Here's a RSS Primer geared toward publishers and content providers:
The main benefits of creating an RSS feeds include;
- RSS is an excellent and cost-effective way of driving traffic to, and increasing brand awareness of, any website that publishes content (e.g news, jobs, events) regularly. Once a publisher produces an RSS file, they are enabling others to syndicate their headlines, without any further work on their part.
- RSS is the dominant format for distributing headline content on the Web.
- RSS allows easy sharing of data between sites. Webmasters can use an RSS file to easily incorporate third party content into their own site.
- Content from RSS feeds can be easily repurposed allowing, for example, cross searching of a number of different feeds at once.
- RSS content can be added to personal desktop news reading applications like Feedreader or AmphetaDesk
It also offers a good summary of key points about RSS:
- The use of RSS benefits everyone involved - for publishers and content providers details of new content can be accessed by a much broader audience, for web site producers new content can be easily integrated into web sites or portals, and for end users easy access to new content is greatly facilitated.
- An RSS file (also known as an RSS feed or RSS channel) consists of a list of items, each of which contains a title, description and a link to a web page. Typically the full content itself is made available separately and can be accessed by the link in the RSS file.
- Utilising an RSS feed is straightforward. Once an RSS file is made available on a web site, interested parties can simply gather the file from the site and reuse the content in a variety of ways.
- There are a number of different versions of RSS. Although this has led to some confusion and debate it is not a major issue as almost all RSS applications can handle any RSS version.
- RSS can stand for 'Rich Site Summary', 'RDF Site Summary' or 'Really Simple Syndication' depending on who you ask and which version they are speaking about.
- RSS is an XML based format. If you already know a bit about HTML and XML then RSS will be a breeze!
...via The Shifted Librarian
Toyota is bringing out a car that will parallel park itself:
Toyota has rigged its hybrid Prius model with special gear to accomplish the feat. It uses a rear-mounted camera and a computer program to perform the task, consistently making a perfect reverse park without the driver touching the wheel, said Toby Hagon, an editor of The Age, who test-drove the vehicle.
...via Gizmodo
HBS Working Knowledge provides some tips on project planning:
Wired News has an article on the rapid adoption of news aggregators.
Common Craft has an article on How I Would Implement Weblogs in Business:
However, Weblogs offer an opportunity to break away from controlling the message and allow businesses to build relationships via people with real voices on a web site- voices that represent the brand and the message in new ways.
...via elearningpost
There's an interesting discussion (Dan's blog post and the ensuing comments) on Microsoft and security issues at Dan Gillmor's weblog
Hossein Derakhshan has a recent blog post on how peer to peer news readers can help fight censorship:
Imagine a peer-to-peer news reader that not only syndicates RSS files, but also downloads them and share them with other users. So you'll never be blocked to access any piece of information as long as you have access to this peer-to-peer software. It could even be implemented in the browser or added as a plug-in for an existing newsreader.
Jonathan Zittrain writes about the copyright cage at Legal Affairs.
Copyright law was relatively simple when first enacted--don't publish a lot of copies of someone else's stuff. Since then, copyright restrictions have grown into twisted arcane labyrinths:
The limits on behavior enumerated in Title 17 have gone far beyond the wholesale copying of books, maps, and charts covered by the first copyright act of 1790. They extend to computer software, dances, boat hulls (delineated in a 1998 amendment as"the frame or body of a vessel including the deck of a vessel, exclusive of masts, sails, yards, and rigging"), and music—Congress covered performances in 1909 and copies of sound recordings in 1971. What the public can and can't do is described at a level of detail worthy of the most byzantine tax code.For example, bars and restaurants that measure no more than 3,750 square feet (not including the parking lot, as long as the parking lot is used exclusively for parking purposes) can contain no more than four TVs (of no more than 55 inches diagonally) for their patrons to watch, as long as there is only one TV per room. The radio can be played through no more than six loudspeakers, with a limit of four per room, unless the restaurant in question is run by "a governmental body or a nonprofit agricultural or horticultural organization, in the course of an annual agricultural or horticultural fair or exhibition conducted by such body or organization." Then it's OK to use more speakers.
Individual use, however, has until now remained largely untouched. Public copying has traditionally been restrained convenience and conscience. But that has also changed with the introduction of the Internet.
The fact is that the Internet was built to copy things. Microsoft Windows's "Network Neighborhood" feature, for example, is simply a way to swap files. Almost every software application that capitalizes on this central functionality is therefore a Kinko's of sorts, and decreeing all search-and-copy software to be illegal is simply too sweeping a move for a court to make.
Current actions by the RIAA and proposals for draconian laws criminalizing casual copying emphasize the 'broken' nature of the current collection of copyright and intellectual property legislation and court rulings. None of this, though, means that some sort of copyright protection isn't essential:
YES, I HATE THE EFFECTS OF COPYRIGHT ON A DIGITAL REVOLUTION that heralds so much more than the banal ripping off of CD tracks. I hate that creativity is metered and parceled to its last ounce of profit. I hate that our technology is hobbled beyond its paper and other analog counterparts so that it permits us to view but not print, listen but not share, read once but not lend, consume but not create. But I can hate this situation without believing that the idea of copyright is fundamentally flawed. The framers' vision of intellectual property (then known as "monopolies") called for built-in limits to a creator's exclusive rights. A copyright term, for example, would expire even if a work still held commercial value....
I pay my taxes. I have no idea how to calculate them, but I do what Turbotax tells me to. I'll pay a copyright tax, too, and willingly support artists whose work I appreciate, because it's the right thing to do and because it guarantees that more work will be made available to me. I'm not alone. So: Let's imagine a world in which Teddy Ruxpin can say whatever he wants, where kids can play with computers that are not digitally locked down, where bars and restaurants can stop measuring their TVs and their parking lots, and where amateur webcasters can create thousands of radio stations featuring songs we like, perhaps ones that sound familiar but that have new elements to them. We'll still buy concert tickets, books, and CDs and their digital descendants. They'll be competing with a lot more, though—created for fun, even if it happens to turn a profit.
Macromedia now has FlashPaper which allows you to share any printable document as an integrated part of a webpage.
...via elearningpost
The FCC is now providing public wireless access. There is no login or registration information required:
The system uses the 802.11a and 802.11b protocols, commonly referred to as WiFi. The Commission will be unable to provide technical support, and all transactions using this service are the responsibility of the visitor. At present, the FCC will not request personal identifying information prior to allowing access to the wireless network. If requested by outside authorities, however, the FCC will provide data from system audit logs to support external investigations of improper Internet use.
...via BoingBoing
WebMonkey writes on Metadata, Mark II:
So having a metadata-rich Web wouldn’t just improve our user experience as we search and surf the Web, but it would also augment the ability for "robots" or software agents to collect and process information on our behalf.When people talk about the "Semantic" Web adding meaning to the Web, it’s not really for you and me — you and I generally understand whatever we're reading, and know which links we need to click to get certain tasks done — it’s about adding meaning that machines can process and navigate.
...via elearningpost
The Nebraska Library Association has an interesting article on Putting together a Public Computer for Spanish Speaking Patrons
...via The Shifted Librarian
Marylaine Block has a good article on Creating your niche on the net. It's geared toward libraries, but has a lot to say to other service organizations, like Extension:
Think about what we did right after September 11: we put up web pages that consolidated many different kinds of information, including some that most people wouldn't have even thought to look for. We linked in news stories (both from the US and abroad), contact information for charities, schedules of local memorials, maps, articles, and backgrounders on terrorism and Islam and the middle East.We could do the same for other pressing local issues for our community or company or school. Finance is a tough issue for everybody right now, and we have access to a wider variety of information and news than anybody else has, about state and federal funding, grant and training opportunities, and good ideas others in our situation have implemented. We could bring that all together on one web page, or blog or e-mail newsletter, and update it daily. If there's a major local controversy, we could post background information and links to news stories, position papers and interviews by the people involved, a discussion board where citizens could post their questions and opinions, maybe even a library-sponsored webcast. (In fact I assume at least some California libraries are already providing extensive information on their web sites to help voters make decisions about the recall petition.)
Phil Windley also has an interesting article on enabling web services which talks about some of the basics of setting up web services. He also has a recent blog entry on the power of web enabled data sources.
WebServices.Org has an interview with Even Maler of Sun Microsystems on the future of web services security:
Q: What should businesses and IT professionals know about the status of Web services security right now?Web services are currently being secured in very traditional ways, to the extent that they're being secured at all. Web services on the Internet, as opposed to behind a firewall, might be secured with HTTPS SSL mechanisms, which are quite common in online individual purchase transactions. It does a fairly good job of protecting the contents of the message while in transit. However, in more complex Web services scenarios, this solution won't always be adequate. If many intermediaries are transacting with the messages as they go from initial sender A to ultimate receiver B, the simple SSL solution might not be adequate. The standards are not cooked yet for securing the content of the message and the channel in all the ways that people would want.
...via Phil Windley