to go all around the various gaming sites on a week-by-week basis to keep abreast of all the new releases and/or new games that the DS'ers at large deem worthy of checking out. However, I'm interested in keeping an eye out for titles that I may (eventually) want to pick up.

Feeds need not be DS-exclusive (I can ignore other platform releases and reviews), but I'd like to be able to keep up on what's what regarding DS titles and the simplest way for me to do this is with my feedreader. Anyone have any suggestions?

Feedo is a No-Go.

beaucoupkevin — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:18:20 -0800

Are there any worthwhile competitors to Feedo? I'm in the process of building A Thing and one of the features I'd like is a rolling series of headlines from a variety of RSS feeds related to a particular topic, formatted nicely. Feedo seems like it'd be perfect (small, fast, easy to configure with a nice selection of skins, and cheap) except for a simple problem: they can't straighten out their login system long enough for me to start an account, give them my money, and start using it. This, of course, fails to fill me with any sort of confidence.

So: spending up to $20 a month or so, what services out there offer something similar? (And don't say "Build it yourself." I'm aware of my technical shortcomings, thankyouverymuch.)

Google Reader Why Doest Thou Hate Me?

DJWeezy — Tue, 15 May 2007 08:28:50 -0800

I use google reader as a feed reader. Recently some of my feeds seem to be getting doubled up. I don't really know what happening but when i read I will see and article and then a day later the same story will show up as unread again. It is really starting to bug me. Any ideas?

Help Feed my Photo habit.

Good Brain — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:07:06 -0800

I'm looking for blogs that are focused on linking to good, interesting photos. The type of photo doesn't really matter. Photojournalism and fine art, landscapes, nature, street, wildlife, etc are all great (oversaturated stock photos that look like they belong on inspirational posters are not great). I'm not looking for blogs that feature the work of a single photographer. I am looking for blogs that express the POV of one person or a small group of people about what they find interesting. I know about Flickr's interestingness section and I like it. I'm looking for something different. I'd like 1) to be exposed to photos beyond the world of Flickr 2)for the choices to express individual preferences, rather than "the wisdom of the crowd."

How do I make Google Reader and Del.icio.us work together?

zooropa — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 07:41:37 -0800

Can I "post" to Del.icio.us from Google Reader? Here is what I would like to do:

Each morning, I go through my feeds on Google Reader. I click "share" for items that I feel are important for others in my office to know about and then send an email with commentary about each story. I'd really like to actually leave commentary on the page itself with the links. I've noticed that you can do this in Del.icio.us (they call them "descriptions" I believe), so here's what I'm asking:

1> Can I add my own text/commentary to shared items on Google Reader? I didn't think so, but maybe I'm missing something.

2> Can I easily "export" any Google Reader shared items to Del.icio.us?

And no, I'm not looking to start a blog. I know a blog solves this problem, but for other reasons, it's a non-starter right now.

Can any of this be done?