Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Welcome Making RSS work in your institution: Newsfeeds a workshop for IWMW2006 Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing Oxford University Computing Services OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Welcome Making RSS work in your 1 Welcome to this workshop institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Agenda Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Welcome to this workshop Making RSS work in your This document is available at http://www.oucs.ox. institution: a workshop for ac.uk/oxitems/presentations/iwmw2006/ IWMW2006 I’m Barry Cornelius. Welcome I work for the Information Services group of Newsfeeds Oxford University’s Computing Services. Reading a newsfeed I’ve been at Oxford for about 15 months, and was Formats previously at the University of Durham. Institutional uses How about you? Providing Who are you? OXITEMS Where are you from? OXITEMS Example What do you know about RSS and newsfeeds? Are you using a content management system, and, Other issues if so, has it got facilities for newsfeeds? Final issues Agenda Making RSS work in your Welcome institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Welcome Formats Newsfeeds Reading a Institutional uses newsfeed Providing OXITEMS Formats Institutional OXITEMS Example uses Other issues Providing OXITEMS Hands-on OXITEMS Example Final issues Other issues Final issues Newsfeeds Making RSS work in your 1 Newsfeeds: what are newsfeeds? institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Newsfeeds: how can I detect them? Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Newsfeeds: what are newsfeeds? Making RSS work in your Establishing newsfeeds is a relatively new mechanism institution: a workshop for for delivering information. IWMW2006 Essentially, a newsfeed is a collection of related items. Welcome Many web sites are providing newsfeeds. Newsfeeds For example, the BBC has several newsfeeds, Reading a newsfeed one for UK News, one for World News, ... Formats The web page Institutional uses http: Providing //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm OXITEMS provides links to some of the BBC’s newsfeeds. OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Newsfeeds: how can I detect them? Making RSS work in your There are several icons that indicate a newsfeed is institution: a workshop for available from a web site, e.g. IWMW2006 , Welcome and Newsfeeds . Reading a If you click on a newsfeed or a Formats , you will often be taken to a web page containing Institutional uses the code of the newsfeed. Providing For example, go to: OXITEMS http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/ OXITEMS Example and click on a Other issues icon. Final issues From the output, you can see that newsfeeds are coded using a markup language (in the same way that ordinary web pages are coded in HTML). Hidden away in all this markup is a list of items. You do not need to understand this markup. In the Location textbox of your browser, you will find the URL of this newsfeed. The URL will be useful if you want to subscribe to the newsfeed (as we will see later). Reading a newsfeed Making RSS work in your 1 Reading a newsfeed: overview institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Reading a newsfeed: different ways 3 Reading a newsfeed: using Firefox Welcome 4 Reading a newsfeed: using Thunderbird Newsfeeds 5 Reading a Reading a newsfeed: using a program newsfeed 6 Reading a newsfeed: from a Google page Formats 7 Institutional Reading a newsfeed: using Bloglines uses 8 Reading a newsfeed: from a web page Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: overview Making RSS work in your There are many ways in which you can read a institution: a workshop for newsfeed. IWMW2006 Usually it is a two stage process. Welcome First, you tell a newsfeed reader which newsfeeds you Newsfeeds want to read. Reading a newsfeed Then the newsfeed reader will do the hard work of Formats getting the items of the newsfeeds and delivering the Institutional information to you. uses Providing From time to time, the newsfeed reader will get new OXITEMS items. OXITEMS Example Although newsfeed readers work in different ways, the Other issues crucial idea is: you do not have to visit each of the Final issues websites yourself. Reading a newsfeed: different ways Making RSS work in your Here are some of the ways of reading a newsfeed: institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Some web browsers (e.g., Firefox) allow you to establish a live bookmark to the URL of a newsfeed. Welcome Although currently Internet Explorer does not have this Newsfeeds facility, something similar will be available in IE 7. Reading a newsfeed Some email clients (e.g., Opera Mail and Thunderbird) Formats allow you to get the items of a newsfeed delivered into Institutional uses the email client like ordinary messages. Providing You can install a feedreader program, OXITEMS OXITEMS e.g., Awasu, NewsGator, NewzCrawler Example And there are web sites where you can subscribe to Other issues newsfeeds, e.g., Bloglines, Google, Yahoo! Final issues If you know how to create web pages, you could provide a web page that displays the contents of a newsfeed. Reading a newsfeed: using Firefox Making RSS work in your Some web browsers (e.g., Firefox) allow you to institution: a workshop for establish a live bookmark to the URL of a newsfeed. IWMW2006 Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Firefox Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Thunderbird Making RSS work in your Some email clients (e.g., Thunderbird) allow you to get institution: a workshop for the items of a newsfeed delivered into the email client IWMW2006 like ordinary messages. Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Thunderbird Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using a program Making RSS work in your You can install a feedreader program. institution: a workshop for Examples are: IWMW2006 Linux: Akregator, NewsFeed Welcome Macs: NetNewsWire, Newsfire Windows: Awasu, FeedDemon, Newz Crawler, Newsfeeds RssReader Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: from a Google page Making RSS work in your First go to http://www.google.co.uk/ institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Then use the link labelled Personalised Home. If you are not logged in, use the link labelled Sign in. Welcome You will need a Google account and you can either use Newsfeeds a Google Mail e-mail address or some other e-mail Reading a newsfeed address. Formats You can subscribe to a newsfeed by using the Institutional uses Add Content link. Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: from a Google page Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Bloglines Making RSS work in your Besides Google, there are other places where you can institution: a workshop for subscribe to newsfeeds. IWMW2006 Another one that I’ve used is Welcome http://www.bloglines.com/ Newsfeeds Once again, you have to register using an e-mail Reading a newsfeed address. Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: using Bloglines Making RSS work in your institution: a workshop for IWMW2006 Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Reading a newsfeed: from a web page Making RSS work in your At the point in the web page where you want to output a institution: a workshop for newsfeed, include something like: IWMW2006 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/viewer/? Welcome rss=http://www.jobs.ac.uk/rss/disc/0700.xml"> Newsfeeds </script> Reading a newsfeed where all the text between src=" and "> should be on Formats one line (with no spaces). Replace the URL Institutional uses http://www.jobs.ac.uk/rss/disc/0700.xml Providing by the URL of the newsfeed that interests you. OXITEMS This uses a facility provided by UKOLN that first goes OXITEMS Example off to the website containing the newsfeed and then Other issues displays the news items as a web page. Final issues Here is a link to a web page containing the above code: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/ presentations/iwmw2006/jobs.html Formats Making RSS work in your 1 Newsfeed formats: numerous standards institution: a workshop for 2 IWMW2006 Newsfeed formats: who will win? 3 Newsfeed formats: does it matter? Welcome Newsfeeds Reading a newsfeed Formats Institutional uses Providing OXITEMS OXITEMS Example Other issues Final issues Newsfeed formats: numerous standards Making RSS work in your As has already been mentioned, newsfeeds are coded institution: a workshop for using a markup language. IWMW2006 Unfortunately, there are several markup languages that Welcome are often used. Newsfeeds They include: RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3, Atom 1.0. Reading a newsfeed You can see examples of the first three by visiting the Formats following: Institutional http://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/ uses Providing rdf.xml OXITEMS http://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/ OXITEMS Example rss.xml Other issues http://ramble.oucs.ox.ac.uk/blog/stuart/ Final issues atom.xml Newsfeed formats: who will win? Making RSS work in your Atom 1.0 was released in August 2005.