Andrew Emmett

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.

At the time of writing this post the Youtube service is down… or is it? Not entirely and thanks to http://techcrunch.com for pointing me in the direct you can still use it. Even though it says ‘Http/1.1 Service Unavailable’ when visit youtube.com you can still view videos via other pages. i.e. embedded and search. So to view the videos from my youtube channel you can click here: http://bit.ly/aJRC9T . This is a bit.ly link that takes you to a youtube search of my youtube username.

So you can sit back and be bored to death by my homemade videos. Else you can always use the search box at the top of that page and search youtube for other videos to watch. Just don’t click on my or anyone elses channel pages until youtube resolve the problem.

The latest build of nanoCMS Community, a nifty flat file content management system contains my Sunset template (theme). However for those using an earlier version of nanoCMS such as 0.4 or nanoCMS Community build 0.5 (winter alpha) you can use it also and download it here.  Plus it doesn’t take much time to modify this theme for other cms’s or even dare I say it…. a static site.

This template is free for personal and business use. However please leave the copyright notice, credit and link for me in the footer.

Please subscribe to this blog via the RSS feed or via email for further template posts and for my other posts.

Enjoy

Download link: Sunset Template for nanoCMS Community (88)