Slashdot Mirror
Content Syndication With RSS
The first three chapters are primarily discussing the multiplicity of RSS standards. While with some other technologies it might seem a bit excessive, remember that RSS is a forked project with the forks at this moment bearing little resemblance to one another. The abbreviations even have different abbreviations - RSS means Really Simple Syndication if you are using RSS 0.91 or RSS 0.92, that was developed by Dave Winer. RSS means RDF Site Summary if the version you're using RSS 1.0. The development credits in this case go to RSS DEV team. To confuse you even more, the RSS 2.0 standard is deciphered as... correct, Really Simple Syndication again.
Hence chapter 4 discusses Winer's implementation (simplistic and user-friendly), while chapter 6 focuses on RSS 1.0 (RDF-compliant and data-architect-friendly), and chapter 8 talks about RSS 2.0 (improved RSS 0.9x). Chapter 4 is available online as a PDF file. Section 4.4 is recommended for those interested in promoting their RSS feeds as it provides pretty good reference to meta data.
Chapter 9 is perhaps of special interest to Web developers and administrators out there. It presents several code samples to properly parse RSS and present the result in readable HTML. The examples include (a) parsing with XML::Simple in Perl, (b) parsing with Perl regular expressions, (c) parsing with XML::Simple and sending the headlines to cell phones via WWW::SMS, (d) parsing via XSLT transformation. Python, PHP and ASP folks might feel left out due to the abundance of Perl examples, but if you got so far in the book, you can probably apply the regular expressions example or search for appropriate support for RSS format in your preferred language.
Going beyond the standard itself, RSS directories, aggregators and readers are discussed. Author makes a distinction between the last two by classifying Meerkat-like services into aggregators and desktop or Web applications designed to present the information to the user into readers. The chapter also provides information about Syndic8, its API, and describes the feed registration process. OReilly's Meerkat is also discussed in chapter, together with reference table for its API (you can make Meerkat generate HTML or RSS news headlines on certain topic or using certain keywords by providing a right query to its Web interface).
The book is quite a smooth read for a text describing the details of data specification. The chapters are informative and the book is not overloaded with useless information just to increase the page count. The tips are quite useful for someone, who is knew to the field and answers some questions not covered by standards (e.g., how often should you request an RSS feed, what to do if you're being screen-scraped, etc.)
I like the way the author divided the chapters into RSS 0.9x/2.0 and RSS 1.0 and kept two worlds apart. Most of the time you probably won't be interested in developing a feed to support both standards, but would like to focus just on one. The examples in Perl are perfect with me, although for someone new to Perl or programming in general those examples with abundant regular expressions might look a bit convoluted. Kudos to the author for not expanding on the topic, like many do, and providing an example of a script for RSS manipulation in every possible language out there.
What's missing? I wish more pages were dedicated to desktop RSS readers. FeedReader, HotSheet, Syndirella, Beaver and SharpReader are excellent end user applications currently gaining some popularity among those who'd prefer to browse the favorite headlines at a glance, instead of going to a dozen of sites every morning. To be fair, there's a huge list of readers in Appendix, and some applications mentioned above only came around in the last few months, which was probably after the book hit the press. Some sites also didn't make it into the book. I like DailyRotation and FreshNews that borrow from Meerkat's versatility and provide their own feed portal.
Overall, the book is a pretty good developer's guide to RSS standard. Accompanied with helpful illustrations and numerous tips it's an excellent resource for those unfamiliar with RSS and a helpful reference for those who have been doing Web syndication for a while.
You can purchase Content Syndication With RSS from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Not at all useless!
"...implement my feed on their site with no more difficulty than copying and pasting a few lines of pre-generated code"
There are utils which do precisely this.
It is done server-side in CGI or perl. The user is given a javascript snippet which pulls your RSS feed onto his or her website. Simple as that.
Here's one ready to go...
http://www.infinitepenguins.net/rss/
Best regards -Resprung
Now is the winter of our disco tent
Personally, all I've ever needed as a content provider was one page...
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
Password protected feeds add real value to RSS for obvious reasons. You won't always want everyone to read your feeds
Diarist.com offers a HTTP Password protected RSS feed here. http://rsstest.diarist.com/
As I write this... There are only two RSS clients which can read it's passworded feeds.
1. NewsGator
2. A beta version of FeedReader
Free Web based FTP
Cheers,
Mike
www.jmagar.com
-
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Try magpierss.
Easy as heck to use: Just drop it in the source directory, add 3 lines of php code to the html and you're good to go.
Yeah, those orange "XML" boxes are sure helpful.
On most MovableType sites, you can try "index.rdf" (the default), even if they don't link it up.
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
Just to let you know: Full featured RSS support ist scheduled for KDE 3.2. See http://dot.kde.org/1049415292/ for more information.
This will include a RSS dcop service providing a powerful XML-RPC interface to www.syndic8.com, a new RSS konqueror sidebar and a rewritten knewsticker.
Currently everything is still under development but already quite useful (if you know how to deal with dcop...). Let's hope we will have everything finished before KDE 3.2.
I needed one which didn't use a database, but only flatfiles. It took me a while to find them but here is what I've found:
CafeRSS The one I'm using rigth now. Really easy.
OnyxRSS More powerful, uses the XML parsing fetures of PHP
Rippy Another one, I just don't know.
Have fun!
quake74