Another month has flown by and it’s time for another ‘around the web’ blog post. A post where I listed contributions elsewhere on the web that are not work related.
Quit your Day Job
Guest post: Andrew on Quantum Leap
Reading by Candlelight
Book Review: Cowboy Angels – Paul McAuley
Book Review: Crux – Albert E. Cowdrey
Small Business Tech
Recently I posted a very simple php code on the downloads page that changes a website image based on the month or season. A very simple piece of php code, but thought either novices or people not interested in tinkering with php would find it helpful.
The code finds out the month from the web server and then shows an image associated with that month. Instead of the usual static img src in your html code, the php makes the decision.
So how could this be used? Ideal if you want to have a website template header image to reflect a month or season. A business could use it to change an image on a front page promoting a different category each month and so on.
You can find it over on the downloads page.
So I’ve placed a few RSS feeds into the right column on this blog. One of these being for guest posts I write. So people visiting the blog can easily see my latest posts elsewhere.
Now I was going to use yahoo pipes to create the rss feed, but their site wasn’t working when I visited, so I’ve taken a temporary route until I revisit their site. So expect a post at a later date with my yahoo pipes solution or my own coded “less hassle involved” solution.
So here is what I originally wanted:
To create a RSS feed from a file on my server, add some star dust (php code on my site) , say a few magic words (yahoo pipes) and turn this into a RSS feed.
What I actually did:
Wrote the RSS file whilst drinking a mug of tea and chucked it into Google Feedburner. It took five minutes and then I went and crashed on the couch to read.
Benefits of Google Feedburner?
Google feedburner takes a RSS feed and then can present people with a RSS feed more suitable to their requirements. Plus you can view stats, turning email subscription options on, add adsense… okay I didn’t want any of that.
So currently I need to write a new entry in my own rss file for google feedburner to automatically add to it’s own rss file. At a later date when I do look at Yahoo Pipes or code together my own solution, I can just update what Google Feedburner uses and anyone subscribed won’t notice the change or have to fiddle about with a new RSS feed.
Create your own rss file:
1. Using a text editor like notepad++ create a file called feeds.rss
2. Paste the following:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″ ?>
<rss version=”2.0″>
<channel>
<title>Title of your feed</title>
<description>Description of your feed</description>
<link>http://www.yourwebsite.com</link>
<item>
<title>Title of the Blog post</title>
<description>A snippet of the contents of the blog post. A few sentences perhaps.</description>
<link>Link to the blog post.</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 22 May 2010</pubDate>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
3. Change the contents to your requirements and then every time you need to add a new RSS entry create a new <item></item> section above the last.
4. Then optionally add this rss file to Google Feedburner or Yahoo Pipes for further formatting etc if required.
Takes a 1-2 minutes to update your own rss file from now on. Not ideal, but okay for a stop gap.
Today the Space shuttle Atlantis launches possibly for the last time, 25 years after it’s first launch. If you’ve never seen one of the current batch of Nasa space shuttles launch, then your time is running out before they are decommissioned.
Launching shuttles unsurprisingly is an expensive process and this morning the mission management team gave the go ahead to fill the external tank with 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The launch is scheduled for 2:20pm EDT (USA) which I believe is 7:20pm GMT (UK). To see the countdown and find out the latest I’ve embedded spacevidcast below:
Also Nasa has their own television station which broadcasts online and that is available here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
You can expect the shuttle to reach the distance of twenty-two miles upwards roughly in just over two minutes. You can watch a previous mission called STS-131, which saw the Nasa shuttle Discovery launch below:
Related articles worth reading:
The last (planned) flight of space shuttle Atlantis
STS-132 LIVE: Tanking in work – MMT working no issues with Atlantis
#NASA: After 25 years & 115 million miles, Atlantis is now set for final mission