Blogging Information

That completes the RSS basic and RSS advanced sessions.

I will take some time, add some new material, reorganize the class, and then
do it again at a later date.

------------------------

I am well aware that we all have multiple demands on our time, but I would
appreciate any comments or critiques as I start the process of refining the
class material.

- I will probably put the material together into an e-book.
- I will certainly add numbers in the subject the next time to keep them in
order.

------------------------

Please feel free to ask any RSS questions in Tech Talk.

------------------------

RSS is an exciting technology, and there are new announcements every day. I
look forward to incorporating some of the new RSS Announcements and doing
the class again.

------------------------

Regards,

Les Bain
Wizard Creek Consulting
http://www.wizard-creek.com

# posted by Les Bain @ 8:40 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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Creating an RSS Feed from Your Website - Generating the RSS Feed File

----------------

When we created the RSS Feed manually,
- we defined 3 data items for the RSS Feed - title, description, and link.
For each RSS Feed item,
- we also defined 3 data items - title, description, and link.

We then manually added all the RSS Feed Tags like <title> and <description>
and the RSS Feed was complete.

----------------

The most efficient way to create an RSS Feed is to use a service or program
that
- allows you to enter the title, description, and link and then
- the program adds the RSS Feed Tags and generates the RSS Feed file.

----------------

Here is one basic service called RSS Headliner.
http://www.webdevtips.com/webdevtips/codegen/rss.shtml

You enter the basic information (title, description, link) into the website
- The website adds the XML RSS Feed Tags and generates the RSS Feed.
- You must cut-and-paste the code into the RSS Feed file and
- FTP or Upload the RSS Feed to the server

----------------------

The best product I have seen is FeedForAll (http://www.feedforall.com).
- It is a program that is downloaded.
- It is a complete package for creating and maintaining RSS Feeds.
- It costs $39.95.
- There is a free 30 day trial period.

It works like this:

- There is a RSS Feed tab so you can select any of multiple RSS Feeds to
work on.
- There is an RSS Item tab where you can add or edit RSS Feed Items.
- The first page allows entry of title, description, and link.
- The second page allows entry of optional elements like author, copyright,
and date.

You provide the title, description, and link, and the program does the rest.

FeedForAll includes an FTP product, so you can upload the RSS Feed file
directly to the server. To create a new RSS Feed Item for an existing RSS
Feed, upload it, and make it available takes 10 - 15 minutes.

However, this product is designed to do multiple feeds on a regular basis.
It might be overkill for one RSS Feed updated infrequently.

----------------------

My recommendations:

1) If you can, just create the RSS Feed file manually.
2) If you need help with the RSS Feed Tags, use RSS Headliner to generate
the RSS Feed Tags and cut-and-paste into an RSS Feed file.
3) If you maintain multiple feeds with frequent updates, use FeedForAll.
4) If you want the coolest product, use FeedForAll.

-----------------------

# posted by Les Bain @ 8:29 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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We have been discussing how to create an RSS feed from your website
manually. There are all sorts of programs that are available to create
Feeds from your website.

Some read the website and create an RSS Feed for each webpage, and create
the RSS Feed as follows

- RSS Item title = webpage Title
- RSS Item description = webpage Description Meta Tag
- RSS Item link = webpage URL

Some using the technique known as "scraping" or "screen scraping", which is
reading a website or webpage screen or HTML and trying to make intelligent
decisions about what should be in an RSS Feed.

For each program in this category, they read the website or webpage and
create the RSS Feed.

But lets review. The two characteristics of a website RSS Feed.
- It is just the headline or an announcement that brings people to the
webpage
- It is a "what's new" feature for the website

Each of those characteristics means that it is probably going to take manual
intervention to make the programs work.
- If you are using the RSS Feed to announce a new article, you want to
decide how much of the article is enough to entice someone to click and read
the entire article.
- If you are using the RSS Feed to introduce a new product, you want to
decide what should be in the RSS Feed to entice people to come to the
website, review the product, and potentially buy the product.
- If you are using the RSS Feed to announce a meeting or event, you want to
include enough to bring people to the website and have them review the
details of the event or meeting.

All-in-all, I do not recommend any program, product, or system that reads
the website or webpage to try to figure out what should be on the RSS Feed.

Next topic: What I do recommend.

Les Bain
Wizard Creek Consulting
http://www.wizard-creek.com

# posted by Les Bain @ 1:49 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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Creating an RSS Feed manually - notes.

--------------

- It is certainly easy enough to create a RSS Feed for your website
manually. New technology always has a learning curve, but the format of the
XML file is straightforward.
- We only used the necessary elements to create the RSS Feed example, but it
is certainly functional.
- The real issue is to match the dynamic RSS Feed to a static Website.
- For some, coding the RSS Feed manually takes away all the mystery.

---------------

You can use CSS to format your RSS Feed.

- See http://www.wizard-creek.com/rss/rss-class-example-2.xml
If you click on this file, you see the XML code.

- Now click on http://www.wizard-creek.com/rss/rss-class-example-3.xml
It is the same file with CSS added.
Example 3 has one additional line.
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="rss-feed.css"?> that invokes a CSS
file.

- The CSS File is http://www.wizard-creek.com/rss/rss-feed.css

- It is questionable the value of using CSS to format an RSS Feed, because
an RSS Feed is designed to be read by computer and not by humans, but it can
be done.

---------------

There are two more posts to finish up this advanced topic.
- Using programming to create feeds.
- Using products to create feeds.

# posted by Les Bain @ 3:16 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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Here is my sample RSS Feed. At this point, it describes just the channel.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>RSS Class</title>
<link>http://www.wizard-creek.com</link>
<description>RSS Class: lessons, illustrations, examples and
images.</description>
</channel>
</rss>

We are now going to add an RSS Feed Item.
RSS Feed Items are described with
- title,
- description and
- link.

The following is an example of an RSS Feed Item.

<title>Using RSS to create content</title>
<description>This is an example of creating a webpage using
RSS.</description>
<link>http://www.wizard-creek.com/cio-resources.php</link>

To show that it is an item, we wrap it in <item> tags.

<item>
<title>Using RSS to create content</title>
<description>This is an example of creating a webpage using
RSS.</description>
<link>http://www.wizard-creek.com/cio-resources.php</link>
</item>

It is now added to the RSS Feed file. The RSS example feed now looks like
this.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>RSS Class</title>
<link>http://www.wizard-creek.com</link>
<description>RSS Class: lessons, illustrations, examples and
images.</description>

<item>
<title>Using RSS to create content</title>
<description>This is an example of creating a webpage using
RSS.</description>
<link>http://www.wizard-creek.com/cio-resources.php</link>
</item>

</channel>
</rss>

The RSS Feed file is sent to the server, and the first RSS Feed Item is
available to the Internet. You can use FrontPage or DreamWeaver to do the
entire process of course. You can also use Notepad and any FTP product.

The result is this RSS Feed:
http://www.wizard-creek.com/rss/rss-class-example-2.xml

# posted by Les Bain @ 12:03 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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The last post we discussed how to create an RSS feed. I provided a
barebones but fully functional outline for an RSS Feed for a website. Here
it is.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>the feed title</title>
<link>the website url</link>
<description>the feed description</description>
</channel>
</rss>

The Title, Link, and Description describe the feed. There are more optional
parameters like author, copyright, and date.

Review: To create a feed
- Create a text file with the extension of xml
- Copy and past the lines above
- Fill in the blanks for title, link and description
- FTP the text file to a server
- and people can start subscribing to your feed.
Example: http://www.wizard-creek.com/rss/rss-class.xml

To update the Feed, we add information for items.
- An item is like an entry, a post.
- A channel may contain any number of items.
- An item for a website is a headline or summary of what is on the website,
and
- The item points back to the website for the full story.

The process is this
- Add one or more items
- FTP the text file back to the server

The RSS Feed aggregators will find the new items and deliver them to your
subscribers.

Next Post: Describing Feed Items

# posted by Les Bain @ 11:22 AM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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If you are following along with the lessons, you have created a basic RSS
Feed for your website.

------------------------------

You should validate the feed.
- http://feedvalidator.org/ and validate the feed
- if you use Firefox and have the Web Developer Toolbar,
then display the feed and on the Web Developer Toolbar - Tools | Validate
Feed

The feed that you created should validate.

-------------------------------

There still seems to be a problem with adding feeds to My Yahoo.

If you are having trouble with My Yahoo, you should find a new RSS feed
reader to use for this exercise.

-------------------------------

# posted by Les Bain @ 11:17 AM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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Today: Coding a feed for your website.

OK. Let's create an RSS Feed for your website. If you follow along, you
will have a working RSS Feed for your website at the end of this lesson.
This is not a drill (smile). This will be an actual working RSS feed on the
internet.

- It can be used by you from now on to make updates.
- Others can subscribe to your RSS Feed.
- It will be fully functional.

1) Decide on a title for the feed. My website is Wizard Creek Consulting
(http://www.wizard-creek.com). The feed I decided to do was for this class,
so my feed title is "RSS Class". A website can have more than one feed.

2) Use Notepad, FrontPage or any other text editor to make a text file.
Name it using your title dot xml. My file is named rss-class.xml. Use
hyphens, not spaces or underlines.

3) Add the following to the file. The commands specify that this is an XML
file, that it is RSS 2.0, and that it has a channel or feed. Everyone should
have the identical statements here. (Feel free to cut and paste of course).

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
</channel>
</rss>

4) Add three statements after <channel> to describe the feed: title, url and
description.

<title>the feed title</title>
<link>website url</link>
<description>feed description</description>

Example of complete feed:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>RSS Class</title>
<link>http://www.wizard-creek.com</link>
<description>RSS Class: lessons, illustrations, examples and
images.</description>
</channel>
</rss>

5) FTP this to your server. You can use any FTP product. I recommend you
use a folder for RSS because you might have more feeds, but it is not
required. Mine is http://www.wizard-creek.com/rss/rss-class.xml

Notes:
- It is now a working RSS feed.
- There are no entries yet. That is the next lesson.
- This is an advanced class, but I can provide some help if you are
struggling.

Let me make a strong suggestion. This is optional but it could be fun.

If you have created this feed,
- respond to this post and tell us the URL of your feed.
- subscribe to the feeds of others that respond
- subscribe to your own feed
- I will subscribe to the feed of everyone that responds

Next post we will start to add items / entries, and those that have
subscribed will start to see feed entries in their feed readers.

# posted by Les Bain @ 2:13 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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Topic: Creating an RSS feed from your website - how to create and manage
your own feed.

Today: What's New?

RSS Feeds are a "what's new" mechanism. RSS Feeds are a way of sending a
"what's new" message so the recipient knows it is time to revisit the
website.

"What's new" is perfect for a blog, because a blog is a serial set of
entries. The latest post is the "what's new".

But how does that work with a website? Some websites are relatively static.
Some websites are online brochures that do not change much. How does a RSS
Feed work for that kind of website? The answer is simple - it does not. If
you have a static website that does not undergo change, there is no reason
to have a feed.

What if you wanted to add a regular post and then generate a feed? I would
recommend that you consider creating a blog and letting the blog create the
RSS feed.

The RSS Feed does not fit every website.

The "what's new" does not have to be regular or frequent. I subscribe to
RSS Feeds from software sites that inform me when there is a new software
version release. I might get 1 or 2 RSS feed items in a year.

Unlike a blog where some regular updating is recommended, a feed only has to
be sent when there is something new. That could be as little as once or
twice in a year, or for a news feed, it could be every hour.

To create a feed for a website, you must first determine what the feed will
be posting. What is going to be the included in the "What's new?".

What are some examples of feeds from websites?
- The daily menu from a cafeteria website.
- New product announcements.
- Notice of a sale.
- Seasonal announcement
- Invitation to a special event.
- Notification of a new article.
- News story headline
- Sports score
- New software release

The goal is to have the "What's New" of sufficient interest for the
subscriber to follow the link and come back to the website.

Assignment: Is a feed appropriate for your website? What would be the
nature of the feed?

Next topic: Creating the feed.

# posted by Les Bain @ 12:18 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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Creating a feed from your website is a new and more advanced topic. I
assume everyone will self regulate whether the topic is appropriate for
them.

Topic: Creating an RSS feed from your website - how to create and manage
your own feed.

Outline:
- Differences in website and blog feeds.
- Creating feeds from a website: manually, scraping, programming, and
products.
- How to manually create a feed.
- How to write a program to create a feed - overview and resources.
- How to use a product to create a feed from your website.

Today: Let's do some thinking about feeds and websites and blogs.

RSS feeds for a website are designed to do headlines, to do a tease, to get
people to select a link and to go to the website. A website RSS feed is an
advertisement for the full webpage or the full website. The RSS feed
always contains a link back to a website.

An RSS feed for a website is like a movie preview. The movie preview shows
just enough of the movie to make the person want to see the movie.

The feed for your website is a notice or announcement that brings people
back to your website. The goal of the website RSS feed is to entice the
subscriber to click the link and come to your website. The goal is for the
RSS feed to bring visitors back to the website.

It is not the same for a blog. If the blog entry is short, the subscriber
may very well just read the feed and not go to the actual blog entry. I
read many RSS Feeds from blogs where I rarely, if ever, go to the actual
blog. Some subscribers never go to the actual blog. One reads the feed.
That is all.

For a blog, the feed is to alert the subscriber that a new blog post was
written. If the RSS feed subscriber is up-to-date on the blog, all the
subscriber cares about is the latest blog entry. The subscriber does not
care about the rest of the blog.

For a website, you want to bring the visitor back to the website where the
visitor can purchase a product, review your services, read your latest
article, or get acquainted with your business. Each RSS feed entry is
another invitation to come back to the website.

Next post: More discussion about website RSS feeds.

Les Bain

# posted by Les Bain @ 3:22 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
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