Organizing My Life with Web 2.0!!

I just made my life a whole lot easier, and I have Web 2.0 to thank!!!

Before using RSS and del.cio.us, I saved links to articles, checklists, reports, work-related blogs, newsletters, and online journals in my Bookmarks. I kept the frequently updated sites (blogs, newsletters, and online journals) in a Bookmark folder titled "Websites to Check". As part of the name of the bookmark I had written in parentheses how often I needed to check it (daily), (weekly), (quarterly), etc.

I kept other bookmarks filed away in (what I thought) were self-evident folder names like "Website Design" and "Digitization".

Unfortunately, my bookmarks grew over time and took on a life of their own. I had so many bookmarks tucked away in various folders that I didn't even remember them all!!

Today, I went on a mission: to organize my life with Web 2.0

First, I signed up for an account on del.icio.us and installed the bookmarklets "My del.icio.us" and "Post to del.icio.us" on the toolbar of my browser.

I then went through my list of bookmarks, clicking each one. If it was no longer relevant for my work, it was deleted. If it was something with an RSS feed, I clicked my "Bloglines" bookmarklet and seemlessly ingested it into my Bloglines account. If it was an article, bibliography, report, or otherwise non-changing site, I clicked on my "post to del.icio.us" bookmarklet and it went easily into del.icio.us.

The whole thing went incredibly quick and was surprisingly easy. I was able to delete all the bookmarks that I moved into del.icio.us or Bloglines and now my bookmark list is short, sweet, and easy to use!!

I, for one, welcome our new RSS and social bookmarking overlords!!

Playing with RSS!

So, I know that my assignment is to blog about my experience using Syndic8, Feedster, Topix, and Technorati, but I honestly don't have a whole lot to say about them. I played with each one, didn't really find anything particularly blog-worthy, and decided to address RSS topics of more interest to me (I'm such a rebel!!!)

Today's blog post will focus on two topics that I'd like to learn more about:

1) How can I create an RSS feed for my web site, so that others can read it through an RSS aggregator?

2) How can I embed an already-existing RSS feed into my web site, so the web site is automatically updated every time the RSS feed is updated?


Adding an RSS Feed to my Web Site:

The Digital Information Management Program (DIMP) has a news page which I update periodically. I'd like to add an RSS feed to that page, so that readers won't have to keep checking back to see if it's updated.

I discovered the following resources online for creating RSS Feeds

1) Create RSS feeds from scratch using XML code. The website: http://www.make-rss-feeds.com/ walks you through this step-by-step.

2) Once an RSS feed is generated, it can be validated for accuracy using: http://feedvalidator.org/

3) Another alternative is to sign up to a free RSS generator service like http://www.feedpublish.com/. You can also download RSS generation software like http://www.feedforall.com/ (available free for 30 days. You don't need to have administrative privileges on your computer to download it.)

4) I also discovered that a separate piece of code known as "RSS Autodiscovery" is necessary for the little RSS icon to appear at the bottom of the screen in the Firefox/Safari browsers. Here is the code:

< link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS Feed for http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/dimp/news.html" href="/rss/" / >

5) There are also web tools that automatically convert existing HTML or XML web pages into RSS Feeds (even if you didn't create the web pages). This is known as "scraping". You can view a list of such sites here:



Embedding RSS Feeds into Web Sites

Finding info. about this is a little more complicated... It seems that RSS feeds can't simply be copied and pasted into web sites. Some kind of conversion must take place, and as such there is software available to convert the XML feeds so they can be served up on the web.

1) RSS to HTML is a PHP script that will allow for the creation of web pages using RSS feeds. The web page can apparently be as simple or as fancy as the designer wants. Unfortunately, because it's a PHP script, it requires a server that supports PHP Easy.

2) RSS Viewer converts RSS to javascript for inclusion in a web page by walking web designers through a 3 step process

3) Finally, I found RSS Feed Converter which allows a web designer to convert RSS into either PHP, Javascript, or HTML. Converting the RSS Feed to HTML allows those users with the Javascript turned off on their browsers to view the RSS feed, while allowing non-PHP web servers to support the converted RSS feed.

I found all of these resources by searching on Google using (what I thought) were fairly specific search strings. However, it is very possible that I missed some major resources in this area. If so, please feel free to let me know about them!!

RSS Feeds and Readers

I've always understood the idea behind RSS and Feed Readers like Bloglines, but I never got to play around with the tools until today.

Bloglines was surprisingly fast and easy, although it did take a little while for me to copy/paste the RSS feeds into Bloglines and get them saved. It also took me a little while to figure out that I could create different folders for my various feeds. One such folder I created linked to all the Web 2.0 Blogs created and maintained by North Carolina government librarians as part of this Web 2.0 Brown Bag Lunch. You can my RSS feeds by clicking here:

http://www.bloglines.com/public/digitizationdiva

Next, I played with creating a feed for a search ("State Library" "North Carolina") on Feedster. I have to say, I wasn't too impressed with the search results that I got through Feedster, so I'm not sure how often I'll check this feed.

I also added a tag feed from Flickr. All newly created images that are tagged with "statelibraryofnorthcarolina" will now pop up in my Bloglines account.

Finally, I added a podcast feed from the Department of Cultural Resources' podcast site. Unfortunately the URL in their feed was incorrect and was directing users to: http://www.ncculture.com/podcast.htm rather than their correct URL which is: http://www.ncculture.com/podcast.asp

Oh well... Except for this one slight technical difficulty, all went smooth!!

Yay for RSS!!!