Latest Blog Entry In Signatures

[digitalpoint]

I did a quick 5 minute hack this morning that shows my latest blog entry in my signature.

Right now, it's limited to just me, since the blog is on the same sub-net as the forum. Going out and grabbing everyone's blog entries dynamically would slow the forum down unnecessarily.

But I'm curious what everyone thinks about it... With a little work, I could set it up so others could use it (maybe instead of the signature, show it under the username when viewing a post or something).

Allowing others to do it would not be "realtime", as I would setup a cron job to run every few hours to grab everyone's latest entries so they can be cached on the server-side and not slow down the forum.

[Sorvoja]

It is a nice idea Shawn.

I would like to have my latest blog entries in my signature instead of the normal signature.

[l0cke]

Nice work! I like the idea of placing it under the username. Are you parsing atom.xml?

[digitalpoint]

Yep... getting it via the XML feed.

[mxlabs]

I love it. As soon as I get my blog online I definately want to use it.

[Kings]

That'd be pretty neat.

[Sorvoja]

I like the idea of placing it under the username.

Even better.

[NewComputer]

I think it is a great idea. What kind ofload would that put on your server(s) if we all had a blog?

[Sorvoja]

There are 1,345 members, fetching 1345 xml files a few times every day would not put any noteworthy stress on any server.

[digitalpoint]

Wouldn't be much load because would just setup a cron job to run every few hours to grab the XML feeds.

[mxlabs]

hmm wouldnt it be possible to just make 1 cronjob and run a script which calculates how likely it is that there is a new post to blogABC based on the latest x posts?
a blog which is updated several times daily could have a "refresh rate" of 2 hours while a nearly inactive blog could be refreshed every 2 days.

if we're talking about up to 1300 blogs, it'd be less stress for your server and a bit less transfer for ours this way ;)

[mopacfan]

The blog idea is kind of neat, considering I just created a few myself. It took forever to get the ftp issues resolved (it was a firewall problem preventing passive ftp). I say go for it (and I like mxlabs idea too) :)

[digitalpoint]

Okay, it's done... You can add your blog's XML feed URL at:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/profile.php?do=editoptions

Currently Blogger and Movable Type feeds are supported.

Server checks hourly for new entries and updates them internally.

[NewComputer]

Great work again Shawn.

[Sorvoja]

Hi Shawn,

It doesn't seem it be working properly. I did the change in the forum options and wrote a new entry in my blog some hours ago, and I do not see any changes. What can I have done wrongly?

[l0cke]

Hi Shawn,

It doesn't seem it be working properly. I did the change in the forum options and wrote a new entry in my blog some hours ago, and I do not see any changes. What can I have done wrongly?View your profile, it is there.

[Sorvoja]

Thanks Will.

[digitalpoint]

Hi Shawn,

It doesn't seem it be working properly. I did the change in the forum options and wrote a new entry in my blog some hours ago, and I do not see any changes. What can I have done wrongly?
It checks once an hour for new entries.

[flawebworks]

On the hour? Half hour?

...ducking.....

[digitalpoint]

15th minute (for now). :)

[vinyl]

Splendid work - it accepts RSS1.0-only, right? I think I tried 0.9/2.0/Atom 1.3 without any results.

[digitalpoint]

It's not feed type specific, but at this point it's blog specific. Blogger XML feeds are Atom based, the Movable Type feed it uses is RSS 2.0, etc.

[vinyl]

Hmmm, it works for me only for 1.0 - and I dont use neither Blogger neither MovableType :] Thats the reason why I thought it has something to do with RSS types.

[digitalpoint]

Beats me... never tried it with anything else. I'm guessing whatever XML feed format you are using, it happens to be the same as what it's looking for when looking for Blogger or MT feeds. :)

[SENewbie]

Great idea Shawn! Time to jump on the blogging bandwagon :cool:

[piniyini]

Guys pardon me for asking but whats a cron job?

And Shawn, I like the way you think

[GuyFromChicago]

Shawn - great idea as always.

Thanks for offering another way (and free to boot) for your users to promote their work.

[digitalpoint]

Guys pardon me for asking but whats a cron job?

And Shawn, I like the way you think
Cron is a unix method for triggering repeating processes (like checking for new blog entries).

If you are really bored, you can read about it...

http://www.hmug.org/man/5/crontab.html

[Help Desk]

Good Idea, good implementation.

[Such Great Heights]

I agree that this is a good idea, and I setup my blog to do it, I never had titles before, but now I do. Geez what a simple idea.

Good Jorb (http://www.homestarrunner.com/)! :p

[Doogles]

My first post here, so Hello to one and all. Seems like a pleasant, knowledgeable crew here. Looking forward to the discussions.

I like the full-feature editor. How does one add or change the signature. I guess that is in the UserCP somewhere?

[digitalpoint]

It's in the UserCP, but only available once you have 10+ posts.

[Doogles]

Thanks Shawn. That was certainly a quick response. Much obliged. 2 down, 8 posts to go.

[ViciousSummer]

I've noticed that many people have signed up for a blog, seemingly because DigitalPoint has offered this feature...I just thought that was kind of funny :p

[digitalpoint]

Yeah, including you it seems. ;)

[Lever]

What gives you that idea, Summer? Is it 'cos most peoples' blogs seem to start around the last week of August? I know mine does LOL :D

[ViciousSummer]

Of course I got a blog...Arn't little sisters supposed to copy whatever their big brothers do?! :D I didn't even exactly know what a blog was until last week...haha.

I thought it was pretty funny though...everyone in forum starting a blog around the same time :p

[ViciousSummer]

Well, in the short time I had a blog, I managed to "break" it... :p

I switched my blog from http://viciousenterprises.blogspot.com to http://www.viciousenterprises.com/summersblog , but when I changed the blog XML feed url (to: http://www.viciousenterprises.com/summersblog/atom.xml ) in the forum, it no longer shows my latest blog.

Does any one have any ideas on what I did wrong?!

[l0cke]

Well, in the short time I had a blog, I managed to "break" it... :p

I switched my blog from http://viciousenterprises.blogspot.com to http://www.viciousenterprises.com/summersblog , but when I changed the blog XML feed url (to: http://www.viciousenterprises.com/summersblog/atom.xml ) in the forum, it no longer shows my latest blog.

Does any one have any ideas on what I did wrong?!Is the 'Publish Site Feed' option selected in the Blogger Site Feed setup screen? Also where is it publishing the atom.xml file to?

[digitalpoint]

You aren't publishing your XML feed (404 if you look at the URL), so as l0cke mentioned, I would check your path that you are publishing it to.

[ViciousSummer]

Hmmmmm...I thought I fixed it, but it's still not showing. the XML feed is here: http://www.viciousenterprises.com/summersblog/atom.xml and that's the url I put in the forums blog option, but it's still not working...weird!

[TopSpin]

These days it seems like everyone has a blog - and many have more than one blog, though I wonder exactly how much they contribute to the overall success of SEO projects... does one focus an individual blog on one set of 'key words'? Or does it help multiple SEO projects by using the same blog, but different posts with different links?

[digitalpoint]

Hmmmmm...I thought I fixed it, but it's still not showing. the XML feed is here: http://www.viciousenterprises.com/summersblog/atom.xml and that's the url I put in the forums blog option, but it's still not working...weird!
It's because you are still retarded. It was the exact same problem you had here:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=26304#post26304

[schlottke]

that is quite a problem shawn, because that post doesnt even exist!

[digitalpoint]

Opps... fixed. :)

[ViciousSummer]

Go figure :D ...So if my DNS is wrong, what should it be?

[digitalpoint]

You can leave it how it is now I suppose.

[DarrenC]

Excellent idea Shawn - I've also just set up my first blog! :D

Darren

[Rob]

I think its a great idea.

[Geir]

I agree, a very good idea.
I have enjoyed reading some of the entries from otehr members here, so I decided to set up a little blog as well...

:) Geir

[Extranet Guy]

I was just about to ask how to do this, and then just figured it out. Thanks for adding this Shawn!

[Doogles]

Yes, such a good idea (after reading Mom's Cat is a Slut) that my pusses may decide to switch over to a blog. They have a website now at www.pussicle.com (http://www.pussicle.com/) but Pussicle thinks a blog might be more fun and easier to maintain.

[photo heather]

Yes, cool idea! It made me go out and get a blog too!! :D

[Rob]

The note says this works only with Movable Type and Blogger - how about standard RSS feeds? I am using Wordpress, and have entered the RSS URL, but so far, no blog article links are showing up.

[digitalpoint]

Maybe at some point when I get around to it... :)

[Danno]

Thanks for getting Wordpress working on you site. I'm glad to have stumbled across this forum as I have learned a ton ... unfortunately, I'm not getting many zzzz's as I'm reading though all this stuff trying to find (and remember!) all the golden nuggets that are lying about.

Danno

[Refrozen]

I think it would be cool in the signature, or under the post instead of under the name.. just my opinion.

[Refrozen]

Also, why not just have it parse the < link > parameter, so that this feed: http://www.refrozen.com/rnews.xml works, instead of oddly linking to http://www.www.refrozen.com/ it gets the title, but it breaks on the URL, what tag do Ineed the URL in to please it?

[Refrozen]

Never mind, I'll hack my RSS feed to work with your code. 8-)
Wahoo, my "blog" is news. :D

[dchoe]

i'm not using one of the mentioned blogging tools, but does it not work with standard rss 2.0?

[digitalpoint]

It only works with the listed blogs.

[dchoe]

can you pm me how you parse it so i can hack my rss?

[digitalpoint]

What blog software are you using?

[dchoe]

pmachine..

[digitalpoint]

Never heard of it... I guess you could make your RSS feed look like any of the supported blog's and it should be fine.

[dchoe]

ah.. so i guess you are only parsing ATOM feeds?

[digitalpoint]

For Blogger blogs, yes.

[dchoe]

ah.. it's not real-time.. is the cronjob still once an hour?

[digitalpoint]

It updates immediately when you put the URL in... then once an hour.

[dchoe]

cool.. i'm still trying to get my feed to work.. do i have to make a new post or does it propagate back to all my previous posts

[dakar]

I gave up trying to hack my phpBB Blog's RSS feeds to conform, so started another using WordPress... but no joy...

The feed addy should be http://blog.captivereefing.com/wp-rss2.php right? Or am I doing something stupid again?

[digitalpoint]

Not sure, I've never used WordPress.

[dakar]

Go figger and for once in my life I actually tried to follow the provided instructions: :lol:

Taken from the CP - Options page
"Currently Blogger, Movable Type and WordPress blogs are supported."

Someone using WP want to jump in here and set me straight?

[dct]

Not sure what your problem is, I also use WordPress and it worked right out of the box. Your feed looks fine. You can compare it to mine at www.sagecroft.co.uk/wp-rss2.php and see if anything jumps out at you.

[SEbasic]

I've got a WP blog but I'm not running it on here, but loads of the members here are running WP and it is certianly working for them...

TwisterMC is the only other person I can think of right now, but I know for a fact that it does work for WP.

I looked at your RSS feed and it looked fine to me...

WordPress does output Atom and RDF feeds too. Maybe you should try those ...

Edit - I knew dcteam had one but I wasn't 100% sure... :rolleyes:

[dakar]

dcteam, the feeds look to be the same to me as well...

SE, Stock it supports half a dozen different RSS formats, I had no idea.... Thanks for the tip, maybe I should try RTFM more often. I'll try goofing around and waiting an hour or two and see if I can get one to actually be parsed properly.

Then for the real question, why am I fighting with this silly thing anyhows? Simple, it's there and it's not working so all else falls to the wayside until it bends to my will!

[maverick]

I think Digital, this will bring down the forum performance rapidly slow. Let them have the links to their blogs rather than the blog in signature. Juss my 2 cents.

[digitalpoint]

It doesn't hurt performance. The new entries are cached on my end with a separate process.

[maverick]

Then it sounds good, if the forum performance and speed remains intact. Thats a good idea to go with.

[flawebworks]

dcteam, the feeds look to be the same to me as well...

SE, Stock it supports half a dozen different RSS formats, I had no idea.... Thanks for the tip, maybe I should try RTFM more often. I'll try goofing around and waiting an hour or two and see if I can get one to actually be parsed properly.

Then for the real question, why am I fighting with this silly thing anyhows? Simple, it's there and it's not working so all else falls to the wayside until it bends to my will!


You need to add the url http://www.sagecroft.co.uk/wp-rss2.php to your dp control panel (forum) under options. I just added your feed to mine and it works fine. Go to usercp; then edit options and scroll down to the bottom where it says Blog XML Feed URL.

[dakar]

okay now try adding mine then... :) and see if that works...
blog.captivereefing.com/wp-rss2.php

[flawebworks]

Oops sorry bout that. Chalk it up to me having the flu and not paying attention.

Nope; it doesn't work. I tried:

blog.captivereefing.com/wp-rss2.php
captivereefing.com/blog/wp-rss2.php
www.blog.captivereefing.com/wp-rss2.php

Have you made any other tweaks/ addons to the blog that you forgot about? It should work.

[dakar]

Have you made any other tweaks/ addons to the blog that you forgot about? It should work.

Surprisingly no, i haven't touched it, actually just installed it Sunday, actually hosing company did (well, they call it that, they untarred the files into a directory and shot me a link to the install.php). Maybe I'd better grab a clean tarball and set it up somewhere else for myself, they might have goofed with it.

Other aggregators (sp) are parsing it just fine.... it's definately odd since it sure looks right.

[flawebworks]

I just went thrum moving my blog out of the root directory. What a nightmare...

I would definitely try a new install.

[pwaring]

I'm not using Wordpress but I copied the RSS feed layout from it for my custom blog which spits out an updated feed every hour on the hour. Any reason why it isn't working? My profile points to the correct URL and unless you're checking the generator comment I don't see how the system can tell the difference between a Wordpress one and another feed with the same format.

[nevetS]

it could be that it's checking an atom feed or a different version of an RSS feed. Compare your RSS to an actual wordpress one and see if there are any differences. I don't think Shawn wants to get into supporting 40 different blog programs, but with a little work you might be able to figure out what you need to do.

That is, unless it's actually checking to see if it's wordpress/moveable type/blogger.

[pwaring]

I thought it only used Atom for Blogger and RSS for the rest? Anyway, I've compared my RSS to an actual Wordpress one and there are no differences other than the generator tag (as I've already said, I used a Wordpress feed to figure out the structure because I didn't want to read the whole RSS spec just to repeat what someone has already done).

The whole idea of RSS is that it's (more or less) independent of what blogging system you're using - otherwise how do you expect programs like Firefox and Thunderbird to parse the feeds? It shouldn't make any difference what blogging tool you're using.

[dakar]

Finally got it figured out... after goofing with it for quite a while, new tarballs, new installs, different feed types and all that.... not sure why it wouldn't work right if the feed was at the root directory of the domain, but moved it to a subdirectory of the domain and it works fine

Thanks for the help.... now I'm off to find something else to break.

[dakar]

Shawn any chance you are willing to release the php source you wrote for this neat trick?

[dct]

Finally got it figured out...
About time :rolleyes: hope your going to blog about what you did :)

[dakar]

About time :rolleyes: hope your going to blog about what you did :)

hah.... that'd be as exciting as anything else I type into the silly thing.... it was more like something to do cause I hadn't yet. Now if I can weasel the code from Shawn.... then I'd have something to brag about.

[dct]

Its funny when I started my blog I thought what the hell am I going to write about, now I find I'm writing about all and sundry and I have no idea why.

[dakar]

The better half found out last night that her sister has been 'secretly keeping a blog behind her back' or something like that.... So I had to set one up for her now too....

[dct]

You may have shot your self in the foot there. I can support calls coming at you from very close range. :D

[dakar]

You may have shot your self in the foot there. I can support calls coming at you from very close range. :D

And this would be different from say yesterday how? LOL I'm on 24x7 support for the entire family, and work too....

[dchoe]

i still can't get mine to work for some reason... my structure seems to be about the same as others. i have tried rss 1.0 and 2.0. here are the links to them:
http://www.dchoe.com/index.xml
http://www.dchoe.com/index.rdf

thanks

[dakar]

The index.rdf doesn't seem to return anything at all.... but the index.xml looks closer, are you able to hack the way the the feed is generated? Maybe tweak it a little more to closely resemble the WP feed? Not that that will garuntee a fix.... another thing might be as simple as my issue, try moving the feed to a subdirectory and see if it works, not that I have any clue why that helped, but the script was then able to parse it properly...

[dchoe]

got it work... finally

thanks for the help. it wasn't a subdirectory issue, but for some reason, the parser was looking for <dc:date> rather than <pubDate>

[nevetS]

Strange. I'm changing my blog entry from wordpress to moveable type.

At first I tried http://www.bkweddings.com/index.xml <- my rss 2.0 feed. It didn't show anything right away, and I had previously updated that feed to have an image element, so I figured that's why it didn't work.

Then I tried http://www.bkweddings.com/index.rdf <- my rss 1.0 feed. It works, but it just links to my home page with the blog title. XML seems valid. Looks fine to me.

Then I tried http://www.bkweddings.com/atom.xml <- my atom feed. No workie.

So then I created a new feed: http://www.bkweddings.com/index2.rdf - using the out of the box rss 2.0 template updated to only show 2 entries (save us both 1k of bandwidth a month). No workie.

So then I updated it to show 15 entries just like it is out of the box... and no workie.

Wow. This is a tough one :D

So... My question is: For Movable Type Blogs, which feed should I be pointing to (rss 1.0, rss 2.0, or atom), and does the filename make a difference?

[digitalpoint]

The 1.0 feed (the one that worked) is the right one. It's supposed to go to your blog, not the individual post page.

[nevetS]

And magically it works. I rebuilt the 1.0 rss feed from the out of the box code. I must have made a minor change that tweaked things. Thanks Shawn!

[jorge]

it's a great idea..!!

what i still don't understand is why accepts only Blogger and MT... i mean, it is using RSS, a standard format, so why should the software that created the RSS be a limitation?
just curious :)

[dct]

Probably just what it has been tested with, it certainly works finr with WordPress, just give it a try with whatever package you have.

[digitalpoint]

One reason to not support "standard" RSS feeds is because it's not a "latest RSS feed entry", it's a "latest blog entry". So it's not for things like news sites, forums, etc.

[jorge]

I see... i'm using msn-spaces (i like their integration with messenger) so, i'm gonna have to wait, i guess :)

hmm... maybe you can accept standard RSS, but only when the host of the RSS's URL is a known blog site, like "spaces.msn.com"

there's an idea for quick validation

[chachi]

Looks like my blog entry has stopped displaying. Not sure if you did that or something else is at work.

[digitalpoint]

Nothing was changed on this end.

[chachi]

How often do you grab the feeds?

[digitalpoint]

Hourly (15th minute of the hour). It also does it immediately if you edit the feed URL in your profile.

[biggazillakilla]

Doesn't really matter to me, since my brand-new blog isn't too important to me yet.

But I have to say that I really admire your ability to implement these ideas. I wish I had your coding skills. :cool:

[chachi]

Hmmm, something is up. I am not sure if it has to do with the WMP song display. I shut down the TrackMonitor process as well as WMP10 and it is still displaying. I can see you grab the xml feed fine and the feed works (I quadroople checked). Do you think it is possible the track display is interfering with the blog post display?

[digitalpoint]

No, they are not related in any way. The only thing I can think of is maybe the feed format isn't recognized. What blog software are you using?

[chachi]

Blogger and WordPress. It has worked fine forever. I did not change anything and the only thing I did change today was integrating the music stuff, which is still displaying even though it has been turned off for 10 minutes and shut down.

You probably don't remember, but we are running a simple script that rotates the blogger and WP feeds here (http://www.sandiegoincomeproperty.com/cgi-bin/chachiblog.xml)

[digitalpoint]

Well it looks like it's working now. Did you change anything? (Nothing changed on this end).

[chachi]

I rebooted the machine, not sure why that would do anything, but I was concerned that the track is still displaying...which it still is after reboot and no WMP no TrackMonitor running.

[dct]

The track monitor can only report when it's running, it never used to report when nothing was playing (that is being fixed now) but it obviously can't report nothing when it's not running. That would have to be done by Shawn at the forum end by a timeout or something.

[chachi]

I only know what I saw. :)

I am happy to test anything out if you guys want/need me to, just let me know.

[dct]

I am happy to test anything out if you guys want/need me to, just let me know.
Shawn is skiving and has had the cheek to go to lunch, so if you could download from the same place and give it a whirl that would be great. Changes to test are:

Now has an autostart option
Should blank the "listening to" on the forum if your not listening but the programs still running
Error checking on the hash and user name
Auto hides the dialog at start up if hash has already been entered and is valid.

Cheers

[chachi]

Done.

After I ended the process I checked to see and there was no track displayed here. New version running now...appears to work fine.

[digitalpoint]

Shawn is skiving and has had the cheek to go to lunchSomeone has to feed that guy at least once a day, otherwise everything comes crumbling down. :)

[chachi]

Seriously. Did you get me something? I just realized it is 2:14 and the only thing I ate was some of the worst microwave popcorn I have ever had (Smart Balace FYI)

[digitalpoint]

I had Quizno's (http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/2004/11/quiznos-retarded-gerbils.html)... :)

[chachi]

Clearly you have not read this review (http://local.yahoo.com/details;_ylt=AmmCNXTJxwQTeugBfTXUq7qHNcIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBpZzIyMjd0BF9zAzk2NjEzNzY5BHNlYwNzcg--?id=20867212&state=CA&city=San+Diego&stx=ez+j+sandwiches&csz=San+Diego%2C+CA+92109&fr=moz2&uzip=92109&ed=HpLLxa131Dz5UmC20oKgy8Dbui5cSAJtCQ8B5.ECfnZqm8USeg--&lcscb=)

<edit>It used to be a lot longer :)</edit>