Tag Archives: Software

SimplePie: Parse RSS With PHP

LastRSS. MagpieRSS. Neither have been updated in over a year. What’s the best way to parse RSS feeds and output them with PHP? Simple, use SimplePie.

What is SimplePie? It’s a file you include in your PHP scripts, allowing you instant access to RSS-parsing capabilities. You can display RSS headlines/items on your website, combine several feeds into one, and anything else that you can think of. If you know a little PHP, the possibilities are endless.

You see this PHP code:

require('simplepie.inc');
$feed = new SimplePie("http://feeds.feedburner.com/Webmaster-source");
$feed->handle_content_type();
echo "<h1>".$feed->get_title()."</h1>";
foreach ($feed->get_items() as $item) {
echo '<h2><a href="'.$item->get_permalink().'">';
echo $item->get_title().'</a></h2>';
echo '<p>'.$item->get_description().'</p>';
}

That’s all you need to display a feed’s headlines and descriptions. Of course, that was only a simple example. It’s unbelievable what you can do with SimplePie.

Over at NTugo, SimplePie is used extensively. The MyNT RSS reader is powered by SimplePie. The “Recent blog posts” and “Recent posts from the NTugo Network” boxes on the home page are built with SimplePie. The RSS feed aggregated from all of the NTugo blogs? SimplePie again! It’s amazing what you can do with SimplePie.

If you know PHP, you’ll definitely want to take a look at SimplePie.

10 Widgets For Bloggers/Webmasters (Yahoo Widget Engine)

If you’ve spent any amount of time on the web, it’s likely you’ve heard of the Yahoo Widget Engine (formerly known as Konfabulator [before Yahoo bought it]). With YWE, you get a Mac-like heads-up display that overlays your screen (activated by a hotkey), displaying your widgets. The widgets can also float around on your desktop, but generally I stow them in the heads-up display. YWE is not just useful, it’s pretty cool. Check it out if you haven’t already.

After installing YWE, you’re not-so-subtly steered toward the Widget Gallery, a place where you can search/browse for new widgets to install. A lot of people’s first thought is “Whoa, that’s a lot of widgets.” How do you sort through them all? I can help.

If you’re a blogger, or just a webmaster, I can recommend some widgets. Here are some of my favorites in the “webmastery and blogging” category.

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MyNT (My NTugo)

RSS is one of the greatest web technologies invented in the last ten years. It enables us to keep up with our favorite sites, listen to podcasts, and get niche news easily. Forget annoying old newsletters! Who needs them when you can just open your RSS reader and skim through headlines, looking for things of interest?

Ah, the RSS reader. Like with web browsers and email clients, everyone has a different preference. Some like desktop programs, while others like web-based apps. There’s no shortage of choices. You have Feedreader, Netvibes, Bloglines, etc. I don’t like any of the choices. I’m a big fan of RSS, but I’ve never really liked any RSS reader other than Firefox‘s Live Bookmarks feature. Recently I’ve had two problems. Number one, my feed collection outgrew Live Bookmarks. Number two, I’ve often wanted to read my RSS feeds on other computers.

What did I do? I threw together my own web-based RSS reader. I call it MyNT (say “Mint”), which is short for My NTugo. It’s a little innovative, as I added a few…different features to it.

My favorite feature: You can read your RSS feeds without logging in at all (just go to http://my.ntugo.com/yourusername.html). Just bookmark that URL and you can check your feeds with a single click (let’s see Bloglines do that).

Take a look at MyNT, you may like it. I can’t guarantee everyone will like MyNT. After all, I made it mainly for myself (and anyone who thinks that most feed readers are too bloated). I wanted to capture the simplicity of Live Bookmarks in a different form, and I think I did a pretty good job at it.

Well, MyNT’s URL is http://my.ntugo.com, and you can read the official press-release-sort-of-thing here.

WordPress Vs. Movable Type

So, which is the better blogging software? WordPress or Movable Type?

Movable Type is one of the older blogging packages. Once they were the cutting edge, and the most popular blogging tool. Nowadays, that title has been given to WordPress.

WordPress, though in development back in 2001, is officially successor to the old B2 blogging script. I don’t believe they share any code, though. Currently WordPress is the most popular blogging tool, thanks to it’s power, flexibility, and ease of use.

Can Movable Type still compete with WordPress? Let’s see.

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Google Custom Search or Direct Database Search?

Here’s an important question: Should you use Google Custom Search (GCS) on your site? Or would it be better to directly search your database.

It depends on your point of view. Some bloggers use GCS, while others use their blog software’s built-in search tool (which acceses the database and searches it). Which should you use? Let’s take a closer look at each option.

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8 Useful WordPress Plugins

In no particular order, here are some WordPress plugins I find useful.

AjaxLoad: Free “Throbber” Image Generator

Attention AJAX programmers! Do you need a good “loading image” (or “throbber”)? Take a look at AjaxLoad.info, the only throbber-image generator I know of (as of this writing). You pick an image style, then enter some hex odes for the foreground and background colors. Hit the generate button, and if you like what you see, download the animated GIF. Simple, or what? Here are some examples:

Those are just a few examples of what AjaxLoad can do.

Free Blog Services Rated: Blogger, Livejournal, WordPress.com

So, you’re not serious enough about blogging to host your own blog? You’d rather use a free blogging service? Are you sure? You can get a domain and hosting for only $3.99/month. No? Okay, then I guess we can get started.

Okay, here’s how this fill work. I’m going to compare Blogger, LiveJournal, and WordPress.com. We’ll see what free blog provider is the best. Let’s start with LiveJournal.

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Text Editors

You won’t get very far as a webmaster if you don’t know what a plaintext editor is (Notepad, for example), so I’m not going to waste time explaining. Let’s fast-forward to the good part.

Are you happy with your text editor? Which one do you use? Do you want to try some new ones?

I use Notepad (included with Windows), and EvolvEd (which is no longer available, unfortunately). I mainly use Notepad, but I use EvolvEd if I need line numbers, syntax coloring, or other extra stuff. Notepad is still my favorite text editor (I like It’s simplicity), though I’ve always wanted to try the Mac-only (I want a Mac!!) TextWrangler.

If you want to look around at more advanced text editors than Notepad, check out Wikipedia’s page on text editors.

Google Apps

So, you’ve got yourself a domain. Sure, it helps people get to your website, but what else can you use it for? Google’s got the answer. Do you hate your webhost’s webmail program? Do you like GMail? Well, now you can have your own copy of GMail (with 100 free email accounts)….but at your own domain. That’s right, you can have your own mini-GMail with email addresses resembling you@yourdomain.com. You get more than just email, but the email’s the best part. Forget your host’s SquirrelMail system, switch to Google Apps.