Tag: rss

how to get craigslist searches by e-mail

  1. Go to <http://toronto.craigslist.org/>
  2. Enter your search term in the “search craigslist” box
  3. When you get the results, scroll to the bottom. There is a final paragraph that says “RSS (?)”. Copy the RSS link address (move the mouse pointer over the RSS link, right click, and select “Copy Shortcut”)
  4. Open an new window (Ctrl-N in IE)
  5. In the new window, go to <http://www.rssfwd.com/>
  6. Paste the link you copied from craigslist into the “Enter a feed to subscribe” box – the link should look something like <http://toronto.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=this%20that&format=rss>, and hit Subscribe
  7. Enter your e-mail address on the next page – before you hit Subscribe again, you might want to check the preview of the feed that’s shown on the page to see that it’s finding what you want. You probably want to keep the e-mail type as “Normal – Send each update as individual e-mails”, and uncheck the “Share at Popular Feeds” page
  8. You will get a confirmation e-mail – hit the confirm link, which will take you to a page you probably don’t need to understand
  9. rssfwd should mail you within a couple of hours of new items being posted. Each e-mail should have unsubscription information

overfed

We had a power cut last night, and my Gregarius aggregator on the basement server really didn’t appreciate it. I think it was doing something to the sqlite database that holds the feeds when the power went out, so I lost all my configs and had to trudge through hundreds of old items.

It could be worse; you could be stabbed! (as Mark Taylor always used to say).

hey livejournal, quit claiming my content

Read this. Oddly familiar, huh? It would seem that LiveJournal is republishing my blog on its own site http://syndicated.livejournal.com/wesawachicken/.

The thing about syndicated publishing is that the author has at least given permission that it takes place. I gave LiveJournal no such permission. Sure, I have a public RSS feed, but I don’t expect people just to grab my whole site and publish it for their own ends. That’s not syndication, it’s theft.
They also have the gall to claim there’s a “syndicated user” wesawachicken. Again, I didn’t set that up. I wonder if I can make it implode by getting it to syndicate its own feed?

see, I told you ages ago

Trendy roof turbines are not as green as they look says The Observer. <smugness/>
Paul Gipe has some thoughts on this:

The last one has a couple of pictures I took when we were in Scotland.

providing cannon fodder for empire since 1867

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the toll of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan is the price Canada is paying for playing a leadership role in world affairs.

I reckon that if I took a random street poll anywhere (anywhere outside Canada, that is), no more than 3 out of 10 people would consider Canada as having a leadership role. I do not wish to make light of the soldiers’ plight; I just don’t want them there in my name.

(I was going to make a comment about the nearest thing to a role to most Canadians would be a Swiss Chalet 1/4 chicken dinner, but that doesn’t work in a written context, and barely works when spoken.)

Ol’ Pointy-Nose Is Back …

Ben Hammersley’s Daily Doonesbury Feed, refactored:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use integer;
use XML::RSS;

my ( $sec, $min, $hour, $mday, $mon, $year, $wday, $yday, $isdst ) =
  localtime(time);

my $this_year   = 1900 + $year;
my $todays_date = sprintf( "%02d%02d%02d", $this_year % 100, 1 + $mon, $mday );
my $db_url      =
    'http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/'
  . $this_year . '/db'
  . $todays_date . '.gif';

my $rss = XML::RSS->new();
$rss->channel( title => "Doonesbury" );
$rss->add_item(
    title => 'Doonesbury for '
      . sprintf( "%05d/%02d/%02d", $this_year, 1 + $mon, $mday ),
    link        => $db_url,
    description => '<img src="' . $db_url . '" />'
);

print "Content-type: application/xml+rss\n\n", $rss->as_string;
exit;