"Description: Intelli-Aggie is a proof-of-concept RSS feed aggregator and sorter that does the following:

* Fetches user defined RSS feeds.

* Categorises news items in the feeds into user defined categories based on user defined keywords.

* Generates list of these news items grouped in various views. For an example output, check this earlier post of mine.

* The most novel thing about Intelli-Aggie is that the system tries to adapt according to the reader's reading preference, trying to show him/her more interesting and relevant news items first."
(via Coding Projects of Srijith) [Roland Tanglao's Weblog] 
11:54:06 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Russell Beattie on .Text
Yes, it looks like Microsoft's XML APIs are a lot saner than the PHP APIs too.
"I just spent a while trying to grok what was going on inside Scott Water's .Text, a new server-side blogging app for the .Net crowd. I don't have much of a clue what's going on, but it's amazing how close C# looks like Java, though it seems that Microsoft has done a saner job with the XML stuff than Java's current offerings (though this might be a wrong first impression. It's not like I'm ever going to use it to know for sure ;-) ).

Anyways, it's *a lot* of code including a giant-a*s SQL Server script with a zillion stored procedures (god, I hope all that .SQL was autogenerated), but it does seem to be complete - even down to XML-RPC support and Atom feeds."
(via Russell Beattie Notebook) [Roland Tanglao's Weblog] 
6:57:08 PM      comment []   trackback []  



No messing with JavaScript
For anyone doing Javascript work I can highly recommend both David Flanagan's JavaScript: The Definitive Guide and Danny Goodman's JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook. The guide is a pretty comprehensive reference that I turn to a lot.  The cookbook is a very interesting mix of practical JavaScript and DHTML techniques.  I'm particularly interested in the possibilities for drag & drop in web interfaces. Marc Barrot uses this to good effect in WebOutliner.
[Curiouser and curiouser!] 
3:24:40 PM      comment []   trackback []  



RSSlet - generate RSS feeds from dynamic pages generated via an HTTP POST or GET
Cool hack in progress.

"My ultimate vision for RSSlet is a service that allows users to generate dynamic RSS feeds that actually do something functional from any web page. I'm a big believer in iterative and interactive design and development. So in line with this, rather than developing the service in its entirety and then releasing it to the world, I'm starting with making some of my prototype explorations available for use and feedback. Since this is a work in progress everything here is labeled as use at your own risk. As I add more functionality and polish everything up into a useable standalone service, I'll post updates here.

Other Alternatives

The ability to scrape web pages and make RSS feeds is not unique, NewsIsFree and MyRSS both currently offer the ability to do this in some fashion, but as far as I can tell, neither handle any of the following gracefully:

* pages generated dynamically from the contents of a form (or other source of parameters passed into a page via GET or POST) * password protected data sources

* keyword based filtering"

(via Eightlinks - Features: RSSlets - Functional RSS Feeds) [Roland Tanglao's Weblog] 
2:17:55 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Clearing Floats
As most of you probably know, when you float an element it no longer takes up any space in the document flow, causing borders and background colours to behave strangely. To get round this you need to add some content to the container element and set that content to have a clear: both; style... [Andy Budd::Blogography] 
1:54:34 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Creating form layouts using CSS
A while ago I read an article at A List Apart about creating form layouts using CSS that you would normally use tables for. It was a great little article, but I could never quite get it to work. I was trying to lay out a form today using this method, but it kept breaking in IE 5.x on Mac.... [Andy Budd::Blogography] 
1:53:33 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Flash Satay Experiment
Should you or shouldn't you use the Flash Satay method of embedding flash content? What browsers does it work on and how many people will actually be serverd the flash movie correctly? Fill in this poll and help answer that question.... [Andy Budd::Blogography] 
1:52:54 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Headers and soul
HTML 4.01: The HEAD element contains information about the current document, such as its title, keywords that may be useful to search engines, and other data that is not considered document content. User agents do not generally render elements that appear in the HEAD as content. They may, however, make information in the HEAD available to users through other mechanisms. Of course, there always is another point of view. [Sam Ruby] 
1:36:12 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Understanding RSS
You wanna know all about RSS? Fine. We're gonna help you figure out what's what! Scott Johnson (of Feedster fame) is officially under agreement to produce a tutorial on news aggregators and RSS. It'll be sold direct by Lockergnome and via Amazon. He recently came to me with the suggestion that there needed to be a good, comprehensive resource to help get people started. He suggested a "Mom's First Aggregator" sort of thing. I agreed, and let him have at it. He hopes to be finished with it before Halloween, covering: The Basics, How an Aggregator Can Change Your Life, Versions and Basic Terminology, RSS For Content Publishers, Developers, Users, & Marketers, Choosing an Aggregator, The World's Simplest Aggregator, etc. If you would like your tips, thoughts, or experiences added to the tome, please let us know immediately.

1:13:52 PM      comment []   trackback []  

1) Google Alert - Track any search query from your favorite news aggregator. A variety of cool settings are available once you are signed up. My only gripe is that it is primarily focused on email alerts and I had to dig around before I found the RSS settings in the "toolkit".

2) "It's Google.rss" - I like this tool for query tracking better than Google Alert because I can get to making my RSS feed right away without the login interface and other annoyances. It is a great example of "no frills" ingenuity at work.

3) Gnews2RSS - The holy grail of RSS news feeds, in my opinion. You can finally get Google news without being bound to using MyRSS.com or any other ad supported RSS generator. The webmaster of Gnews2RSS encourages users to host their own version of this tool with his script. A link back to the script's author would be appropriate if used for personal use.
By matt@ctsdownloads.com. [Lockergnome's RSS Resource] 
1:12:40 PM      comment []   trackback []