ANN: Anandtech Forums RSS Feed (i.e. "Offline" Viewing)

[Descartes]

I subscribe to many RSS feeds for all the websites/bloggers I read on a daily basis. I use Syndirella for my desktop aggregator because it's open source, thus free. I wanted the ability to view these forums in my aggregator, so I created a simple web application to do so. The link is:

http://cosgood.www2.dotnetplayground.com/rss.aspx?catid=n

Where n = the category id of the forum you want to read. For example, ATOT would be:

http://cosgood.www2.dotnetplayground.com/rss.aspx?catid=38

Those who don't know where/what the catid is probably won't care about an RSS feed anyway . Here is a screenshot of how I view the forums in my aggregator.

I know there have to be some RSS fans in here...

 

[MichaelD]

What are the advantages to doing it your way as opposed to just using a regular Joe Average browser like IE?

For me, your aggreggrator would be a major AGGRAVATOR.

*edit*
Obviously, I'm clueless to your world of Linux/FREEBSD/Unix/Publix/etc.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

What are you using to parse the forums into rss?

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
What are the advantages to doing it your way as opposed to just using a regular Joe Average browser like IE?

For me, your aggreggrator would be a major AGGRAVATOR.

*edit*
Obviously, I'm clueless to your world of Linux/FREEBSD/Unix/Publix/etc.

I read about 30 blogs/sites on a daily basis. I couldn't possibly try to track updates to each one, so I simply hit F5 in my aggregator. I can track as many sites as I want (provided that they have an RSS feed) without having to open a single browser...

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
What are you using to parse the forums into rss?

A C# class library with a simple ASP.NET frontend that delegates the catid chosen to the class library. I use the following regular expression to extrapolate the topics:

< *a +href *= *\"(messageview[^\"]+)\" class *= *\"ftalternatingbarlinksmall\" *>([^>]+)< */ *a *>

Not really optimized, but it matched correctly in all my tests. I then iterate through all the matches in the HTML and emit the appropriate XML tags for the RSS feed...

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: MichaelD
What are the advantages to doing it your way as opposed to just using a regular Joe Average browser like IE?

For me, your aggreggrator would be a major AGGRAVATOR.

*edit*
Obviously, I'm clueless to your world of Linux/FREEBSD/Unix/Publix/etc.

I read about 30 blogs/sites on a daily basis. I couldn't possibly try to track updates to each one, so I simply hit F5 in my aggregator. I can track as many sites as I want (provided that they have an RSS feed) without having to open a single browser...

Oh. OK, thanks! That actually makes sense. So basically, it's an applet that goes out to multiple sites simultaneously and checks for updates, and displays the updated pages onscreen? Kind of like the "Check for updates-automatically" setting in IE, except this is on "a grand scale?"

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
What are you using to parse the forums into rss?

A C# class library with a simple ASP.NET frontend that delegates the catid chosen to the class library. I use the following regular expression to extrapolate the topics:

< *a +href *= *\"(messageview[^\"]+)\" class *= *\"ftalternatingbarlinksmall\" *>([^>]+)< */ *a *>

Not really optimized, but it matched correctly in all my tests. I then iterate through all the matches in the HTML and emit the appropriate XML tags for the RSS feed...

Hmm, I'm sure Notfred will be along shortly to tell you the folly of your "incorrect code."

He'll reduce to "C:update"

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: MichaelD
What are the advantages to doing it your way as opposed to just using a regular Joe Average browser like IE?

For me, your aggreggrator would be a major AGGRAVATOR.

*edit*
Obviously, I'm clueless to your world of Linux/FREEBSD/Unix/Publix/etc.

I read about 30 blogs/sites on a daily basis. I couldn't possibly try to track updates to each one, so I simply hit F5 in my aggregator. I can track as many sites as I want (provided that they have an RSS feed) without having to open a single browser...

Oh. OK, thanks! That actually makes sense. So basically, it's an applet that goes out to multiple sites simultaneously and checks for updates, and displays the updated pages onscreen? Kind of like the "Check for updates-automatically" setting in IE, except this is on "a grand scale?"

Kinda. It doesn't really "check" for updates, it simply generates an XML document that conforms to the RSS standard from the HTML of each forum. It will render the RSS every time you access the page...

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: MichaelD
What are the advantages to doing it your way as opposed to just using a regular Joe Average browser like IE?

For me, your aggreggrator would be a major AGGRAVATOR.

*edit*
Obviously, I'm clueless to your world of Linux/FREEBSD/Unix/Publix/etc.

I read about 30 blogs/sites on a daily basis. I couldn't possibly try to track updates to each one, so I simply hit F5 in my aggregator. I can track as many sites as I want (provided that they have an RSS feed) without having to open a single browser...

Oh. OK, thanks! That actually makes sense. So basically, it's an applet that goes out to multiple sites simultaneously and checks for updates, and displays the updated pages onscreen? Kind of like the "Check for updates-automatically" setting in IE, except this is on "a grand scale?"

Kinda. It doesn't really "check" for updates, it simply generates an XML document that conforms to the RSS standard from the HTML of each forum. It will render the RSS every time you access the page...

You have used up all available memory (64Kb) in my small brain. I give you a BSOD and I go to bed. This one's over my head.

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: MichaelD
What are the advantages to doing it your way as opposed to just using a regular Joe Average browser like IE?

For me, your aggreggrator would be a major AGGRAVATOR.

*edit*
Obviously, I'm clueless to your world of Linux/FREEBSD/Unix/Publix/etc.

I read about 30 blogs/sites on a daily basis. I couldn't possibly try to track updates to each one, so I simply hit F5 in my aggregator. I can track as many sites as I want (provided that they have an RSS feed) without having to open a single browser...

Oh. OK, thanks! That actually makes sense. So basically, it's an applet that goes out to multiple sites simultaneously and checks for updates, and displays the updated pages onscreen? Kind of like the "Check for updates-automatically" setting in IE, except this is on "a grand scale?"

Kinda. It doesn't really "check" for updates, it simply generates an XML document that conforms to the RSS standard from the HTML of each forum. It will render the RSS every time you access the page...

You have used up all available memory (64Kb) in my small brain. I give you a BSOD and I go to bed. This one's over my head.

I three-finger-salute you.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
What are you using to parse the forums into rss?

A C# class library with a simple ASP.NET frontend that delegates the catid chosen to the class library. I use the following regular expression to extrapolate the topics:

< *a +href *= *\"(messageview[^\"]+)\" class *= *\"ftalternatingbarlinksmall\" *>([^>]+)< */ *a *>

Not really optimized, but it matched correctly in all my tests. I then iterate through all the matches in the HTML and emit the appropriate XML tags for the RSS feed...

Cool, you did all the regex fiddling for me, now I can try doing some neat things with it (In theory anyways -- I probably won't. )

A little while back I made a short shell script (not even a script really) that counted the posters of topics due to someone complaining that 'certain people' posted too many topics.. lemme find it..

Yeah here we go: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=1002012

 

[ComputerMonkey]

Awesome man! I use Trillian Pro and have a RSS news plugin that I use. Check out my new feed

Now I can browse ATOT all day at work by staring at my desktop

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
What are you using to parse the forums into rss?

A C# class library with a simple ASP.NET frontend that delegates the catid chosen to the class library. I use the following regular expression to extrapolate the topics:

< *a +href *= *\"(messageview[^\"]+)\" class *= *\"ftalternatingbarlinksmall\" *>([^>]+)< */ *a *>

Not really optimized, but it matched correctly in all my tests. I then iterate through all the matches in the HTML and emit the appropriate XML tags for the RSS feed...

Cool, you did all the regex fiddling for me, now I can try doing some neat things with it (In theory anyways -- I probably won't. )

A little while back I made a short shell script (not even a script really) that counted the posters of topics due to someone complaining that 'certain people' posted too many topics.. lemme find it..

Yeah here we go: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=1002012

(for page in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10; do printf "GET /categories.cfm?catid=38&STARTPAGE=$page HTTP/1.0\n\n" | nc forums.anandtech.com 80 | grep ftalternatingbaron | grep ftcolumntext | grep middle | awk '{print $6}' | sed -e 's/class="ftcolumntext">//' | sed -e 's,</td>,,'; done) | sort

Sweet. It's nice to see netcat put to good use

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: ComputerMonkey
Awesome man! I use Trillian Pro and have a RSS news plugin that I use. Check out my new feed

Now I can browse ATOT all day at work by staring at my desktop

It's a little less conspicuous that way at least

 

[Descartes]

Bump.

I've never bumped one of my own threads, but I thought maybe those who didn't see this last night might benefit.

 

[Aves]

This is cool, I think FuseTalk 4 is going to have RSS support built in but that doesn't mean it will be enabled here.

 

[shikhan]

Hey man, thanks alot! I've got it hooked into my trillian. The only question I have is how do I get it to refresh itself? THe only time it does is when I close trillian. Anyone know?

 

[civad]

THats interesting. Just added the ATOT feed to Evolution on my box.

Thnx

 

[squirrelproductions]

Here are the RSS/XML feeds of other deal sites:

dealnews.com 20 most recent deals (other variations here)
http://content.dealnews.com/dealnews/rss/last-twenty.xml

techbargains.com
http://www.techbargains.com/rss.xml


any others?

 

[KC5AV]

cool... I may have to look into this further.

 

[EvilYoda]

hehe, as if I didn't always have ATOT open anyway, now I can have Trillian tell me what's going on too! Thanks a lot Descartes, cool stuff.

 

[Anghang]

awesome!

 

[BatmanNate]

Going to have to try the Trillian one, that looks sweet. Is it made by the Trillian people or a 3rd party?

 

[aswedc]

Originally posted by: Anghang
awesome!

 

[AntaresVI]

Originally posted by: aswedc

Originally posted by: Anghang
awesome!