Knowledgeorama

Knowledge management is a survival skill

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 12:40:08 GMT

In her paper "The Real Work of Knowledge Management", Margaret Wheatley says that knowledge management (KM) is a "survival skill". She notes, though, that current KM methods do not encourage people to share their knowledge. To make KM work, she offers the following:

We must recognize that knowledge is everywhere in the organization, but we won't have access to it until, and only when, we create work that is meaningful, leaders that are trustworthy, and organizations that foster everyone's contribution and support by giving staff time to think and reflect together.

Using weblogs in business

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 12:59:07 GMT

Dave Pollard has written some good essays on the use of weblogs in business:

The Weblog As Filing Cabinet - Using weblogs as a mechanism to coherently codify and "publish" in a completely voluntary and personal manner the individual worker's entire filing cabinet, complete with annotations, marginalia, post-its, and personal indexing system.
A Weblog-Based Content Architecture for Business - outlines a content architecture that could enable the publishing of a worker's "filing cabinet" to occur.
Finding The Right Niche - suggests a process for integrating weblogs profitably and productively into companies that already have well-established knowledge management systems.

Dave Pollard also has a mockup of an employee knowledge-log (or k-log), with an expanded picture of the parts of the k-log.

For more articles on this subject, see Dave's Blogs and Blogging table of contents.

Knowledge worker reading list

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:36:45 GMT

Jim McGee has posted a reading list for knowledge workers - 25 books with excellent summaries of each book and how he has used them. I will add these to my reading list soon.

Development ideas for OutlineBlogger Tool

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 04:38:13 GMT

Here are a few of my ideas for future development for the OutlineBlogger Tool:

Add other renderers

The renderer I am using in the current tool is a modified version of user.html.renderers.twoLevelOutline. There are a total of 19 outline renderers in the Radio UserLand root database. One way to allow other renderers to be used could be to add a preference setting to allow the user to select the renderer.

Add permalinks for each item

In the OPML Editor, most if not all of the items have a permalink at the end of each outline element posted. Currently, the OutlineBlogger Tool does not add any permalinks, but it could be added (don't have any ideas right now on how to do that).

Edit previously posted entries in the outliner

The current design is that the outline text is rendered in HTML and posted. The text is stored in Radio UserLand's content management system. To be able to edit previous entries in the outliner, I would probably have to save previous entries as outlines, which would make the tool more like the OPML Editor, which saves all content as OPML files. I do not know if there would be a way to take the text and convert it back to an outline.

First users for OutlineBlogger Tool

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 05:42:43 GMT

Fred Zelders has the honors for the first user to send a link to a post with the OutlineBlogger Tool.

Raymon has also tried out the OutlineBlogger Tool.

OutlineBlogger tool for Radio UserLand

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:57:00 GMT

Introduction

I have enjoyed using the outliner in Radio UserLand for writing and organizing information. I wrote a Radio UserLand tool (DirectoryTool) to create directories for Radio UserLand weblogs from outlines. When I saw Dave Winer's OPML Editor, I began to think about how to use the Radio UserLand outliner to make weblog posts. The result is the OutlineBlogger Tool for Radio UserLand.

Installation

1. Click here to download the OutlineBlogger Tool and save the download file to the Tools folder or directory within your Radio UserLand program folder or directory.

2. An entry for OutlineBlogger should show up in a minute in the Tools menu within the Radio UserLand application. If it does not show up, quit Radio UserLand and restart, and the entry should appear.

3. Go to this prefs page while Radio UserLand is running, uncheck the check box for enabling the WYSIWYG editing tool, and click on the Submit Button. After this step is complete, you are ready to start using the OutlineBlogger tool.

Making a post

1. Create a weblog post in an outline

Bring the Radio Userland application to the foreground. From the Tools menu, select the OutlineBlogger entry, then select the "Open weblog post outline" sub-menu entry. A window will open with the default outline to be edited. When you first edit the outline, it will not contain any text. You can add text by clicking on a line and typing. To start a new line, press Return. When you have finished editing the outline, close the window by clicking on the window close box or button. If you want to edit the outline again, select the "open weblog post outline" command again, and the text you entered before will appear again.

To learn more about how to edit outlines, you can read this overview of using the outliner in Radio Userland. There is also an overview of the Outline menu and HTML menu commands. A description of how to add links and make text bold will be given later in this post.

2. Render the outline as HTML and put the text in the edit window on the Desktop Website Home Page

After you have completed editing the outline and closed the outline window, you need to send the outline text to the Desktop Website Home Page for posting. Bring the Radio Userland application to the foreground, if it is not the foreground application. From the Tools menu, select the OutlineBlogger entry, then select the "Send weblog post to home page" sub-menu entry. The OutlineBlogger Tool will load the Desktop Website Home Page in the active web browser window and insert the outline text as HTML into the edit window. Note that the button that appears at the bottom of the weblog post editing window says "Post Changes" instead of "Post to Weblog" (for one-button publishing option). If you have title/link enabled, you can enter those at this time. Also, if you have categories selected, you can choose the categories or category to publish the weblog post.

3. Post the HTML text to your weblog

To post the HTML text to your weblog, click on the "Post Changes" button on the Desktop Web Site home page.

Getting help on the OutlineBlogger tool

To get more information on using OutlineBlogger, go to the Tools menu, select the OutlineBlogger entry, then select the "Help" sub entry. This will load the tool website in the active web browser window.

How to add HTML to your outline

To add a link to text in your outline:

1. Bring up the web page you wish to link to in a web browser and copy the URL.

2. Go to the outline and select the link text.

3. From the HTML menu in Radio UserLand, select the "Add link..." menu entry. You will see the link text change color from black to blue.

To make text within an outline bold:

1. Go to the outline and select the link text.

2. From the HTML menu in Radio UserLand, select the "Style" menu entry, then the "Bold" sub-menu entry. You will see the link text change from normal text to bold text.

For more information on HTML menu commands, consult the HTML menu overview.

OutlineBlogger Tool advantages

Edit a weblog post using the built-in outliner in Radio UserLand

Publish the contents of that post within the existing Radio UserLand content management system

OutlineBlogger Tool drawbacks

Only the previous weblog post outline is saved (in the Tool database)

No support for saving weblog posts as OPML files

Cannot use WYSIWYG editing mode in Radio UserLand editor (although editing in an outline is nice!)

If you want to edit the post again after publishing, you cannot edit it as an outline, you have to use the Desktop Website home page edit window

Summary

The OutlineBlogger Tool gives Radio UserLand users the ability to create weblog posts using outlines. This initial release has the basic capabilities to support outline blogging, but there is always room for improvement. Feel free to comment on this post with feature requests or feedback (I don't have the comment counter set up correctly to provide a count, but comments are working). I will also monitor the Radio UserLand discussion group and answer questions there as well.

Let's hear from you!

Simple RSS Hacks Part 5 - Finding Music/Video of Interest

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 06:48:47 GMT

Part 5 - Tracking music/video of interest

In part 5 of this series, I will look at resources that will allow you to track music and video of interest. Just a reminder - links to all of the hacks in this series are available as a OPML file and as a HTML directory for later ease of use. If you have any hacks you wish to contribute, feel free to add comments or trackbacks to the posts, and I will add them to the list.

41. Tracking music with Feedster

Feedster performs podcast searches as a feature. You can search either for the podcast show you want to subscribe to or for a podcast episode you want to hear right now.

To get started, go to the podcast search page, enter a search term or terms in the text box marked "What to search for", select either "Shows" or "Episodes" in the drop-down box marked "Where to Search", and click on the Search button. A results page will appear with a list of podcast sources whose description matches some or all of your search terms. At the right of each podcast listed in the results page is an orange XML button. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to that podcast feed. In the upper left corner of the page, there is another orange XML button. You can add the link from the button to subscribe to the RSS feed for your search query.

42. Tracking music with Podcast Alley

Podcast Alley hosts a searchable podcast directory. From the home page, you can select a podcast genre (16 groupings, including technology, news, and others). If you select one of these genres, a new page will appear with a list of the genres and the first 50 podcasts in the genre you have selected.

Another way to search for podcasts is to type a search term or terms in the text box on the home page below "Search for a Podcast" and clicking on the "Go" button. A results page will appear with podcasts whose description contains one or more of your search terms. You can click on the podcast title to get more information on the podcast, to subscribe, or to vote on the podcast.

43. Tracking music with Podcast.net

Podcast.net is a searchable podcast directory. You can perform searches on title and description, keywords, host, location and episode. To perform a search, go to the home page, enter a search term or terms in the text box, select the type of search from the drop-down box next to the text box, and click on the Search button. A results page will appear with a list of podcasts. You can click on the titles to see a list of episodes for that podcast. There will be a red RSS button at the top of the page. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to that podcast feed.

From the home page, you can also select from a list of directory topics for ease of browsing. When you click on a category, you will see a list of subcategories or a list of podcasts for the category (if there are no subcategories). There will be a red RSS button at the top of the page. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to that category to keep track of additions to the category.

Finally, you can also browse podcasts by tags. You can browse tags by letter from the home page (click on the letters under the search text box) or go to the Top 100 tags page to browse tags. When you look at the page for a particular tag, you can also subscribe to a RSS feed for additions to that tag. There will be a red RSS button at the top of the page. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to that tag to keep track of additions to the tag.

44. Tracking music with iPodderX

iPodderX is a podcast client application for Macintosh and Windows, like iTunes or any other application that can play MP3 files. iPodderX also maintains a podcast directory which can be searched in several ways.

From the iPodderX directory page, you can browse categories by selecting a category from the drop-down box at the top of the page marked "Choose a Podcast Category". The default selection is "What's New". When you select a category, a results page will give you the number of podcasts in that category and a list of podcasts in that category with descriptions and links to the podcast websites.

Another search method is to enter a search term or terms in the text box marked "Search Podcasts" and press Return/Enter. The search results page will show a list of all podcasts with your search term or terms in the title or description for the podcast.

Note: iPodderX is changing its name to Transistr and will be moving to www.transistr.com soon.

45. Tracking music with ipodder.org/indiepodder.org

iPodder.org was one of the first podcast directories and is still one of the largest directories available. Also available under the domain indiepodder.org, the site serves as a weblog of new podcasts and an entry point into the directory.

To browse the directory, go to the main directory page. You will see a list of folders with the category names. Click on any of the folders to see what podcasts are within the category. If the cetegory is broad, there may be subfolders listed. Within each category, there will be a orange XML button at the top right of the category page. This button contains a link to the OPML file containing the links for this directory. On each directory page, each listing starts with a link to the RSS feed for that podcast.

46. Tracking music with Yahoo Podcasts

On the Yahoo Podcasts home page, you can view a list of podcasts picked by Yahoo editors, a listing of of podcasts voted on by Yahoo users, browse a list of podcasts categories, or perform searches for podcasts.

To search for podcasts, enter a search term or terms in the text box at the top of the home page and click the Search button. A results page will appear with a list of podcasts with your search terms in the title or description for the podcast. You can select "Series and Episodes", "Series", or "Episodes" to refine your search. To get the widest variety of results, you should select "Series and Episodes".

To browse podcast categories, click on any of the category links on the right side of the home page.

To browse by tags that Yahoo users have selected, scroll down and click on any of the tags listed on the right side of the home page.

47. Tracking music with Podcasting News

Podcasting News is a weblog covering the podcasting industry. It also has a podcast directory and offers search capability for podcasts.

To browse the directory, go to the directory page. A list of the top level directory entries and their subcategories are shown. You can get more detail on a category by selecting the category in the drop-down box at the top of the page. A results page will appear with a list of subcategories for that category, and a partial list of podcasts within that category.

To search for podcasts, go to the search page. You can enter a search term or terms in the text box at the top of the page. A results page will appear with a list of podcasts whose title and/or description match the search terms.

Finally, Podcasting News has pages for new podcasts, top 25 podcasts, and top rated podcasts.

48. Tracking video with Vlogdir

Vlogdir is a directory for videoblogs. The site provides lists of recent and random videoblogs on the home page, search capability, and browsing by category.

To search the directory, go to the home page and enter a search term or terms in the text box at the top of the page. An advanced search page is also available.

49. Tracking video with Vodstock

Vodstock is a directory for video weblogs. The site provides search capability and browsing by category.

To browse categories, go to the category page and click on any of the category topics on the left side of the page. A results page will appear with a list of videoblogs, short descriptions, and an orange "Feed" button. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to the video feed for that weblog.

To perform a search, go to the home page, enter a search term or terms in the text box at the top of the page and click on the Search button. A results page will appear with a list of videoblogs that match your search terms, along with short descriptions, and an orange "Feed" button. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to the video feed for that weblog.

50. Tracking video with other video search engines

Yahoo video search engine supports simple search from the home page, and also offers advanced search options.

Google video search supports simple search from the home page.

Altavista video search supports simple search from the home page.

SingingFish video search from the home page.

Blinkx video search from the home page.

Other Resources

Rocketboom - Video links

Simple RSS Hacks Part 4 - Finding Photos of Interest

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 07:59:28 GMT

In part 4 of this series, I will look at resources that will allow you to track photos of interest, and to receive photos via RSS feeds. Just a reminder - links to all of the hacks in this series are available as a OPML file and as a HTML directory for later ease of use. If you have any hacks you wish to contribute, feel free to add comments or trackbacks to the posts, and I will add them to the list.

31. Tracking photos of interest using Flickr

Flickr is one of the most well-known photo sharing services. You can upload photos to the service and share them in several ways. Flickr creates a RSS or Atom feed for photos that you upload to your account. The standard form of a Flickr account URL is http://www.flickr.com/photos/accountname. At the bottom of a user's main account page (for example, Dave Winer or Roland Tanglao), you can find text links on the lower right corner of the page for RSS or Atom feeds for that account.

Another way to look for pictures on Flickr is by using photo tags. Flickr users can assign tags (text names) to photos uploaded to their account. You can search for tagged photos using the Flickr search page. Type in a search term or terms in the text box marked "Search with one or more tags" and click on the Search button. The results page will show a set of the most recent photos tagged with that search term or terms. At the bottom of the page, you can find text links on the lower right corner of the page for RSS or Atom feeds for that search term or terms.

32. Tracking photos of interest using Buzznet

From Buzznet's About page, Buzznet "features an easy-to-use interface and powerful tools to create your own photoblog and start sharing your photos with your friends and meet friends from around the world."

Buzznet supports a number of RSS and Atom feeds. There are feeds for most popular and most recent photos. The general form for user account feeds is

-RSS: http://{USER NAME}.buzznet.com/user/rss/rss10.xml?type=synd

-ATOM: http://{USER NAME}.buzznet.com/user/atom/atom03.xml?type=synd

More feeds are available on the Buzznet Feeds page.

33. Tracking photos of interest using Gada.be

The mega search engine Gada.be has an option to search for photos. To perform a search, go to the home page, type in a search term or terms in the text box, and click on the "go" button. The results page will show photos from several photo services.

After generating the results page, you can add a "/opml" to the end of the search URL and get a OPML file with search queries for a number of search engines using the the search terms you entered in the gada.be search. This file can then be imported into your favorite RSS reader to generate more search results on demand. Chris Pirillo has more information on using Gada.be in his initial announcement of the Gada.be service and in this update on the capabilities of Gada.be.

34. Tracking photos of interest using Fotothing

From the Fotothing About page, "Fotothing is like a blog, with photos instead of words - a photoblog. Fotothing allows you to share your latest and greatest photos with your friends, family and the world."

To search for photos, go to the home page and click on the Tags link on the left side of the page. This will show a list of the most popular tags on Fotothing. You can click on any of the tags listed there to see a selection of photos with that tag. An orange "RSS 2.0" button will appear just above the photos. You can add the link from this buttons to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to a photo RSS feed for that tag.

If you do not see the tag you are looking for, enter a search term or terms in the text box and click on the Search button. A results page will appear with a list of tags matching your search terms and photos. Click on any of the tags listed on the results page to get photos matching that tag. An orange "RSS 2.0" button will appear just above the photos. You can add the link from this buttons to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to a photo RSS feed for that tag.

Fotothing also has a set of standard feeds on its Feeds page.

35. Tracking photos of interest using Fotolia

From the Fotolia About page, "Fotolia is the first worldwide social marketplace for royalty free stock images, allowing individuals and professionals to legally buy and share stock images and illustrations."

To search for photos, go to the home page and enter a search term or terms in the text box at the top of the page and click on the "ok" button. A results page will appear with photos that have been tagged with your search terms. A green RSS button will appear in the lower left corner of the results page. You can add the link from this buttons to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to a photo RSS feed for that tag.

36. Tracking photos of interest using 23

From the 23 About page, the mission of the 23 photo sharing service is" to give every individual in the world a tool to share, annotate and archive their life experiences through photos - and to allow them connect and stay in touch with their friends, relatives and contacts."

To search for photos, go to the home page and click on the Search link in the upper left corner of the page. Enter your search term or terms and click on the Search button. A results page will appear with a list of tags, photos, users, albums, and stories matching your queries. Clicking on a tag will bring up a results page with photos tagged with your search term or terms. At the bottom of the page, you can find text links on the lower right corner of the page for a RSS feed for photos tagged with that search term or terms.

37. Tracking photos of interest using TextAmerica

TextAmerica provides a photo moblog service, allowing users to tag and publish their photos online.

To search for photos, go to the home page and click on the EP Archives link. A page of photos selected by TextAmerica editors will appear. Enter a search term or terms in the text box under the phrase "Image Tags" on the right side of the page and click on the Search button. An orange RSS button will appear just above the photos. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to a photo RSS feed for that tag.

38. Tracking photos of interest using Webshots

Webshots offers photo printing as well as photo sharing services. To access feeds for daily photos, featured albums, and other photo collections, check out the feeds page.

39. Tracking photos of interest using other photo services

There are a number of photo services that allow sharing of photos, such as Shutterfly, Picasa, and Snapfish. None of these services offer RSS feeds for searches at this time.

40. Tracking photos of interest using other search engines

Several search engines covered in this series offer search features for images, such as Yahoo, Google Images, MSN Photo Search, and IceRocket. None of these services offer RSS feeds for searches at this time.

Other Resources

JakesOnline - Flickr resource list

Cnet - Review of 40 photo sharing/printing services

Simple RSS Hacks Part 3 - Finding Information of Interest

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 12:53:58 GMT

In part 3 of this series, I will look at resources that will allow you to follow a general topic of interest, and to receive information on that topic via RSS feeds. Just a reminder - links to all of the hacks in this series are available as a OPML file and as a HTML directory for later ease of use. If you have any hacks you wish to contribute, feel free to add comments or trackbacks to the posts, and I will add them to the list.

21. Tracking information of interest using Feedster

Feedster is a search engine which focuses on RSS feeds. From Feedster's help page, "The type of content available in feeds makes Feedster great for finding the latest news and opinion on any topic."

To get started, go to the Feedster home page and enter a search term or terms and press the Search button. A results page will appear with a list of results. You can subscribe to your search query as a RSS feed by saving the link from the orange XML button at the top of the results page.

Feedster offers a list of advanced search tips. To search on specific elements within RSS feeds, such as the title, URL, and other elements, type the element name, followed by a colon, followed by the element content. For example, "site: craiglist.org" will find items from all Craiglist sites. See Searchable Fields for more information.

22. Tracking information of interest using PubSub

From PubSub's About page, "PubSub is a matching service that instantly notifies you when new content is created that matches your subscription.". To use PubSub, you can create subscriptions for any search term or terms. This could be a name, a URL, anything. PubSub tracks over 18 million weblogs, 50,000 newsgroups, and and all SEC filings - quite a flow of data!

To get started, go to the PubSub home page. You will see an area at the top of the page labeled "Start using the PubSub Matching Engine!". Next to the number 1, there is a text box for you to type your search term or terms. Enter your terms in the text box, then click on the "Start Searching Now!" button next to the number 2. A results page will appear informing you that the subscription has been created and listing several ways that you can access the results. You can click on the name of the subscription on the left side of the page. This will present the results as a new web page. You can also save the subscription as a RSS feed to using in your RSS reader or aggregator by clicking on the RSS buttons at the bottom of the results page.

Another useful way to create a subscription is include a part of a URL as the search term. The Subscription Syntax page gives the following format example: "URI: amazon.com". This subscription will only return pages that contain a hyperlink to amazon.com. You can also search on other attributes (see the Subscription Syntax page for more details).

23. Tracking information of interest using Technorati

Technorati is a search engine focusing on weblogs. From their About page, Technorati is currently tracking 21.9 million sites and 1.7 billion links.

To get started, go to the Technorati home page and enter a search term or terms and press the Search button. A results page will appear with weblog posts ranked most recent to oldest.

To be able to perform Technorati searches and get the results via RSS, you need to create an account with Technorati. After you have an account, you will see a search text box for Watchlists. Enter your search term and press the Add button. You will get a results page similar to the earlier page, but now a blue RSS button will appear at the bottom of the page. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator.

Another Technorati search option is searching weblog posts that have been "tagged" with text describing the topic or topics covered in the post. The tagging information comes from Technorati as well as the Delicious and Furl services, and the Flickr and Buzznet photo services. To perform a tag search, click on the Tags item at the top of the Technorati home page. Enter a search term or terms in the text box and click on the Search button. A results page will appear with recent weblog posts that have been tagged with that search term. A blue RSS button will appear at the bottom of the page. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator.

24. Tracking information of interest using Gada.be

Gada.be is a metasearch engine collecting search results from 140 search services. To use the service for general searches, you can go to the main page, type in a search term or terms, select the "default" option from the drop-down box, and click on the "Go" button. The search results page will show headlines from a number of search engines for the search terms. To select a different category of search, click on the drop-down box next to the search text box, select a different category, and click on the "go" button.

25. Tracking information of interest using Delicious

Delicious tracks weblog posts that are "tagged" by other Delicious users. To perform basic searches on tags, go to the main page, enter a search term or terms in the "Discover Favorites" text box and press the Search button. A results page will appear with items that have been tagged with those terms.

Delicious has a number of tag searches available via RSS. These include the "recent" tags (items that have been tagged within a short period of time before your request) and "popular" tage (items tagged by many people). At the bottom of these pages, there is an orange RSS icon. You can add the link from this icon to your RSS reader or aggregator. On the right side of the "popular" page, there are a list of other popular tags. You can click on those pages and use the RSS link at the bottom of the page to subscribe to those results.

You can also create URLs for RSS feeds on a particular tag by adding"/rss/tag/" to the end of the Delicious URL and then adding the tag name (for example, rugby). The RSS help page covers other types of URLs for RSS feeds.

To be able to monitor groups of tagged items of interest on Delicious using RSS, sign up for a Delicious account from the main page. When your account is set up, you will have an "inbox" that you can add tag searches to, then subscribe to the results via RSS. To add a search, click on the "inbox" link once you are logged into Delicious. Next, click on the "edit inbox" link on the right side of the page. Next, add a tag name to the tag text box under the "subscribe" label. Finally, click on "jump to inbox" to start looking at your subscriptions. A orange RSS button will appear at the bottom of the page. You can add the link from this button to your RSS reader or aggregator.

26. Tracking information of interest using Furl.net

From the Furl About page, "Furl is a free service that saves the important items you find on the Web and enables you to quickly find them again.". As you find pages that you want to save, you can add them to your Furl archive (up to 5 Gigabytes).

When you "furl" a web page you create a bookmark to that page. These bookmarks are displayed on your account page. Furl will create a RSS feed for those bookmarks with the following URL: http://www.furl.net/members//rss.xml. You can subscribe to this RSS feed or send it to others so they can subscribe to the feed.

Furl also creates a general RSS feed for the latest activity from all members. You can subscribe to this feed at http://www.furl.net/members/rss.xml. From the Furl FAQ page, "feeds can be filtered by topic by adding "?topic=topicName" at the end of the URL. For example the RSS URL for the Science topic for all members would be http://www.furl.net/members/rss.xml?topic=Science." This can be done for specific member feeds or for the general member feed.

27. Tracking information of interest using MonitorThis

From the MonitorThis home page, "you can subscribe to 22 different search engine feeds at the same time. Enter a search term and click the 'make monitor.opml' button to get a list of rss feeds in OPML format."

To use the service, go to the home page and scroll down to the text box near the bottom of the page under "Enter search term". Add your search term or terms and click on the "make monitor.opml" button. In the text box below, you will see the text of an OPML outline that you can import into your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to the 22 search engines for your search terms. To do that, select the OPML text, save it as a new OPML file, then import the file into your RSS reader.

28. Tracking information of interest using BlogDigger

From the BlogDigger services page, " Blogdigger uses state of the art syndication technologies, such as RSS and Atom, to index blog content and make it available for search. Blogdigger also makes all search results available in RSS or Atom, so users can subscribe to keyword searches and automatically be notified, via the News Aggregator of their choice, of new content pertaining to their interests."

To use the Blog Search features of BlogDigger, go to the home page, enter a search term or terms and click on the Search button. The default search results will be organized by date, but you can select "relevance" instead of "date" on the home page. The results page will display a orange XML button and a blue Atom button on the right side of the page. You can add the links from these buttons to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to search results in RSS.

29. Tracking information of interest using Blogpulse

From the BlogPulse About page, "BlogPulse.com is a blog search engine that also analyzes and reports on daily activity in the blogosphere." In addition to general search, they offer a number of services to help you track blogging activity on key issues and perform trend analysis.

To use the blog search features of Blogpulse, go to the home page, enter your search term or terms in the text box under "Search the Blogosphere" and click on the "Go" button. The default search results will be displayed with the most recent items first. At the top of the result page, you will find a orange XML button. You can add the links from these button to your RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to search results in RSS. An advanced search options page is available with date range and sorting criteria, as well as other options. If you select other options besides the default, these will be included in the RSS search feed.

30. Tracking information of interest using general search engines

Most of the resources in this list are search engines focusing on RSS feeds. However, all of the general search engines referred to in the list on searching for news can also be used to search for other items of interest and provide search queries as RSS feeds. These include NewsIsFree, Moreover, Google (using the GooRSS service), Topix.net, RocketNews, and MSN Search.

Other Resources

Roland Tanglao's Becoming a Newsmaster Series

Part 1 - Use PubSub to track your URL, name and keywords

Part 2 - Use Feedster to search retrospectively for your name and keywords

Part 3 - How to be a NewsMaster

Steve Rubel - Ten RSS hacks

Simple RSS Hacks Part 2 - Finding News of Interest

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 11:16:29 GMT

In part 2 of this series, I will look at resources that will allow you to find news items on topics of interest, and to receive them as RSS feeds. Just a reminder - links to all of the hacks in this series are available as a OPML file and as a HTML directory for later ease of use. If you have any hacks you wish to contribute, feel free to add comments or trackbacks to the posts, and I will add them to the list.

11. Finding news of interest using NewsIsFree

NewsIsFree tracks over 20,000 RSS news feeds. You can select RSS feeds by category, by source name, view headline news by category, or perform a keyword search on current events and save the query as an RSS feed.

12. Finding news of interest using Moreover

Like NewsIsFree, Moreover collects RSS feeds in multiple categories. You can view a list of the category RSS feeds with links to the individual feeds. In addition, you can select categories from a drop down-box, or create a custom RSS feed based on search terms.

13. Finding news of interest using Google News

Google News searches over 4500 news source and displays top headlines on its main page in various categories. From the main page, there are RSS and Atom links to the RSS feed for the main page. A feeds overview page gives links to RSS feeds for eight major news categories. You can also create feeds for search terms by entering search terms on the Google News main page, then using the RSS or Atom link on the left side of the page to subscribe to the results for that search. Finally, you can create a personal news page that can have its own RSS or Atom feed.

14. Finding news of interest using Yahoo News

On each section of Yahoo News, there are links to RSS feeds for that section. A RSS overview page also lists RSS feeds for the major sections, and has a search box through which you can create a custom RSS feed based on your search terms.

15. Finding news of interest using Topix.net

Topix.net surveys 10,000 news sources and classifies stories by topic and location. You can browse the topic directory to find a topic of interest or enter a US zip code of interest. Once you get to a topic, you can click on the orange XML button to get the RSS feed for that topic, or subscribe using buttons for other RSS readers/aggregators. From the Topix.net front page (or any topic page, for that matter), you can enter a US zip code, city name, or a search term or terms to get a list of stories. As with any other Topix.net page, you can add the link from the orange XML button to get the search results as a RSS feed. An advanced search feature is also available, giving you options to restrict your search to specific media sourcs, location, countries, etc.

16. Finding news of interest using IceRocket News

The IceRocket search engine also has a news search capability. You can enter search terms and get links to stories matching those search terms. on the right side of the search results page, there is a link to a RSS version of the search query, and links to add the RSS form of the query to several RSS aggregators/readers.

17. Finding news of interest using RocketNews

RocketNews is a RSS search engine searchin 16,000 web sites and 70,000 RSS feeds and weblogs to provide searches for news or weblogs. The main search page offers a single text box for search terms. After performing a search, more options for searching appear on the results page. You can search for News or Weblogs, when the items were published, and sorting by date or relevance. At the top of the results page, there is a orange XML button with a link to the RSS form of the query. A nice feature is that if you change the search options and repeat the search, the RSS form of the query will reflect those changes.

18. Finding news of interest using MSN Search

The Microsoft Network (MSN) has a search engine with an option for performing news searches. Type your search terms into the text box and click on the News button to perform your search. At the bottom of the results page, there will be a orange RSS button with a link to the RSS form of your search query. MSN Search has a help page on using RSS and search, as well as another help page on MSN newsbots for different world regions. Finally, MSNBC.com has a collection of RSS feeds for top stories in different categories.

19. Finding news of interest using Gada.be

Gada.be is a metasearch engine collecting search results from 140 search services. To use the service for news searches, you can go to the main page, type in a search term or terms, select the news option from the drop-down box, and click on the "Go" button. The search results page will show headlines from a number of news search engines for the search terms. After generating the results page, you can add a "/opml" to the end of the search URL and get a OPML file with search queries for a number of search engines using the the search terms you entered in the gada.be search. This file can then be imported into your favorite RSS reader to generate more search results on demand. Chris Pirillo has more information on using Gada.be in his announcement of the Gada.be service.

20. Finding news of interest using Feedster

Feedster is a search engine which focuses on RSS feeds. From Feedster's help page, "The type of content available in feeds makes Feedster great for finding the latest news and opinion on any topic."

To perform a search on news RSS feeds, go to the Feedster news search page and enter a search term or terms in the text box and press the Search button. A results page will appear. You can subscribe to your search query as a RSS feed by using the link from the orange XML button at the top of the results page.

I will talk about other uses of the Feedster search engine in future parts of this series.

Other Resources

Jorn Barger - Google News RSS information

The BBC has a set of RSS feeds for major news categories.

Media Drop - List of newspapers with RSS, includes college papers

SIDEWALK/theory - Big list of newspaper websites, has RSS links, but not as a separate list

Simple RSS Hacks Part 1 - Finding Weblogs of Interest

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 07:14:58 GMT

All major weblog tools create RSS files as part of the publishing process. These files are typically in one of two formats (RSS or Atom). For the purposes of this series, I will just refer to any syndicated file as RSS. Some of the resources will be in Atom or other formats, and I will indicate this as I go.

1. Subscribe to a weblog using the XML or RSS button present on most weblogs

This, of course, is the easiest of all. Many weblogs also have links to help people with particular news readers.

2. Try default URL locations if there is no obvious XML/RSS button on link

If you cannot find an obvious XML/RSS button with the link to the RSS file, the following are examples of locations for RSS files for various weblog tools:

Radio UserLand default location/name for RSS file:

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

Blogger/Blogspot default location/name for Atom file:

http://www.sitename.com/atom.xml

Typepad default locations/names:

http://example.typepad.com/my_weblog/index.rdf

http://example.typepad.com/my_weblog/atom.xml

Moveable Type default locations/names:

http://www.example.com/index.xml

http://www.example.com/index.rdf

WordPress default locations/names:

http://example.com/wp-rss.php (RSS 1.0)

http://example.com/wp-rss2.php (RSS 2.0)

http://example.com/wp-rdf.php (RDF)

LiveJournal default locations/names:

Add /rss to the end of the URL. For example, http://www.livejournal.com/users/example_user/rss.

3. Search for weblogs using Syndic8.com

From the home page, enter a search term in the Search for feed text box, you can do a search on various data elements associated with each RSS feed (Site Name, Data and Site URLs, Description, and so forth) of each feed. It is not matched against the information in the RSS feed. The feedlist page offers more search options. You can also browse categories to find weblogs of interest.

4. Search for weblogs using EatonWeb portal

From the home page, enter a search term in the search text box, and make sure to click on the radio button for portal.eatonweb.com. This will perform a search on the following: weblog name, url, description, country, state, region, language, category(s), keywords, birthdates, parent/children/sibling weblogs, author's sex, author's birthdate, ratings and reviews. The category page also lists groups of weblogs. As with Syndic8.com, you can browse categories to find weblogs of interest.

5. Search for weblogs using NewsIsFree

NewsIsFree collects RSS feeds for redistribution, republication, and for their online aggregator. As part of their service, you can also search for RSS feeds (again, based on title and description of weblogs). As with the other services, a category list of their feeds is available for browsing. In the category list, weblogs are considered a category by themselves, and may not be part of the other categories listed.

6. Search for weblogs using BlogStreet

The blog category search shows a list of categories and a search box.

7. Search for weblogs using RDF-Ticker

The search page offers search on title and description, with options for language.

8. Search for weblogs using Fagan Finder

Serves as a meta search engine, can launch searches for many weblog directories and RSS search engines, although it will only perform a search for one source at a time.

9. Search for weblogs using the Open Directory Project

Lists weblog categories and other weblog resources

10. Search for weblogs using the Weblogs Compendium

Has an extensive list of weblog directories

Other Resources

Fagan Finder - Overall description of RSS and resources

RSS Compendium - List of RSS directories and search engines

Simple RSS Hacks - Introduction

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 07:08:41 GMT

There are a number of RSS readers available for all software platforms, as well as web-based readers. Yet with all of these tools available, where should you start? What should RSS feeds should you be reading? This series will provide an introduction to the universe of RSS information flows.

Over the next 2 weeks, I will cover 10 different areas of interest for filling your RSS reader with all the information you can handle - and more.

Part 1- Find weblogs of interest

Part 2 - Find news of interest

Part 3 - Tracking information of interest

Part 4 - Tracking photos of interest

Part 5 - Tracking music/video of interest

Part 6 - Tracking information on products

Part 7 - Tracking information on services

Part 8 - Web services via RSS feeds

Part 9 - Specialized information via RSS feeds

Part 10 - RSS Utilities

Each part will contain a number of "simple RSS hacks" which will help you to sample different RSS feeds. These are intended only as a first step to the resources - enough to get you started. I will suggest other resources at the end of each area of interest for those who want to explore that area further.

Finally, links to all of the hacks in this series will be available as a OPML file and as a HTML directory for later ease of use. If you have any hacks you wish to contribute, feel free to add comments or trackbacks to the posts, and I will add them to the list.

Fred Zelders uses DirectoryTool

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 04:52:49 GMT

Fred Zelders has created a directory of podcast shownotes using the DirectoryTool for Radio UserLand. Welcome Fred!

RSS Aggregator Tutorials

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 03:44:36 GMT

Paul Stamatiou gives an overview of RSS and setup instructions for Safari, Firefox, Bloglines, My Yahoo, Thunderbird, RSSOwl, and Google Desktop - quite a collection. The article includes nice screenshots of setup details for most of the RSS aggregators.

Looking for RSS hacks

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 05:11:41 GMT

I am starting to research RSS hacks on the web for a future series, and I want to note several sources I have found so far:

Steve Rubel from Micropersuasion has 10 RSS hacks on building RSS feeds for particular authors, feeds for car models, tracking activity on Delicious, following Wikipedia changes, and several other neat tricks.
Steve Rubel also has several other hack collections for bookmarklets, Technorati, and blogging in general.
Tim Yang's list of things you can do with RSS has over 40 entries of hacks and tips for getting the most from RSS

Well, that's a start. If anyone has any other hacks, feel free to comment on this post.

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 05:28:25 GMT

Radio UserLand can be extended using applications called Tools. These are collections of scripts and data which can perform many different functions. The Tool Lists and Reviews section of the Radio UserLand Resource Directory contains over 30 tools and directories of tools to help you do even more with Radio UserLand:

DirectoryTool by Andy Sylvester - creates a nested set of directories from an OPML file similar to Yahoo or the Open Directory Project.
Asset Manager by David Davies - Expanded support in Radio UserLand for handling pictures, creating a photo gallery, or mobile posting to your weblog
MyPictures Tool - UserLand tool that copies images to your weblog when you drop them in a folder or directory
RadioConversant - Post to a Conversant-based website using Radio UserLand
Stapler by Mark Paschal - creates syndication feeds from web sites and other content
Manila-Blogger Bridge Tool - UserLand tool that allows you to flow weblog posts entered in Radio to a Manila or Blogger web site
RadioExpress by Mike Krus - Select text from a web page and post it easily to your Radio UserLand weblog (like Manila Express)
UserLand-developed tools directory (pre-Radio 8) (link still works, but maybe switch to current tools page)
UserLand page describing tools and how to create a tool
Community Tools Directory - A directory of tools developed by the Radio UserLand user community maintained by Jeremy Bowers
Advanced Referer Tracking by Garth Kidd
Throat voice weblogging tool (requires Python and other apps to work)
Print Outline Tool - Easy rendering of OPML files and scripts
ToDo tool by Carlos Granier - Displays a "to do" list on your Desktop Website Home Page
Friends tool by Mark Paschal publishes select feeds scraped for your Radio News Aggregator to a "Friends" page, similar to LiveJournal users'.
myRadio tool by Mikel Maron - group and view your news subscriptions by Category, the same categories used by your weblog
Python Tool by David Brown - allows Radio UserLand to be used as a Python IDE. Radio's integrated outliner turns out to be a wonderful tool for Python editting, and the Tool provides an efficient way to write, debug, and deploy Python code.
Transport Layer Security tool - provides a mechanism for accessing secure websites from Frontier and Radio
Real-time data receiver demonstration by Dann Sheridan (requires Internet Explorer and Radio)
Weblogs Watcher tool by Simon Fell - allows you to subscribe to updates from weblogs.com and see the updates on your desktop web site
rssDistiller tool by EVectors - allows you to extract RSS feeds from most regular web pages
ThemeTool by EVectors - converts Radio themes to plain html pages and let you edit them using any HTML editor, then converts them back to Radio compatible themes
Formz tool from Macrobyte Resources - a set of UserTalk scripts for creating, managing, and rendering HTML forms (link won't work right now)
Kit by Mark Paschal - a suite of "page tools" for Radio UserLand 8, which includes Weblog search, an improved News Aggregator page, and a Web QuickScript.
Multiple Manila-Blogger Bridge Tool by Steve Hooker - an update to the UserLand tool that mirrors categories to sites
Patch Tool by Eric Soroos - a developer tool that provides patch and diff services for Usertalk scripts in Frontier and Radio Userland
Root Updates Tool by Andy Fragen - a tool that displays the current days' Radio UserLand root updates. It can be configured to log the data to a guest database or to an outline.
AttSearchEngine by Macrobyte Resources - a search engine tool that indexes text and attributes
DocServer2man by Emmanuel Décarie - lets Mac OS X users convert the Docserver database into man pages accessible from the Terminal window.
Active Renderer from Marc Barrot - publish OPML outlines using Radio UserLand
Edit This Page by Steve Hooker - A tool to add an Edit this Page like functionality to your live Radio weblog
backlogAllRSS by Steve Hooker - Convert all Radio posts into one RSS file
Export Weblog by Andy Fragen - Export posts from your weblogData.root file into individual text files
Install CodeFreshener by Andy Fragen - Insert a customized version of Dave Winer's codeFreshener scripts into your tool
Offline Toggle by Andy Fragen - Sends out call to tcp.myAddress to test for a network connection.
Root Updates Report by Andy Fragen - Root Updates Report will read the current days updates from logs in a guest database (GDB) or all root updates from the outline
Diaries by Steve Hooker - Add a javascripted calendar to your template
Master Ping by Patrick Ritchie - Adds support of additional ping services to Radio UserLand
googlejuice by Steve Hooker - A tool to make your blog posts achieve higher Google Juice
xManilaBloggerBridge by Steve Hooker - A tool to mirror any post to any other blog, be that Manila, Blogger or any other bloggerAPI friendly service
bitTorrentIntegration by Andrew Grumet - Automate download of BitTorrent enclosures
myWeblogOutliner by Andrew Grumet/Dave Winer - publishing from Radio to Moveable Type