RSS?

justanotherfan · Post by **justanotherfan** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 4:37 am

Would it be possible to get a HDTP RSS feed? I know there have been troubles with the website, so one thing at a time, but I'm afraid I might miss something.

Master_Kale · Post by **Master_Kale** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 6:47 am

RSS is a good idea, and I guess that would fall onto me to figure out if we decided on one.

Honestly, I know nothing about working with xml files. I know a bit, but not enough to make an RSS feed. That DOESN'T, however, mean I can't learn.

Its a good idea, and if others agree, then I'll look into it. Would you want the newsposts to appear, or where you refereing to something else?

justanotherfan · Post by **justanotherfan** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:10 pm

I was thinking that the newsposts would be good, I actually have missed a few and noticed them later. When well-implemented, using things like mod_gzip and 304 Not Modified responses, it can reduce the bandwidth usage on the main page. It makes it easier to keep up on site news, and it's much more like instant news.

Here's the first basic intro to RSS I found-
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html
http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/

The W3.org has XML validators, they can check code (like they do for HTML) for non-standard or incorrect usage.

Here's another document on it, I've set it to the note on GUID (since many feeds are broken in my reader by not implementing GUID), but the entire page looks like a good reference-
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss#l ... OfLtitemgt

RSS has become quite popular, almost all of the sites I visit often have implemented it, I get about 1000 new "news" items daily. That may sound like it would take forever, but it's saved a lot of time and effort, and lets me read even more sites, or just be a more active member on them.

Thanks for checking it out.

Post by **Jonas** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:54 pm

This might be good to use on TNM too. Maybe we could have like an OTP news feed which provided news from both TNM and HDTP? Or maybe not, I don't know. I mean TNM is updated pretty regularly, it's almost always on Sunday, and when it's not, it's always Saturday.

Post by **metche_steele** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 3:27 pm

Now that sir is a sweet idea!

But I aint updating the blasted thing ive got enough on me plate lol.

Post by **Jonas** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 3:29 pm

I'm not sure, but I think the idea of RSS is that it takes your news post and transmits it to whoever subscribes to the thing. So you won't have to do anything extra, it just saves them the trouble of actually visiting your site when you update (not to mention several times between each update to check for new posts).

Master_Kale · Post by **Master_Kale** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 12:38 am

metche_steele wrote:Now that sir is a sweet idea!

But I aint updating the blasted thing ive got enough on me plate lol.

Metche, I'll take care of everything. I've made a Mod/Tex DB from scratch, I'm sure I can handle creating and updating an RSS feed.

The way I think I'll do it, is I'll show the first 100-200 characters, then when you click the link, you are taken to the newspost page you see then you click on "Comments".

Then, when the time comes to update the new feed, I'll just add it in and BAM! Instant news feed.

Piece of cake, I think

justanotherfan · Post by **justanotherfan** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:28 am

Jonas wrote:...I think the idea of RSS is that it takes your news post and transmits it to whoever subscribes to the thing. So you won't have to do anything extra, it just saves them the trouble of actually visiting your site when you update (not to mention several times between each update to check for new posts).

Basically. There's a tendancy to think of RSS as a broadcast (like konspire2b), but it's just another file on the website, the server updates it and the RSS clients see it's updated and download the file filled with news. I like to talk about it as a broadcast still though, "They send me news over RSS". The reader just downloads the XML file, and displays it prettily....the most used client is NetNewsWire (odd since it's OS X only), firefox/safari/lifera do it as well, that's all I know of.

Master_Kale wrote:The way I think I'll do it, is I'll show the first 100-200 characters, then when you click the link, you are taken to the newspost page you see then you click on "Comments".

Sounds great. You can set it up to just send headlines that link to the comments, send a "blurb" about the news (like the first paragraph, or 100-200 characters, or the entire news item. As a reader I like the entire news item of course, but pick whatever is best for the site, it's mostly about knowing when the page has been updated and a basic idea about what kind of update.

I believe the software used to create RSS feeds is automatic, but I'd afraid you'll have to figure out how to get it working with the DB you've created (after creating it, I'm sure you can).

Just thought I'd give a list of some news sites that have RSS, since some people might be checking out RSS for the first time. TheOnion, AlterSlash.org, ehow.com, BBC World News, Slashdot, ArsTechnica, Technocrat.net, kuro5hin.org....Basically, just go to the sites you check often, and search the page for "RSS", Firefox will have an orange icon in the URL-bar if the page is set to do that. My list there is limited to the geek news, but there's all kinds of things available, from recipe-of-the-day to daily dilbert comics.

Post by **Trestkon** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:13 am

www.penny-arcade.com also has an RSS feed.

Master_Kale · Post by **Master_Kale** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:40 am

UPDATE!!

I upgraded CuteNews, the system we use to post our news, and it turns out that their latest version includes, get this, AUTOMATIC RSS GENERATION!

It automatically takes the 10 most recent posts, and creates a page you can direct RSS readers to to read our news posts.

I'll post the link to it on the main page tomorrow or Saturday. Until then, here's the link:

http://www.offtopicproductions.com/hdtp ... ws/rss.php

justanotherfan · Post by **justanotherfan** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 5:01 am

Awesome, great news. It works too. Is that ever cool!

I'm told RSS can be bandwidth intensive, since some idiots set their readers to refresh it every 5min. Some sites ban reader programs that do that (Slashdot does)....by using mod_gzip or mod_deflate (transparent gzip compresson on Apache-served web files (XML compresses well, very redundant)), and enabling the 304 Unmodified response, you can both reduce the size of the RSS file, and turn away those people that try to reload the unchanged XML file.

This site talks about that, along with even more ideas-
http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/rssfeedstate.html

Post by **metche_steele** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 7:49 am

Master_Kale wrote:UPDATE!!

I upgraded CuteNews, the system we use to post our news, and it turns out that their latest version includes, get this, AUTOMATIC RSS GENERATION!

It automatically takes the 10 most recent posts, and creates a page you can direct RSS readers to to read our news posts.

I'll post the link to it on the main page tomorrow or Saturday. Until then, here's the link:

http://www.offtopicproductions.com/hdtp ... ws/rss.php

OMG Kale!! How the heck do you manage to rock so much???? Youre amazing! Well done

BTW speaking of sites im working on the new design again this weekend,

justanotherfan · Post by **justanotherfan** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 3:58 am

Was just going through my RSS feeds, checking which ones were using the most bandwidth, and I found that the highest bandwidth feeds weren't using the 304 "not modified" response added in HTTP 1.1. By implementing it, CPU and bandwidth usage can be reduced on the server side and on the client side. Un-updated feeds simply aren't transferred when it is in use. Its discussed here-
http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2002/10/21 ... ss_hackers

The HDTP feed isn't using gzip compression either. That can help reduce bandwidth usage, but theres a CPU usage tradeoff involved. It is pretty easy to do in Apache. I don't know about other servers, but I know it can be implemented in the popular ones. Apache uses mod.deflate-
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_deflate.html

Mr_Cyberpunk · Post by **Mr_Cyberpunk** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 1:07 pm

He's a nerd!!! LETS GET HIM!