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Fitting Slashdot Into Your Schedule

Posted by pudge on from the i-am-posting-this-only-so-i-can-see-it-appear-in-ical dept.

droleary writes "Looking for more ways to fit the new iCal into your life, or just a way to check web site updates without it looking like you're not working? Well Subsume Technologies has just announced a cool new way to do it: wCal. You can subscribe to frequently updated calendars that are headlines of (hopefully a growing number of) web sites, including a constant-refresh-ending Slashdot: Apple calendar (the press release has the subscribe link)." I first heard of this idea from Morbus Iff back on Sept. 11, and am still not convinced of the utility, but it's an interesting idea. Maybe it will catch on.

2 of 16 comments (clear)

  1. Overly Convoluted by h0tblack · · Score: 5, Informative

    Interesting use and integration of standard technologies (iCalender, WebDAV and RDF) but it seems like an overly complex way of checking news-feeds. I'll stick with using SlashDock and NetNewswire.

    1. Re:Overly Convoluted by h0tblack · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not that wCal is not easy to use, it's that it is itself a convoluted and overly complex solution to the most common use of RSS/RDF feeds. Apps like SlashDock are great as they give an unobtrusive and simple way of keeping up to date with many feeds at once. If you want a more powerful solution then there are plenty of heavier RSS/RDF readers out there. Mixing news feeds and appointments/scheduling seems like an odd idea to me, especially if your iCal gets cluttered with updates and news from even just a few regularly updated sites.

      Now, using the old adage to "Think Different" wCal may well prove more promising. If we think of alternative uses of RSS (ie not just catching up with general site updates) say events that happen less frequently (maybe subscribing to software updates for the apps you use) then I can see wCal becoming a more viable solution. This could be done with their own Calander, but the 'auto-conversion' that wCal gives from RSS to iCalender may be preferable to some.

      I'd be interested to hear exactly what your plans are for wCal and what you see it's primary uses as being. The technology merge is interesting, I'm sure there are possibilities for your software, but turning iCal into a news feed reader certainly isn't one of them IMHO.