I still remember a few years ago, looking at the bookshelf of my computer science geek of a cousin (ok I have many of those, but I'm talking about Adil Bhai) and seeing a book about XML. As if life hadn't become complicated enough with HTML, here was a new and even better programming language for the Internet. Wonderful.
Well I decided to read this book and learn XML so I could do things on the Web. But considering I have few skills when it comes to hard-core computer things (ie programming) I barely made any headway and decided to revisit the book and the subject when it was more relevant.
It's starting to be more relevant.
I'll try again to read the book in the near future, but for now I want to tell you all about my first venture into the world of XML: using the power of syndication.
From Blogger.com:
Syndication means that when you publish your blog, Blogger automatically generates a machine-readable representation of your blog that can be picked up and displayed on other web sites and information aggregation tools. Special pieces of software called Newsreaders (or Aggregators) can scan these feeds, automatically letting you know when the sites have updated.
Some of you have already been reading my blog through the XML protocol, using the Atom format at http://jerseysportsguy.blogspot.com/atom.xml that Blogger automatically provides. If you have, please stop using that one. It looks ugly on IE and I'm sure it doesn't look any better on Aggregators or Mozilla.
In order to cross-promote my blog on Friendster, I have set up a RSS feed (RSS is another format, different from Atom...I think) using the website FeedBurner.com. The link for this feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/jerseysportsguy. Please use this feed from now on if you use an aggregator. I apologize for the huge ad in the middle, but it looks much better.
Because of this, I have also added new buttons on the side of the blog where you can click and go straight to the feed, along with a counter. I hope to see that number go up.
Also, something related: you can now e-mail an individual post of mine to anyone using the little envelope button on the bottom of each post (next to the link for comments). Feel free to use it whenever.
If you have NO idea what I've been talking about here, I apologize. I figure I should try to spruce up my blog (look for pictures soon) and this is one way to do it.
Let me know what you think and I hope to have another post up very soon...
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
I'm bbbaaaccckkk...
You didn't REALLY think I forgot about my blog, did you?
Well, I almost did. One thing you must know about me is that I can be an incredibly lazy person (not to mention how time-consuming medical school is). I make up these grand plans in life and then barely follow through. That was the case last June (as I began this blog with some great ideas) and that is the case again this June; not only have I returned to posting (regularly I hope) but I have some ambitions dealing with this blog: photos, links, an RSS feed to complement the Atom feed that Blogger.com provides, and other stuff.
But while I work out the details of all that, let me just start off with a simple post summarizing what happened to this blog. Simply put: Hurricane Ivan. It hit Grenada in September, and it disrupted my life. Suddenly I had to leave Grenada, wait a few weeks for the school to decide what we were going to do for the rest of the fall (and beyond), and then move to Long Island, NY, to resume our classes, living in a craphole known as SUNY Old Westbury's campus. Quite a shock from the tropical paradise I had just begun to enjoy.
I meant to write a post detailing my hurricane experience and I even started it. But I kept stalling it, kept delaying it, and now it's still sitting in my "Edit Posts" page, waiting for me to do something with it. I think I might finish it, though I forget many of the minute details that followed after that point. The reason why I want to finish it is so that I can express my feelings of sadness and my thoughts on the fragility of our existence (oooo, fancy).
After that, I intend to summarize the past 10 months; each month gets its own post. You already know what the big thing for October will be about (I like to think of the 2004 ALCS as "it never happened" or "we're still up 3-0, baseball just postponed the rest of the postseason". Probably not the healthiest take on things).
I will continue my Sports Prediction of the Day, and I will change the South Park Quote of the Day around. Some days it'll be a South Park quote, some days a Family Guy quote (my new thing), and some days it'll be a Guess the Movie quote. I actually might make the Guess the Movie quote into its own section. We'll see. I might do away with the Current Rankings of Songs in my Playlist feature only because I listen to the same thing over and over again for an extended period of time before I try out new music. Plus, since I'm not listening to the radio here in Grenada, I don't get to hear much new music.
I can't guarantee I'll be consistent with the blog. I hope I don't disappear like I did before, but for as long as I am writing, I hope you enjoy this little venture of mine.
Now if only I could make myself exercise regularly...
Well, I almost did. One thing you must know about me is that I can be an incredibly lazy person (not to mention how time-consuming medical school is). I make up these grand plans in life and then barely follow through. That was the case last June (as I began this blog with some great ideas) and that is the case again this June; not only have I returned to posting (regularly I hope) but I have some ambitions dealing with this blog: photos, links, an RSS feed to complement the Atom feed that Blogger.com provides, and other stuff.
But while I work out the details of all that, let me just start off with a simple post summarizing what happened to this blog. Simply put: Hurricane Ivan. It hit Grenada in September, and it disrupted my life. Suddenly I had to leave Grenada, wait a few weeks for the school to decide what we were going to do for the rest of the fall (and beyond), and then move to Long Island, NY, to resume our classes, living in a craphole known as SUNY Old Westbury's campus. Quite a shock from the tropical paradise I had just begun to enjoy.
I meant to write a post detailing my hurricane experience and I even started it. But I kept stalling it, kept delaying it, and now it's still sitting in my "Edit Posts" page, waiting for me to do something with it. I think I might finish it, though I forget many of the minute details that followed after that point. The reason why I want to finish it is so that I can express my feelings of sadness and my thoughts on the fragility of our existence (oooo, fancy).
After that, I intend to summarize the past 10 months; each month gets its own post. You already know what the big thing for October will be about (I like to think of the 2004 ALCS as "it never happened" or "we're still up 3-0, baseball just postponed the rest of the postseason". Probably not the healthiest take on things).
I will continue my Sports Prediction of the Day, and I will change the South Park Quote of the Day around. Some days it'll be a South Park quote, some days a Family Guy quote (my new thing), and some days it'll be a Guess the Movie quote. I actually might make the Guess the Movie quote into its own section. We'll see. I might do away with the Current Rankings of Songs in my Playlist feature only because I listen to the same thing over and over again for an extended period of time before I try out new music. Plus, since I'm not listening to the radio here in Grenada, I don't get to hear much new music.
I can't guarantee I'll be consistent with the blog. I hope I don't disappear like I did before, but for as long as I am writing, I hope you enjoy this little venture of mine.
Now if only I could make myself exercise regularly...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)