Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with rss

need a library for text classification

chexov — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:17:29 -0800

I need to be able to automatically identify language (English, Japaneese, Russian, etc ... ) in which a particular blog-post has been written. (lang attribute might or might not be available). Few years ago I came across a library for RSS feeds that was doing roughly what I need - can not find it anymore though.

Crafting RSS for Google Reader

thebreaks — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:36:58 -0800

How can I make aesthetically pleasing RSS feeds for the readers of my Web site, specifically so that my feed will keep the formatting like a lot of sites do in Google Reader? I use Mambo 4.6.2 as my CMS and I've edited the Syndicate component to keep the HTML code in the RSS. When the RSS 2.0 link is clicked, the resulting feed shows the perfectly formatted RSS. Yet when I import it into Google Reader, all the text returns to its run-together state that made me edit the Syndicate component in the first place.

What I would like would be to have rich RSS displays for my reader similar to what I see in my Google Reader feeds from sites like Wired and Io9. I've looked into other modules for Mambo, but most RSS modules are for readers while my focus is on RSS feed creation.

Thanks in advance.

Negative Filter RSS feeds??

ewiley28 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:14:05 -0800

How can I filter a feed based on the absence of terms rather than the presence? I've used feed sifter before, but this won't handle terms you want excluded? Specifically, I'd like to set up an rss to Amazon's Gold Box that excludes the terms jewelry, necklace and watch as that would massively cut down the clutter from this feed.

free/inexpensive community data

fx3000 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:10:36 -0800

Tips on free/inexpensive RSS community data I'm looking for free or inexpensive sources of data (like RSS feeds, APIs) that I can grab and place on a website, formatted as I wish. Some examples would be city/town info, school info, real estate, business addresses, news, sports, utility, population and other information. I also need weather but I already know several RSS feeds for this. They don't all have to be from one source and I don't expect to find everything. I have heard of Onboard, but it's outside of my budget. A lot of what is on city-data.com is great, but that comes from Onboard. I'm interested in U.S. and international data, but the U.S. data is much more important.

Bluetooth Automatic Syncing Between Laptops

0bvious — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:35:59 -0800

Syncing between laptops: How can I easily and automatically sync files and documents between two laptops using Bluetooth? Ideally I want to load up one machine in the vicinity of the other and have all my recent data (documents/data/RSS feeds etc.) syncronised with NO hassle. Any good apps out there? I already have a not-very-portable WinXP laptop, with bluetooth. I am also awaiting arrival of a new ASUS EEE PC. I will probably end up installing Windows XP on it, but might opt to stick with Linux.

The internal Bluetooth was a key component of my purchase.

I am interested in using the Asus as a portable addition to my writing and reading routines. I'd love to load it up and have all my recent file changes synced on both machines without me doing anything. Just like the way iTunes syncs my iPod, but with Bluetooth as a sweet bonus.

I would also LOVE for all recent RSS feeds to be downloaded in FULL and sent to the Asus, ready for me to read on the train.

Any hints would sure be grand

RSS to Audio in Automator

jasmarc — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:49:55 -0800

How can I operate on individual articles from an RSS feed in Automator? Ultimately I am trying to create audio tracks of my feeds - one track per articles. I know that you could do "Get Specified URL" then "Get Text From Articles" and then "Text To Audio File" however this will create a single audio track of all the articles. I want to bust the articles out as individual tracks.

Automatically creating a long list of Google Reader searches?

jbickers — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:41:10 -0800

Is there a way to automatically create Google Reader news searches from a long list of topics? I've got a text file that contains the names of about 50-100 companies. I want to monitor Google News for each of these companies - that is, I want one search per company in Google Reader.

The way I've done this in the past is (1) Search Google News for the company, (2) click "RSS" on the left hand side of the results page to add to Google Reader.

But there must be some way to automatically pull RSS news searches for each one ... isn't there? Others within the company need to do the same thing, and their lists are even longer than mine.

Hey, someone visited my silly page, why don't you visit my silly page too? Hey, someone visi...

krisjohn — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:40:05 -0800

What cute/pointless web things are out there where visitors to your page/site generate RSS feed entries simply by visiting? Example inside. I'm having a bit of fun with "My Mini City". If you visit that link, it will generate a timestamped event with the description of "A new inhabitant has come to Kris' Haven.", which it will also add to an RSS feed, which in turn has a link back to the page. Currently I'm using TwitterFeed to forward the event through to Twitter (max 1 per day), which I'm hoping in turn will encourage people to visit the page. And then a daily digest over my Twitter posts gets pushed through Livejournal using LoudTwitter.

It's all thoroughly pointless, but for whatever reason I'm enjoying it. Does anyone know of any other similar sites where mere visits result in (controlled - no free text entry) items being added to RSS feeds?

Help me fill my RSS reader

charmston — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:41:38 -0800

I've found myself with a little more time on my hands. I'd like to add a few useful, relevant blogs and podcasts to the ranks of my RSS reader. Any suggestions for me? I very much prefer quality to quantity. I'd much rather read 5 low-volume, high-quality blogs than sift through a single feed with 50 posts/day to find the ones of interest.
Interests include:

Some of my favorites are intelligent blogs without a true theme. Jason Kottke, I'm looking at you.
I'll be going into the Peace Corps in the next year. There are over 4000 blogs about it. Do you have any favorites?
I dig web design stuff, especially in the standards arena. Favorites: A List Apart, Freelance Switch, and Vitamin.
I also love product and packaging design blogs. Favorites: Yanko Design, The Dieline.
After the Peace Corps, I'll be going into graduate school in either justice and peace studies or some derivative of it (international development, conflict resolution, etc.) I read no related blogs. Suggestions?
Personal development blogs are among my favorites, especially Zen Habits, Urban Monk, and Lifehacker.
I love baseball and tend to be the sabermetric type. Baseball Prospectus, Roto Authority...?
Green Daily is the only environmental blog that I read. I'd like a few more.
I recently became a vegetarian. Any favorite veggie blogs?
I love politics but have trouble keeping up with Talking Points Memo and The Huffington Post.

I also welcome podcast recommendations. I currently listen to Boagworld, The Rissington Podcast, and a handful of ESPN podcasts. Any others that you think that I may like?
Thanks in advance everyone!

Alternatives to Yahoo Pipes, please.

feelinglistless — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:28:32 -0800

I'd like set up an RSS feed which offers results of a search from news feeds I've selected. Alternatives to Yahoo Pipes, please. I've tried Yahoo Pipes, but I've found it a bit inflexible, and keeps timing out especially when there's a certain amount of feeds to combine and filter at the same time. Trying to cut it down using RSS Mix confuses it even more.

I've tried doing searches on the feeds by adding them to Bloglines, but the search only on own feeds service seems to be broken.

Basically, I'd like something as flexible as Google News or Blog searches (and which can create the resulting RSS feed) but which only looks at the hundred or so RSS feeds I'm choosing rather than everything.

Does this make sense?

How do I import 150 unknown RSS feeds?

o2b — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:45:51 -0800

I have a list of a few hundred sites that I need to subscribe to via RSS. I have the URLs, but not the feed URLs. Is there a way to subscribe en masse without knowing the feed URLs? I need a way to automate this as it's something I'll need to do again in the future. Essentially, I'm looking for a way to take my list of URLs and auto-magically turn it into an OPML file with the correct feed addresses inserted. If I can find just one site or service that will sniff out the feed URLs for me, surely it will export them again for me in the appropriate format.

I've gone as far as creating an OPML file with a line for each site, leaving the xmlUrl attribute empty (I also tried putting the main URL in there).

Things I've tried:

-- NetNewsWire (and others) will automatically sniff out the feed URLs when you enter the main URL of a site, but only when you do it one at a time. Importing my OPML file worked, but only insofar as it added all the sites to my list of subscriptions. It did not reach out and sniff out the feed URLs.

-- Google Reader does the same thing. Adds the sites to my list, but does not reach out for the feed addresses.

-- Theoretically, I could open all the sites as tabs in Safari or Firefox, and manually click the RSS fairly quickly, but the browser chokes on the large number of tabs.

Things I may resort to:

-- Paying someone $50 to do it for me manually.

How can I get automate my daily news searches?

abkadefgee — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:28:39 -0800

How can I automate the news searches that I'm performing on the same subjects day after day after day? I'm working for an employer who needs current information on what the press is saying each day. It would be great if it were an issue of what the big national papers were saying and I could simply use Google News, but I need information from our state and local papers, including those that have only a weekly distribution cycle.

Right now, I'm forced to spend time searching through ten websites a day, often to find no new information. It seems like there should be a way to automate this process so that new information pops up in my email box or RSS reader and I can see what's new right away.

So far, I've been considering applications like Dapper, Yahoo Pipes, Google Alerts, or Feed43. I can't simply subscribe to RSS feeds from the sites directly, since most of them are written in 1998-style code and don't have RSS feeds or tagging of articles.

Google Alerts seems to be out of the running since it often pops up with articles that are months old and misses the local papers.

Dapper seems like it could be great, except that I'm having some trouble tweaking it so that it doesn't send me an update just because a banner ad changes. I think I could get it to work, but I could use a tutorial.

Yahoo Pipes seems like it could be very powerful, but it's a bit intimidating.

Feed43 I've heard good things about, but it doesn't seem to do much more than turn pages into RSS feeds and this doesn't help me with the search.

If you have any tips for using the above services or could point me in the direction of a better solution, I'd really appreciate it. I'd bet someone else out there has had to work through a similar situation at some point. Thanks in advance!

Tick, Tally, and Cull in Bloglines

chase — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:46:30 -0800

Within the RSS feedreader Bloglines, is there a simple method to keep track of which feeds have been most valuable? I am wanting a way to flag or tally which feeds have been most useful to me over time. How can I rate my feed subscriptions? I want to be able to cull unproductive feeds. Marking posts as "keep new" sorta works. However, then glancing through the truly unread posts per feed becomes cluttered with all the saved posts. I've tried moving feeds into different folders based on usefulness, but that is just way too labor intensive. Adding notes inside the "edit subscription" has also been experimented with: again too labor intensive and I can not see any overall comparison. Any third party apps or undiscovered Bloglines feature that would make this task simple?

Oops I slashdotted again

Leon-arto — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:40:17 -0800

Can I make an RSS feed of one person's Slashdot comments? It's possible to make an RSS feed out of a Slashdot journal. Is it possible to do the same for that user's slashdot comment stream?

Create my own RSS feed?

I_Love_Bananas — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:30:18 -0800

Customizable newswire-type site with RSS feeds? I like the Open Press site but need to get RSS feeds targeted to more specific keywords. Does such a thing exist?

For example, if I want to be able to get a feed that sends me every available story about, say, the Boston Marathon, or the Muppes, or whatever- there should be a site that lets me first configure the search to pull in the right content, then an RSS link that will allow only that content to show up where I need it.

I've searched but can't find anything. If it's right in front of me, I apologize. Thanks!

How to make RSS feeds for new posts by a specific user on a vBulletin forum?

bdk3clash — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:49:15 -0800

How do I set up an RSS feed for a vBulletin forum? I frequent a discussion board that recently upgraded its software. I had set up RSS feeds for new posts by specific users with Feedity that no longer work, and hours of fiddling around with Feedity, Yahoo Pipes, and other RSS tools have proven that I kind of don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Here's a link to a user profile (mine).

Here's a link to my posts.

Anyway, can anyone figure out how to do this?

RSS: Peggy Noonan

rush — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:00:41 -0800

How do I get an RSS feed for Peggy Noonan in the WSJ? I really enjoy Peggy Noonan's opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal, and I'd like to add an RSS feed to my reader that contains just her opinion pieces. However, the RSS feed that the WSJ provides is for all opinion pieces.

Any ideas?

My website's scripts eat up too much bandwidth. How do I resolve this?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:21:43 -0800

My site's cron tasks eat up a lot of bandwidth. Can I change the paths from http to local? Or can I move the tasks to my home server? One of my websites (the election one) runs a truckload of PHP to parse, mesh, filter, and cache an equally large number of external RSS feeds which are then stored and included in a reasonably lean (~10k) index.html. This creates a strange situation where the bandwidth consumed by the PHP (locally, but via http) far exceeds the actual bandwidth consumed by visitors. My web hosting provider has warned me about the excessive activity, but given the limited number of visitors, upgrading to a hosting deal with a higher bandwidth limit isn't really worthwhile for me.

How do I resolve this?

Current situation: a bunch of FeedForAll PHP scripts are executed using a Ruby-as-CGI script (which wackybrit kindly helped me with) called via cron at regular intervals, varying by nature of content: none-time critical content would be updated hourly, whereas latest news etc. is updated every 10 minutes (was 2 minutes, but I took it down a notch for now to avoid further problems with my host). My monthly bandwidth limit is 8 GB; actual visitor usage is a modest fraction of that, but the scripting alone was responsible for 37 GB (!) in March.

Several options:

1) The bandwidth is measured by the host using HTTP responses. If I run the scripts using local UNIX paths, e.g. /usr/gnfti/www/ etc., the scripts generate no HTTP headers and thus don't count towards the quota. Of course they will still incur server load, but I have discussed this with the hosting company and it seems they're okay with it if I limit the use somewhat as a compromise. But then, not all of these scripts seem to be okay with local paths, most notably the keyword filter (rssFilter.php), which is responsible for 25% of the bandwidth on its own.

Any ideas how to make it work this way anyway?

2) I have a home server running WAMP on XP. Could I run the PHP on this box instead and have the output automatically upload to the remote server via FTP? Most of the bandwidth is to do with moving stuff around locally anyway; the actual output is in the order of kilobytes. I imagine this would involve running some sort of cron + FTP client/scheduler on the home box, but my knowledge in this area is limited.

Could this be done, and if so, how?

3) Lastly, if you have any suggestions on how to pull this off aside from the examples above, that too would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or insight you might have to offer, guys.

Problems With NPR Podcasts

Alvy Ampersand — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:11:55 -0800

Lately NPR podcasts such as Fresh Air, Wait, Wait..., and All Songs Considered have been acting wonky with multiple files of the same podcast, often incomplete, showing up in my podcatcher. I subscribe via Google Reader and dL files manually to my player, and have tried un- and then resubscribing to the feeds, but to no avail. Is it NPR's problem or an RSS issue on my end? I haven't been able to find any notices regarding service issues on the NPR sites.

Voicemail to RSS Embed - What are my options?

stuboo — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:15:29 -0800

Is there a service that will allow me to seamlessly embed a recorded voicemail into an RSS feed? I was hoping http://drop.io would do the trick, but it doesn't embed the audio file into the RSS feed. It comes out as an attachment.

Following artists, sans spam.

dmd — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:46:47 -0800

Is there a service that will let you to subscribe to notifications of new artist (music) and/or author (books) releases, but is not spammy?

Best rss reader for flickr feeds?

metacort — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:27:44 -0800

What is the best rss reader for subscribing to flickr tags on a mac? Basically, I'm looking for an rss reader that will download all pictures from an rss flickr feed automatically, not just the picture title. I currently use NetNewsWire, a perfectly great rss reader otherwise.

podcast links without iTunes?

flameproof — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:56:15 -0800

I don't use iTunes, but many podcast links assume you do. Is there any way to 'decode' the podcast feed from the iTunes link? I can't install iTunes at work, but I can run mypodder, and I'm quite happy with this. However, many podcast pages assume you're using iTunes and provide a link through to their page in the iTunes shop.

As an example, I'd like to subscribe to the Amazing Randi podcast, but the only links on his site are to iTunes:

http://itricks.com/randishow/
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=265623794

Frequently there is a link to the RSS somewhere on the site, but in this case I just can't find it. Is there a way to find out the address from the phobos link, or if not, is there a service somewhere that'll let me look at the iTunes web pages without iTunes?

Looking for SMS->web service

influx — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:36:16 -0800

I'm looking for an online system that allows us to set up a number that people can sms text to from their cell/mobile phones. It needs to work in the USA, and ideally also support RSS feeds of the messages as they come in - or some similar feed - so we can extract the received texts. Failing the live feed, we could make do with an Inbox system and periodically scrape or manually extract the messages out. Also being able to reply to the incoming messages is a bonus but not essential.

Favicons for xml/rss feeds

zadcat — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:25:44 -0800

How do I attach a favicon to an rss (xml) feed, specifically from Blogger, although if you have more generic information I'll have a look at that too? No more inside – that's the entire question.