Poor neglected blog.

That’s ok, not much of relevance has happened since Hugh Jackman stood for all of us who hate people who don’t turn off their mobile phones in a theatre. Thanks once more Wolverine.

Now for the real, and random, updates…

• jordanmendenhall.com, a former home of this blog and my main site, has been updated. Now in a much bleaker grey tone. Hefty thanks to CSS-tricks for the inspiration and code.
• PHP – currently trying to tackle this programming language; reading through the excellent manual and trying to learn through experience with WordPress and SimplePie. I would have some SimplePie sites done by now but it is being frakin’ annoying and not working how I’d like. More to learn I guess.
• Restarted my search for work. If it doesn’t pan out by January, will more than likely be heading to Thailand to work for an NGO, finances be damned.
• The best days are those in which new books arrive in the mail. Today I received The Infrastructural City, Fell Vol 1: Feral City, and To The Holy Shrines. Will probably be the first and last purchases for the year as my stack(s) are already overwhelming.
• I don’t think the beef in my Mongolian beef from the local Chinese place actually comes from Mongolia.
• Still posting at WhyWeWorry. My posts are here.
• Thinking of doing my first NaNoWriMo. Ok, not as cool as running a marathon but I guess it’s a marathon of a different sort. Might be a bit of a spur to be disciplined for once.
• Was in a car accident my first day off from my laymen home nursing duties putting my squarely back at home and car-less for the past three weeks. Fingers crossed, it will be back tomorrow. Just another sign that my time back home in Redneckville should be coming to an end.
• Movies: Watched Fires On The Plain last night. A single Japanese soldier crawls across the shattered landscape of the Philippines in WWII witnessing gore, disease, and cannibalism. Excellent, to say the least. Carlito’s Way and Oldboy are the only other ones that stick out for me this month. Carlito’s Way of probably being the last great dePalma and Oldboy surprisingly fresh with a sick surprising ending. Also watched The Painted Veil, which was pretty decent, not great.
• Craig Ferguson remains the King of Late Night, despite all the attention lavished on the others. Conan is struggling a bit in his time slot and I enjoyed Jimmy Fallon even more than Conan until I was turned onto Craig Ferguson. Conan is starting to get into Letterman mode where he has one monologue joke for the week and rolls with it. Ferguson has no ’standard’ monologue, or format for that matter. He has, I guess, what you call a cold opening, a break, then goes to a monologue, then to a sit-down, then to the interviews. He doesn’t keep them on a strict PR play-by-play that you can tell is rote (Conan is getting especially bad at this) and will let the interview meander wherever it leads. He also has authors, which I’ve never seen on a real late night show before. Letterman and Leno I could really care less about, especially Leno. The commercials for his man on the street stuff before his show premiered seemed at best condescending and mostly insulting.
• The LA Cycling Map got a redesign. The map is loading properly but Google has been acting weird the past two days so who knows. Will take a closer look after doing some more cover letters. A cover letter done and problem figured out. Should work fine now.
• Update: Found some great techdork and theory pieces at this area of the Adobe site called the Think Tank. Check it out.

That’s about it. Hopefully good news to come, either about work or life or getting away, soon.

The religious community that I’m in delves into media. In fact we have a website that showcases video and audio materials for free.

We use the ever popular video/media flash player made by Longtail Video to stream our mp3 and video files to be distributed and seen by people in the web.

As we host our mp3 files in mypodcast.com, the rss feed that is delivered my the site isn’t exactly compatible with the player – so I had to parse the rss feed and re encode it into an rss feed that the longtail player recognizes.

In order to not reinvent the wheel in reading rss feeds, I used the ever popular open source (BSD-licensed) php feed reader, simplepie.

Below this page is the quick and dirty code that I used. I hope this will help you get started in the world of podcasting!


<?
require_once('simplepie.inc');

WordPress 2.8 is now out, available for download here. It now comes more equipped with organizing material to post blogs and at content. For advance users, creating Apps and widgets has just gotten easier. Watch the video above for a walkthrough.  If you need help for installation or more, there is plenty help available at wordpress.org.

See how wordpress 2.8 just became a trending topic:

WORDPRESS 2.8 New FEATURES:

• New Theme Installer routines
• Separate Comments into a separate postbox, from Discussion postbox, on the Edit Post screen
• Don’t ask for confirmation when marking a comment as spam
• Don’t notify post author of own comments
• Improved Admin icons
• Allow editing of all plugin files (Ticket 6732)
• Improved Plugin search
• Autosave post/page when pressing Control/Command+S
• Add description field for tags
• Enforce unique email addresses in Add/Edit users
• Make user_nicenames unique during registration
• Add “Send this password to the new user by email

simplePie+codeigniter

read full post here http://68kb.com/2007/10/31/codeigniter-and-simplepie/

just in case the post has been deleted..

download the zipped saved page

or just read this

Rename simplepie.inc to Simplepie.php and save it to system/application/libraries folder.
Open your controller file and add this code:

$this->load->library(’simplepie’);
$link = ‘http://68kb.com/category/news/feed’;
$data['feed'] = new SimplePie();
$data['feed']->set_feed_url($link);
$data['feed']->enable_cache(false);
$data['feed']->init();
$data['feed']->handle_content_type();

Open your view file and add this:

data): ?>
get_items(); ?>

<a href="get_permalink(); ?>”>get_title(); ?> – get_date(‘j M Y’); ?>

get_description(); ?>

Hooray! I did get the rss feed to pull from this blog and display on my site. A couple of minor changes and then that is done.

I converted the homepage to PHP and am using SimplePieto process. I still have to refine the CSS for the whole site, but at least it’s on the page, just with plain bullets. The other method that I tried were way too clunky, design-wise.

Next up, portfolio and featured project.

Installed and used the SimplePie RSS plugin for WP on my regular site at raoulpop.com. Its name is somewhat of a misnomer. It’s neither simple, nor “easy as pie” to begin with. Sure, after you check the documentation carefully, a light goes on in your head and you realize how to use it, but there’s a learning curve. I do agree, however, that the things it lets you do are quite nice. For example, I used it to rewrite my SmugMug recent photos feed and show only the thumbnails of the latest 10 images uploaded, each linked directly to the original image. I really like the result, but it took a bit of figuring out.

http://simplepie.org/ vs. http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/

Habt ihr auch Probleme mit SimplePie und Smarty?!

WordPress 2.8 – Wo seht ihr die Zukunft?

MY SIMPLE PIE

CLICK HERE

Mobile Site

While CodeIgniter can be considered a small framework compared to competitors such as Zend Framework, it comes with all the basic libraries that we are all using in every single project we develop. The community also provides a number of extra libraries for some more specific tasks. At the bottom of the article you will find a number of links to the official website, documentation forums, etc.

http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/a-simple-mobile-site-with-codeigniter

CodeIgniter-SimplePie

A pet project of mine which I will unleash upon you all soon required the home page to read in an RSS feed. Since I am a CodeIgniter whore I soon learnt that amongst its many libraries and helpers that there wasn’t an RSS reader.

http://www.nextbigleap.com/blog/development/simplepie-rss-class-and-codeigniter/

http://68kb.com/2007/10/31/codeigniter-and-simplepie/

Click here

This is an update to a post I did last year about using SimplePie as a standalone entity in Drupal.

Why would you want to do that?

Well, modules that use SimplePie as part of their coding reconfigure it to make it work with their module. Some even publish feed items as nodes – and that’s fine if that’s what you want to do.

But what if you just want to put a simple feed in a block or a page without all the baggage from a module? Sorry, folks, those modules won’t help you do that. Their sole reason for existence is to take SimplePie and mold it into their code – not use SimplePie by itself.

However, you can get around that.

It only takes a few minor adjustments to make SimplePie work for you in Drupal as a standalone entity.

This SimplePie method outlined here is, of course, separate from the feed aggregator that comes with Drupal, so it will NOT clash with that module. Please note: You don’t have to disable Drupal’s feed aggregator to use the standalone method we’re about to discuss.

Let’s get started. Go ahead and download SimplePie, and extract it to your desktop, and leave it there for now. Let’s take some steps now:

First, inside your main Drupal folder, create two folders: “cache” and “php”.  Give the “cache” folder 777 permissions so it is web-writable. This folder will be used, of course, to cache RSS feeds.

Inside the php folder, whose folder permissions can be 755, put the “simplepie.inc” file that you downloaded. That’s it for “installing”SimplePie in your Drupal folder.

In Drupal, you have a couple of choices now: Either create a block to hold the RSS feed, or create a page to hold the RSS feed. No matter your choice, this is where your RSS feed will come in.

Let’s assume you want to create a block filled with an RSS feed (either your OWN feed, or a feed from someone like, say, the official SimplePie blog thingy).

Now that you’ve created a “cache” folder in the base Drupal folder, we’ll now need to “add a new block”, and fill the “Body” block with PHP code that defines the RSS feed. Remember to choose “php” as the “input format.”

Below is some example code, which supposes you have created the folders in the paragraphs above (and, yes, it works as-is). The feed can include formatting, so change it if you wish. If you copy and paste the code below, do NOT include the words “CODE” and “END OF CODE”.

NOTE: Remove the square brackets throughout the code (just use search and replace) before pasting the code where you want it. Don’t even get me started by asking me why I used the square brackets here. ( You can get an unbracketed version here )

CODE

[<?php

// Make sure SimplePie is included. You may need to change this to match the location of simplepie.inc (See note 1 below, after this code).
require_once('../../php/simplepie.inc');

$feed = new SimplePie('http://simplepie.org/blog/feed/');

// This makes sure that the content is sent to the browser as text/html and the UTF-8 character set (since we didn't change it).
$feed->]handle_content_type();

// Let’s begin our XHTML webpage code.  The DOCTYPE is supposed to be the very first thing, so we’ll keep it on the same line as the closing-PHP tag.
?>][<div class="header">]
[<h1>][<a href="[<?php echo $feed->]get_permalink(); ?>]”>][<?php echo $feed->]get_title(); ?>][</a>][</h1>]
[<p>][<?php echo $feed->]get_description(); ?>][</p>]
[</div>]

[<?php
/*
Here, we'll loop through all of the items in the feed, and $item represents the current item in the loop.
*/
foreach ($feed->]get_items() as $item):
?>]

[<div class="item">]
[<h2>][<a href="[<?php echo $item->]get_permalink(); ?>]”>][<?php echo $item->]get_title(); ?>][</a>][</h2>]
[<p>][<?php echo $item->]get_description(); ?>][</p>]
[<p>][<small>]Posted on [<?php echo $item->]get_date(‘j F Y | g:i a’); ?>][</small>][</p>]
[</div>]

[<?php endforeach; ?>]

END OF CODE

If all you want is a quick-and-dirty feed, the code above will work right out of the box. If it doesn’t, see Note 1 below. See the SimplePie Wiki documentation pages for tips and tricks.

You’re done.

Note 1: This code has been thoroughly tested, but your host provider’s server may throw you a curve. You may, for example, see an error like this: Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘../../php/simplepie.inc’ (include_path=’.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php’) in xxxxx.xxx/xxx/xxx.

In that case, here’s the solution: In the line of code in the example above, changethe location of where the server will be sure to “see” simplepie.inc. For example: /home/yourusername/public_html/php/simplepie.inc.

Thus, in our code snippet higher up in this article, you would change the location to read (this is only an example, but you get the idea):

require_once(‘/home/kittylitter/php/simplepie.inc)’

That should do it.

Recent am descoperit o biblioteca php pentru folosirea feed-urilor RSS oferite de agentiile de stiri,retele sociale,bloguri,utila in general pentru  orice serviciu care pune la dispozitie informatie sub forma XML.

Un exemplu simplu de folosire :

Se descarca CodeIgniter si se seteaza in fisierul system/application/config/config.php parametrul :
base_url = http://localhost/nume_proiect_CodeIgniter
si in fisierul system/application/config/autoload.php :
$autoload['helper'] = array(‘url’); – pentru incarcarea automata helperului url.

Se descarca biblioteca SimplePie si se redenumeste fisierul simplepie.inc in Simplepie.php.
Se va copia Simplepie.php in directorul system/libraries.

Apoi in controllerul home.php se foloseste biblioteca :
$this->load->library(’simplepie’);
$this->simplepie->set_feed_url(‘http://interfeteweb20.wordpress.com/?feed=rss’);
$this->simplepie->set_cache_location(‘calea_abdoluta_catre_directorul_cache_din_CodeIgniter’);
$this->simplepie->init();
$feed=$this->simplepie;
$info=array();
foreach ($feed->get_items() as $item){
array_push($info,array(‘title’=>$item->get_title(),’description’=>$item->get_description(),’link’=>$item->get_link()));

}
$data['info']=$info;
$this->load->view(‘home_view’,$data);

Se va realiza un fisier home_view.php in directorul system/application/views.

I know a little about RSS. I like this system. And Now I wan to make my Dot Com with integrated RSS system.

I looking the nice service from simplepie. Amazon coding with their free file service. I want to learn about it and make a report here.

İki yazı önce bahsettiğim Drupal eklentilerinden birisi “SimplePie Core” SimplePie resmi sitesinde tanıtılmış. Eklentiyi yazma amacımı çok iyi özetlemişler.

Der Victory Castle Conspirer, das FdoG-Aggregat, läuft nicht mehr auf einem selbst zusammengezimmerten Skript. Heute morgen habe ich die Seite auf Gregarius umgestellt (Die Kollegen Freiheitsfabrikanten machen’s ja auch damit). Der VCC sollte jetzt insgesamt zuverlässiger laufen als bisher.

Diese Informationshäppchen sind für den Einen oder die Andere vielleicht noch von Interesse:

• SimplePie war/ist zwar nicht übel, aber leider fordert es mir mehr Code ab, als ich leisten kann.
• Das Update-Skript des VCC wird einmal stündlich mit Webcron.org aufgerufen.
• Das Ergebnis ist auch als Feed abonnierbar
• Fragen, Wünsche usw. bitte via Kommentar oder Mail

• http://drupal.org/project/feedapi_node_discussion
• http://drupal.org/project/simplepie
• http://drupal.org/project/zend_feed

Comme je vous l’annonçais dans un post précédent, l’utilisation du plugin Simplepie pour WordPress serait sans doute susceptible de permettre très facilement l’affichage d’un flux RSS sur un blog WordPress.

Et effectivement, ça marche avec quelques petits bémols…

En tapant Simplepie WordPress dans Google, on tombe sur la page du plugin : http://simplepie.org/wiki/plugins/wordpress/simplepie_plugin_for_wordpress

Très vite on peut le télécharger en cliquant sur download (petite remarque la version marquée est 2.1.1 mais le téléchargement donne la version 2.1). On le décomprime en cliquant droit “extraire tout” avec la souris. On ouvre le dossier dans lequel se trouve un nouveau dossier. C’est ce dernier que l’on va transférer sur le serveur dans le dossier wp-content/plugins/. On peut alors aller activer le plugin “activate plugin” dans le tableau de bord de WordPress. (à ce stade un petit rappel, vous ne pouvez utiliser les plugins que si vous avez installé WordPress sur votre serveur). Simplepie se retrouve alors accessible dans les options de wordpress. En même temps, dans la page plugins, on trouve qu’il existe une version 2.1.2 du plugin et on peut le télécharger.

Alors là, méga message d’erreur qui nous dit que Simplepie WordPress n’est pas installé au bon endroit ! J’ai donc téléchargé la version 2.1.2 et je l’ai mise à la place de la version 2.1. Victoire, ce message d’erreur disparaît.

Pour en laisser un second (de message d’erreur) qui nous dit que le cache n’est pas inscriptible (cache not writeable). Pourtant, j’ai créé un dossier cache dans wp-content et j’ai modifié ses attributs pour avoir un chmod à 777.

J’ai essayé de mettre la commande (à entourer des commandes php):

 echo SimplePieWP('http://simplepie.org'); 

quelque part dans mon template wordpress. Ca marche. Malgré le message d’erreur le flux est affiché correctement (ici à titre d’exemple c’est le flux de Simplepie qui est affiché).

Reste à faire disparaître ce message d’erreur. J’ai essayé de le supprimer dans le code, j’ai recherché une solution sur les forums de wordpress, et finalement après plusieurs essais infructueux, j’ai réussi à le supprimer en allant dans options, simplepie, et en choisissant de ne pas utiliser le cache. Donc solution temporaire peu élégante, mais comme j’agrège peu de flux, ce n’est certainement pas grave. Par rapport à l’article précédent où il fallait 20 lignes de code pour afficher un flux, c’est devenu hyper-simple.

On peut modifier les paramètres, tels que le nombre d’articles, la longueur du résumé affiché, simplement dans la page options simplepie de wordpress.

Ah oui, chez WordPress ils disent que le problème cache not writeable est résolu en repassant à la version 2.1 (mais moi dans ce cas j’ai d’autres messages d’erreurs). Ou alors ailleurs, ils disent que le problème finit par se résoudre tout seul. Patience, patience.

Pour finir, un petit exemple copié sur la page du plugin qui montre bien comment on donne les adresses des flux, et comment on choisit le nombre d’articles (items) à afficher, si l’on veut faire afficher plusieurs flux (code à encadrer par des balises php).

echo SimplePieWP(array(
	'http://feeds.feedburner.com/simplepie',
	'http://laughingmeme.org/category/magpie/feed/'
), array(
	'items' => 5,
	'cache_duration' => 1800,
	'date_format' => 'j M Y, g:i a'
));

I’ve finally started work on my zeitgeist page. My personal projects have been on the back-burner, as I’ve (obviously) had other things to think about!

Personal Zeitgeist is very easy to get up and running, although I have been making a lot of tweaks – mostly to satisfy my own coding preferences; for example: renaming the *.inc files to *.inc.php – so that nobody else can view the source-code. (That’s been one of my long-term gripes with, the otherwise brilliant, SimplePie).

I’ll most likely do a lot more customisation to the zeitgeist template/theme before I set it as my default web-page.

Here are a few of the things I want it to do:

• Act as my OpenID delegate (I haven’t yet decided who to use as my default OpenID provider – most likely be WordPress.com)
• Display a set of links to all my external web-profiles (i.e. flickr, last.fm, etc.) – along with corresponding favicons, XFN and OPML. (Actually it’s probably easier to store them as OPML in the first place.)
• I’m also considering adding some tag cloud functionality – just to quench my thirst for tagging.
• Develop a few functions; specifically an email obfuscator (most likely lift the code from wp-includes)

Who knows when I’ll be able to do all this… especially when my other commitments are quite demanding!