Tag Archives: aggregator

Change the way you read with a mashup

2006.12.05 – 7:55 pm PST

I was reading my feeds earlier, using Firefox and thought about increasing the font size, so in the menu bar, View-> Text Size, a couple times, and my eyes were happier. The next menu option below Text Size is Page Style, and it had two options, Basic Page Style, and No Style. Choosing no style instantly gave me a rather long River of News style of reading my feeds.

So anyways on to the thought I had while doing this, Google Maps has mashups.

Why not a Google Reader Mashup? I’m no HTML guru but I think all you would really need to change is the first CSS file it calls for in the source using Greasemonkey. Maybe something simple and put the sidebar on the other side? Or change and add more keyboard shortcuts? A search box?

Say pressing control + ? brings up the keyboard shortcuts on the FAQ. using some DHTML goodness or whatever they’re using these days and have it be overlayed on the webpage, like they have on Netflix for when you have the cursor over a movie title.

I was reading something, and later thought about it more and wanted to read it again, but forgot to star it.
I would go and read all the posts, scanning through possibly hundreds of items, but why would I do that. Oh yea I have to.

It honestly feels weird having a page on Google which does not include a Search box. Almost every other page I’ve seen on Google has one. Ideally I wouldn’t mind having the option to perform a Google search on information only posted from my feeds. This would obviously include more logic.

I’m sure there are other things that would be cool to modify the reader to do we just need to think of them.

Maybe Google will soon open up Reader like Maps, and let people do fun things with feed reading.

[tags]freedbacking, google_reader, aggregators, mashups, ideas, searching_feeds, searching, help, keyboard_shortcuts[/tags]

By px | Posted in feeds, internet | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

aggregators, traffic, boredom.

2006.10.15 – 7:01 pm PDT

I wanted to write about this earlier in the week, but was unable to. I was kind of getting used to the plain River of News, but had to take out some of the more busier feeds which I only care to browse once in a while. Also the remembering where you were in earthlinkReader didn’t work out that well much of the time, as you change pages, content would seem to be pushed back a page, and you end up reading the same articles again.
I’ve been using Google Reader lately more than my bloglines, or earthlinkReader accounts. It displays all my feeds properly, has a lot of nifty AJAX stuff, multiple viewing options(read, unread, starred), keyboard shortcuts, imported every feed from my bloglines OPML (no option for URL importing, file only) and converted my folders into Tags. I can’t figure out or at least think I am able to create any new Tags for grouping, or reading lists without a new import. hmm.
Another thing irking me about earthlinkReader the traffic usage on my server, each of these hosts grabs my blog feed 2 to 3 times an hour and does not use gzip or compression as other good bots do. The next highest usage on my server is at 6 MB since the begining of this month.

myscheduler-bayberry.pas.sa.earthlink.net ? 366 366 80.60 MB 15 Oct 2006 - 18:10
myscheduler-petit.pas.sa.earthlink.net ? 356 356 78.41 MB 15 Oct 2006 - 18:32

Last month’s traffic stats.

myscheduler-bayberry.pas.sa.earthlink.net ? 1043 1043 230.74 MB 30 Sep 2006 - 19:28
myscheduler-petit.pas.sa.earthlink.net ? 1028 1028 227.40 MB 30 Sep 2006 - 23:30

UPDATE: Google’s Feed eating bot uses compression and 304 codes to consume less bandwidth.

px.ns1.net 72.14.199.78 - - [16/Oct/2006:09:27:42 -0700] "GET //feed/ HTTP/1.1" 200 26150 "-" "Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html)" mod_deflate: In:229775 Out:26132:11pct.
px.ns1.net 72.14.199.79 - - [16/Oct/2006:16:35:14 -0700] "GET //feed/ HTTP/1.1" 304 20 "-" "Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html)" mod_deflate: In:- Out:-:-pct.

[tags]Google, Freedbacking, Aggregators, Earthlink, Reader[/tags]

By px | Posted in internet, notes | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

earthlink reader update

2006.07.28 – 3:05 am PDT

well it seems that the earthlink reader is still not doing its job of properly importing the feeds from my opml files.

“We already know about 42 sources, so we’ve added them to Your Sources. There were 38 sources that were new to us, so we’ve sent our little robots out over the internet to go fetch articles for you. Give them about 10-15 minutes to retrieve everything, and you’ll have all 80 sources from your OPML file available.”

Yeah, still no love.  I guess this is why I keep using my bloglines account.  I’m actually starting to like the newspaper style of reading blogs.  I think the interface could also use a simple hotkey or something spiffy with ajax to change to the previous or next page with the stroke of one key.  Maybe even a dhtml animation of a page turn?  heh, wishful thinking, or is that just wasteful.

[tags]freedbacking, earthlink, internet, feed, aggregator, opml[/tags]

By px | Posted in internet | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

earthlink reader update.

2006.07.17 – 4:06 pm PDT

Well, I don’t think that Earthlink should say it will take 10-15 minutes when it has been several days now since I last uploaded my opml export from bloglines. I would like all my feeds to be there please. Here’s what I got when I uploaded it again.

“We already know about 42 sources, so we’ve added them to Your Sources. There were 39 sources that were new to us, so we’ve sent our little robots out over the internet to go fetch articles for you. Give them about 10-15 minutes to retrieve everything, and you’ll have all 81 sources from your OPML file available.”

Also I noticed that my blog, managed to now have two ID’s in their system. 2007, and 4039. They aren’t checking for unique sites in their feeds database I guess? Could this be why I have been getting hit twice each time the earthlink robots come to my site?

[tags]freedbacking, earthlink, reader, aggregator, feeds, opml_import[/tags]

By px | Posted in blogs, internet, thoughts | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Aggregator Showdown.

2006.07.17 – 2:24 pm PDT

I started writing this last week, but with a lack of energy, here’s the skinny on what I’ve written up.

Dave Winer reminds us the other day. “2/3/06: “Aggregator developers could sure use some competition!”
I like server side aggregators more than desktop. In a multi-user aggregator ideally it should be customizable by the end-user. One that shows you your feeds how you like to view them, whether it be email style, linear, reverse, upside down, reverse print, etc.
It should also remembers what’s new since the last visit.
I decided I’d see just what the opensource world has to offer in web-based single and multi-user aggregators.
I really wasn’t too impressed from a selection point of view with a multi-user installation in mind.
most opensource aggregators aren’t “pretty” or even still in development.
2004 was last real opensource aggregator development time period.
I even tried to get some of the ones listed in google’s directory to work.
here is some of my results in demo form.

DATE NAME Code Users? In Devel? OPML? Working?
2004.02.14 rnews php single no yes yes - with manual fix
2004.11.06 TALAggregator python single no yes no
2004.08.08 planet python single no no not latest dev version
2004.12.16 feedonfeed php single no import yes

Installation notes.
I first tried the Gentoo ebuild version of planet which is quite old but worked. planet has a nightly snapshot of their devel repo, which is missing a python dependancy I can’t figure out.

TALAggregator lacks a logout button, which makes it difficult to create users, and use your own account to browse feeds. Also logging in doesn’t usually work properly. TALAggregator stores it’s password in an encrypted format in the mysql database.

rnews stores the passwords as plaintext in the mysql database and also lacks a logout button/link. It is also having issues when creating it’s tables in the database. Being able to create the user_prefs table, but not the links, and users’ links table. ex. “links”, “px_links”

Once I applied some force and a crowbar, I now have the sql to create the needed table. It’s support with importing of opml files works fine and also adds your categorized material correctly. And of course the interface is a tad bit clunky.

CREATE TABLE `links` (
`id` INT( 16 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
`src_id` VARCHAR( 36 ) NOT NULL ,
`link` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`title` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`description` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`state` VARCHAR( 16 ) NOT NULL ,
`pubdate` DATETIME NOT NULL ,
UNIQUE (
`src_id` ,
title( 255 )
)
) ENGINE = MYISAM
CREATE TABLE `px_links` (
`id` INT( 16 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
`name` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`main_link` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`rss_link` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`image_url` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`user_order` INT( 8 ) NOT NULL ,
`category` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`last_update` DATETIME NOT NULL
) ENGINE = MYISAM ;
By px | Posted in internet, notes, software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

EarthLink’s new feed aggregator

2006.07.13 – 6:02 pm PDT

I just signed up for Earthlink’s myEarthLink Reader, because I’m always looking for a better way to read my feeds. I still really like Bloglines reader, as it keeps all my feeds in a nice neat organized folder like way. The export I made from Bloglines, to myEarthLink Reader, did not use any of these folders, it only imported all my feeds, and showed me what’s currently availible, while the robot behind the scenes went out and retrieved the rest of my feeds. I imported about 87 feeds, of which the Reader only knew about 16 sources. So I just added quite a bit to their known feeds I would say.
I’m still in the “I like to read feeds individually, and organized” method. You can still read the feeds individually, but they are not organized how I like to read. Overall if you like reading feeds mashed up together into pages, then you might like the “Recently Updated” feature. The Reader, also makes it easy for you to import/export your OPML, by clicking on settings, and choosing the appropriate link. Also making it easy to change how links are loaded, same window, or new window, and how much of the article you which to view, long/short.
After signing up for a free earthlink account, I noticed something is sorely missing from their navigation link back to the Reader, which is why I signed up.
I also noticed that while the account signup page only allows for password up to a length of 8 characters, the other login password fields, and such throughout the site allow for more seemingly unlimited number of characters, which breaks my most favorite, and much used Firefox extension, PwdHash.
As I end writing this the Reader Robot still has not completely added my feeds to the list. The 10 to 15 minutes which it said was needed is apparently more. No big deal, I’ll just comeback tomarrow, and hopefully they will be there. Of course the more and more people who use this reader, the more feeds availible for other readers, and no waiting for them.

[update] I’m just guessing here, but going from the ID given to my Livejournal blog, 2003, there is ~2000 feeds they know about.

[update] EarthLink’s Reader is also double requesting the feed my site also.

px.ns1.net 209.179.163.114 - - [14/Jul/2006:02:41:27 -0700] "GET //feed/ HTTP/1.1" 200 79791 "-" "myEarthlinkReader/1.0 (http://reader.earthlink.net/; 1 subscribers)" VLOG=-
px.ns1.net 209.179.163.114 - - [14/Jul/2006:02:41:28 -0700] "GET //feed/ HTTP/1.1" 200 79791 "-" "Java/1.5.0_06" VLOG=-

[update] I think it’s working very slowly.  It must need more time.
“We already know about 32 sources, so we’ve added them to Your Sources. There were 54 sources that were new to us, so we’ve sent our little robots out over the internet to go fetch articles for you. Give them about 10-15 minutes to retrieve everything, and you’ll have all 86 sources from your OPML file available.”

[via] and [via]
[tags]freedbacking, RSS, Feeds, Reader, Aggregator, Earthlink, Internet, AJAX[/tags]

By px | Posted in blogs, internet | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Bad Behavior has blocked 1276 access attempts in the last 7 days.

>>>>>>> .r246