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Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Found this tonight...the new ...or soon to be new prefrence window for Firefox... It's pretty cool....hopefully more full featured than before.

Comment [] Trackback [] Technorati Cosmos Permalink 9:56:34 PM.

Babe of the Day

Comment [] Trackback [] Technorati Cosmos Permalink 6:17:56 PM.

PLEASE DONATE TO THE TSUNAMI RELIEF FUND!

Comment [] Trackback [] Technorati Cosmos Permalink 2:46:47 PM.

APPLE CHANGES THEIR WEBSITE!!!!!

Apple changed their website with a message to the Tsunami victims.

Our hearts reach out to those hurt by the Indian Ocean tsunamis.

Learn more about how you can help the survivors and their families

Support the American Red Cross and donate to the International Response Fund

United States Agency for International Development

Support South Asia Tsunami Relief Efforts

Center for International Disaster Information

Comment [] Trackback [] Technorati Cosmos Permalink 2:36:04 PM.

Display-Less iMac?

Think Secret is reporting that Apple will unveil a new display-less iMac at the upcoming MacWorld Expo on January 11th that will sell for just $500. Similar in power to an iBook, the G4-powered box will be targeted at Windows users who would like to move over to a Mac, but haven't considered it as an option because the entry level machine was an iMac or an eMac, both of which are more expensive than a rock-bottom Windows PC.

While I'd love for this rumor to be true (I'd definitely be buying at least one, if not more), keep in mind this is joining the iPod Flash, Motorola iPhone, and Apple Asteroid FireWire audio interface in the list of possible product releases from Apple this January.

EXCLUSIVE: Apple to drop sub-$500 Mac bomb at Expo [ThinkSecret]

- lev (tips@gizmodo.com) [Gizmodo]

Comment [] Trackback [] Technorati Cosmos Permalink 2:25:13 PM.

What is RSS/XML/Atom/Syndication?

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SS/XML/Atom are technologies, but syndication is a process. RSS and Atom are two flavours of what is more or less the same thing: a �feed� which is a wrapper for pieces of regularly and sequentially-updated content, be they news articles, weblog posts, a series of photographs, and more. For the purposes of this article, consider the terms interchangable. XML is the base technology both are built on, but that�s almost totally irrelevant; the orange buttons are mislabelled, and should read �RSS� or �Atom� instead. Strange, but true.

Syndication is the process of using RSS/Atom for automated updates, another way of getting the information you want. You no doubt have a list of web sites you browse daily for updates, whether they�re stored in your bookmarks or your head. If you find yourself loading 20 or 30 sites a day, and you notice if a few stop updating as frequently, you�ll inevitably stop checking them.

What if there were instead some way to have your list of bookmarks notify you when the sites you read have been updated? You wouldn�t waste time checking those that haven�t. Instead of loading 30 sites a day, you might only need to load 13. Cutting your time in half would enable you to start monitoring more sites, so for the same amount of time you originally invested in checking each site manually, you may just end up end up following twice as many.

Syndication provides the tools to do this. A news reader, or aggregator as they�re also known, is a program or a web site that automatically checks your list of bookmarks (which you only have to set up once) and lets you know what�s new on each site in your list.

It goes beyond simple updates though � the news reader works by pulling in the feeds of your various bookmarks. As we covered above, a feed is a wrapper for content items, so on top of notification, a feed delivers the content that has been updated itself. You may choose to read the new content in the news reader, or you may choose to leave the reader and visit the site. Some authors will only provide summaries of the content, forcing you to visit anyway.

As an analogy, the news reader acts like a customizable newspaper. You can pull a variety of content from a growing number of sources into one place, to be read however you choose. Sources like major news media outlets (BBC, Reuters, Washington Post) to non-news content providers (Apple�s iTunes Music Store, the Government of Canada, USGS� World Earthquake updates) to smaller independent voices (BoingBoing, VanEats, Sidesh0w). The only stipulation is that the source must provide a feed.

Beyond day to day use, a particularly nice feature is that you�re able to take your news with you on the go. Have your newsreader grab the latest feeds before you rush to the airport, then check out of the in-flight movie to catch up on the most recent goings-on. Of course the author has to be providing full content for this to work, and some only provide summaries � it�s about 50/50. Leave the summaries unread, and you can come back to them later when you�re connected again. In this regard, news readers also function like temporary bookmarks. Unread items will stay flagged until you�re near a connection or have more time to read them. No more forgetting what it was you wanted to check up on your lunch break, it�ll be there waiting for you.

If this introduction has whet your appetite, the next step is to grab a news reader and start playing. Popular at the moment are FeedDemon and for Windows, News Gator for viewing inside of Outlook, NetNewsWire for Mac OS X, and Bloglines which is a platform-neutral, web-based news reader.

What are Live Bookmarks?

Live Bookmarks is a new technology in Firefox that lets you view RSS news and blog headlines in the bookmarks toolbar or bookmarks menu. With one glance, quickly see the latest headlines from your favorite sites. Go directly to the articles that interest you�saving you time.

A site is enabled for Live Bookmarks when you see this icon on the bottom right corner of the browser. Clicking on the icon and selecting an RSS feed will bring up the Add Bookmark dialog. Select 'OK' and you will see Live Bookmarks with the rest of your bookmarks. Many people find it especially convenient to save Live Bookmarks in their Bookmarks Toolbar folder.

So which one do I use?

That's 7 -- count 'em, 7! -- different formats, all called RSS. As a coder of RSS-aware programs, you'll need to be liberal enough to handle all the variations. But as a content producer who wants to make your content available via syndication, which format should you choose?

RSS versions and recommendations
Version	Owner	Pros	Status	Recommendation
0.90	Netscape		Obsoleted by 1.0	Don't use
0.91	UserLand	Drop dead simple	Officially obsoleted by 2.0, but still quite popular	Use for basic syndication. Easy migration path to 2.0 if you need more flexibility
0.92, 0.93, 0.94	UserLand	Allows richer metadata than 0.91	Obsoleted by 2.0	Use 2.0 instead
1.0	RSS-DEV Working Group	RDF-based, extensibility via modules, not controlled by a single vendor	Stable core, active module development	Use for RDF-based applications or if you need advanced RDF-specific modules
2.0	UserLand	Extensibility via modules, easy migration path from 0.9x branch	Stable core, active module development	Use for general-purpose, metadata-rich syndication

What is OPML?

OPML an XML-based format that allows exchange of outline-structured information between applications running on different operating systems and environments. It is very typical to be able to export the list of your feeds to an OPML file so that others are able to import the list to their RSS Reader. I have included a link to my OPML file for my daily feeds.

To Wrap it all up
It's basically just a way to check your favorite websites without the hastle of constantly refreshing the page and going back to check. The content is delivered straight to your Reader program. There are a number of them and all with varying strengths and weaknesses. So don't just try one. I think you will find that Syndication is the way of the future, most websites are going towards data being sent out using this method. Below is a list of a NUMBER of different reader programs. Also, I have included a link to the file from my news aggrigator program as OPML . Also, a blogroll of the feeds I subscibe to as well. This is a way of being able to click on the arrow to expand the file to see exactly what you want to see. I think that's about it...I hope you enjoy using RSS/ATOM Syndication to simplify your daily life.

My Daily RSS Feeds

Active Renderer

What is RSS/XML/Atom/Syndication?

What are Live Bookmarks?

So which one do I use?

What is OPML?

Top Picks

Mac OS X: NetNewsWire

Windows: SharpReader

Linux: Straw

Web: Bloglines

Runners-Up

The Word of the Day for Wednesday December 29, 2004 is: sedition