Feedburner, RSS Feeds & XML Output.

Feb 4

ToddArticle, Web , , , , , , , , No Comments

Awhile back, I worked on a project that was a site that used ASP (or .NET, or some sort of Windows prestidigitation) and needed to place a RSS feed from a Wordpress blog, into the site and feed the XML through a script I found on my search across the interwebz. So the question remained. Could I feed and XML file through and display it on an ASP-driven site, from a PHP-driven blog?

Yes.

I could have used a simple Javascript script I found, or I could have used a crafty jQuery plugin I found.

What the kicker was, was that I did not realize that Feedburner had output an XML formatted feed file. Lesson learned when I was setting up this site’s feed, with Feedburner, and was clicking around after I set everything up. Voila! I click a tab and I see the magical mystery that was the “XML Source” link. So, the mystery was solved. Feedburner does output an XML source. Excellent!

So, I figure I would do those a favor and tell those who are stuck in the same predicament I was stuck in a few weeks back.

Step One: Click your site name or “Feed Title”

Step Two: Find the “Optimize” tab

Step 3: Find the “XML Source” menu selection

Step 4: Grab your XML source!

That’s it! You’ve successfully retrieved your Feedburner XML source!

The reason why I posted this, is that I hadn’t been mucking around with Feedburner for awhile. Before they were acquired by Google, as a matter of fact. I don’t remember there being the option, not saying there wasn’t, but I don’t remember the option of the XML source. It had been that long. Call it stupidity or an oversight, everything just clicked today when I dove back into Feedburner, so I hope this article helps.

I hope this helps in solving that question you may have, and if this article helps one person, then my job here is done!

The Survey, 2009

Feb 4

ToddWeb , , , , , , , No Comments

I Took the Survey For People Who Make Websites – 2009, you should too!

Do IE Users Really Care?

Feb 4

ToddArticle, Discussion, Web , , , , 6 Comments

That’s a question I have been asking myself a lot lately. Do Internet Explorer users really care about the inner workings of what developers do for websites and the fights we have with getting IE to cooperate with designs, templates, styling, etc.

Do they really care about validity in code? How the structure of the code is and how clean our code is? Do they care about what version they are actually using? I say “no” to all of these questions. Why? Here’s my thought process behind this…

I figure a good chunk of IE users are just boxes just sitting there with Windows 2000 and IE6, just sitting there, running, running some sort of corporation software. I figure another huge chunk is older users that don’t know any better and are not educated. They just simply do not have an inkling that there are alternatives out there for not only browsers, but operating systems as well. A good example, would be my father. He ran Windows 98 for the longest time, then was “upgraded” to 2000 by a local computer dealer. His box was about 10 years behind the times, in my estimation.

Another big percentage of IE users are those users that “Well, it came with the computer”. Yes, that tells me they could care less that my code is following a certain standard. Along with this crowd, I lump in those that just don’t upgrade their browsers, period. Something I dealt with recently with a project. The owner of a company had IE6 I believe, then upgraded to 7, then got around to upgrading to 8… if he wasn’t told, I think he’d still be with IE6, the more deplorable browser still in existence.

Which leaves me to the 2 smallest percentages of IE users. Those that may care, but in my opinion, don’t. Those die hard IE users that would throw themselves under a bus for Steve Ballmer, those that would give their right ear for a job coding in Seattle in ASP/.NET (and some whom still revere IE6), and those that like me, that MUST check their sites in every major browser that gets a 5% share or more of the market. (Numbers are just thrown out for good measure, feel free to correct, if so.)

In all, I don’t think 95% of Internet Explorer users really care about valid, web standard code. Nor do they care about how the code looks when you view the source or what script runs a certain part of the site, they’ll just click the error message and carry on, because they don’t know, nor care what that functionality does.

So why are we coding for a browser that does not conform and why are we catering to users that could care less?

I’m still asking myself this question.