Friday, May 10, 2002

A little more explanation of the Voidstar RSSify service This application requires modifications to your web pages so that the pages can be processed into XML. Include the appropriate tags, and then run the page through the service to render an RSS feed for that page. A clever and simple approach to add an additional capability to an existing site without requiring a migration to a new web-publishing system. My only suggestion would be to utilize the code they provide and run a unique copy that you control to assure continuity of the service. (That's the IT weenie speaking there - If XML is mission critical I am loath to depend on the largesse of the world at large for my existence) 8:32:22 AM     There's a lot more RSS news today, starting with two new feeds to which I've subscribed. Lori and Teri are now using the Voidstar RSSify service to provide feeds for The Handheld Librarian and It's All About Books! Expect to see more of their stuff show up on my site now that they've found their way into my news aggregator! Grab the feeds for yourself at http://www.voidstar.com/rssify.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhandheldlib.blogspot.com%2F and http://www.voidstar.com/rssify.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fallaboutbooks.blogspot.com%2F. [The Shifted Librarian] 8:24:34 AM     Groupware applications The ability to Create Custom Experimental XML Feeds could be useful in applications where a bunch of knowledge workers want to extend beond categorization. We might tag items with quality measures - hard vs. soft facts - opportunity and threat assessment - and other things that cut across categories. The aggregation of this meta-data means I don't need to multiply categories to let a researcher pre-assess data they are capturing for the group. 8:14:13 AM     Create Custom Experimental XML Feeds "Radio's RSS writer is now user-extensible. The RSS writer in Radio is now officially user-extensible. 'Before generating the RSS, we check user.radio.callbacks.writeRssFile,' Dave writes today. Excellent. This will open the floodgates for all sorts of useful metadata experimentation. We'll see Radio UserLand sites emitting RSS 1.0, and others extending RSS .9x. It's not the format that matters to me, it's the experimentation. ... [Jon's Radio]  This is brilliant news.  Ordinary Radio users like me can now experiment with tagging topical categories of posts related to 'official' court filings (such as opinions), court rules, and FAQs.   Enabling an end user to sort, filter or interpret by topical content. One Small Example:  A lawyer in New Orleans, is watching the progress of asbestos mass litigation in the courts of Louisiana, becomes aware that very similar issues involving medical monitoring and asbestos mass litigation are pending before the West Virginia Supreme Court.  If the WV court has an XML feed for recent opinions (which we do), the lawyer in New Orleans could subscribe to that feed and watch for orders and opinions regarding asbestos mass litigation.  Understandably, however, the lawyer in New Orleans may not want to read all of the posts about another jurisdiction's opinions - only those concerning limited issues.  With this new feature, the lawyer in New Orleans can target the request, saving bandwidth and precious screen time." [Rory Perry's Radio Weblog] [The Shifted Librarian] 8:09:01 AM     Java Front End for Syndic8. "Friday is a Java front-end for viewing news aggregation sites and site syndication feeds on mobile devices, like phones and PDAs. Friday supports the Syndic8 news aggregation site. In the near future, it will support others, such as Meerkat and NewsIsFree." [via Content Syndication with XML and RSS] This is pretty big news to my mind, because it's the next piece of the puzzle for shifting RSS news aggregators to make them portable. In the future, when we're bathed in always-on, wireless access to the internet, we'll use our customized aggregators to deliver the information that we've personally knighted to be aggregator-worthy. Maybe you'll see a full-blown aggregator on your OQO, but maybe you view a subset of feeds that you've tagged as high priority and those appear on your phone because you need to see updated information as it comes in. Maybe it's your organization's intranet feed, your customers' feeds, your local newspaper's headlines, or just your daughter's blog. It's your aggregator, so you choose what's important. But portability (both mobility and interoperability) makes that happen. [The Shifted Librarian] 8:03:45 AM     Jaguar Preview Is Stunning. O’Reilly: “Tevanian explained that the move to GCC 3 will give full C++ compliance, including support for the standard template libraries. As for Apple’s IDE Project Builder, there will be an improvement in the performance of generated code, and the redesigned multi-window UI will be much more full-featured.” [ranchero.com] 7:29:22 AM     Strategic usability This article discusses the integration of usability into the organization. uiweb: Tactical use of usability engineering is responsive and isolated, focusing on adjustments to existing designs, often late in the schedule. Strategic use of usability or user research is proactive and integrated, improving decision making at many levels of project and business planning. [Tomalak's Realm] A good read, and a good place to start thinking about changing the business focus. 7:26:56 AM     Greg Walsh news here first! For those of you that don't know, Greg Walsh is a talented web developer/eLearning specialist/opensource hacker/creative type guy that I have gotten a lot of technology leads from. He has set up his own RSS feed from GregWalsh.com and this is the first update that I've gotten. Greg Walsh Studios Premieres 'Work Monkey'. Greg Walsh Studios announced today the web premiere of 'Work Monkey', the studios first talking movie. [:-:gregwalsh.com] 7:07:02 AM

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