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Tech OverloadRSS And Me Again
I've been using Bloglines for my RSS aggregator for a week or two now. It works for me because I'm on one of four computers at any given time. Using a web base solution works for me.
I've come across several issues with full feed RSS (RSS 2.0) that I haven't been able to resolve. Two of the issues deal with how aggregators handle images. First, if you have your site set up to not allow hotlinks1 you've wasted bandwidth as any image on your site will be blocked in the aggregator.
The second issue deals with protecting your images from being downloaded with a right mouse click. I've been on several photography sites where java script has been used to stop users from right clicking. This has no affect if you have published image links in your RSS feeds. The aggregator will allow the right click and downloads.
The third thing RSS with comments. Some sites are publishing full feed RSS and comments. Each time someone posts a comment you get the the full post and all the previous comments again. This is starting to annoy me.
1 Hotlinks - putting a like to in image from another site thus reducing your bandwidth usage
Posted by jr at May 26, 2004 10:54 PM | Threads
Comments
Wow! Thanks, Jeff. That's way better than futzing around with my feed. :D
Posted by: Solonor at May 27, 2004 09:06 PM
You can set Bloglines to ignore entries that have been changed (because of included comments or because of revisions) on a feed-by-feed basis. View the feed, hit "Edit", and then change the "Updated Items" setting to "Ignore".
I removed broad hotlink protection when I started including images in my feeds. Now I just block specific hotlinkers. I guess that if you're choosing to make entries available out of the context of your site, you have to make them available.
Since we're on the subject of RSS: Entries in your index.xml feed link to the monthly archive, instead of to the entry's permalink. (This entry's link shows up as http://www.noded.com/archives/2004_05.html, instead of http://www.noded.com/archives/2004_05.html#000482 .)
Thanks Jeff. I guess I should have "read the manual". I will look into the right links. The RSS 2.0 template I used was a quick fix. Well I have a three day weekend to fix it
jr
Posted by: Jeff at May 27, 2004 02:46 PM
Fine. I'll change my frickin' RSS feed. Just for you.
(It was starting to annoy me, too. I just keep forgetting about it. Thanks for the reminder.)
Posted by: Solonor at May 27, 2004 07:56 AM
That Right-Click-Prevention - as soon as you see the picture on your monitor, it's on your hard drive (in the cache) anyway - you just have to find it. If it would not be in the cache, the browser could not display it (unless he just stores it in RAM, which is very improbable).
So that JavaScript thing is just a nuisance (and also keeps users from using the more advanced features of browsers). There is no way of preventing anybody from saving anything there is on a website...
Posted by: Guido at May 27, 2004 03:48 AM
I've been using Bloglines recently...still testing the waters.
Anyway, I also don't like the full feed and comments to RSS. Very annoying.
Posted by: Luke at May 26, 2004 11:30 PM