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]

Originally Posted by l0cke

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/profi...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]

Originally Posted by 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?

View your profile, it is there.

[Sorvoja]

Thanks Will.

[digitalpoint]

Originally Posted by 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?

It checks once an hour for new entries.

[flawebworks]

On the hour? Half hour?

...ducking.....

[digitalpoint]

15th minute (for now).