RSS and ATOM Feeds for Trip Logs

Monday, April 28, 2008

037-33.540 N
076-18.720 W

Ahoy from the land-locked crew of the BlueJacket,

We're currently in a holding pattern waiting to see if we'll be able to do our planned cruising, and as a result I've had some spare time on my hands. Given this extra time I decided to implement what's known as RSS for my web site. If you're like most people, you've probably never heard of RSS, but it's a pretty cool technology.

The acronym RSS has multiple definitions, but one of the most common translations is Real Simple Syndication. It allows users to view frequently published content, such as blogs (i.e. my trip logs) in their web browser. The site creates a file which describes the content and when it was created. When you connect to the site via this method, you're presented with an index showing the new content.

This is great if you follow multiple blogs from multiple sources and you don't want to have you mailbox overrun with e-mail containing the content. And the very nice thing is that your current web browser already has an RSS viewer built into it!

First off, you need to subscribe to the feed. You can do this by clicking on the following symbol: which is the standard indication of an RSS feed. This will open a web browser window showing an index of the last 15 logs that I've published. To subscribe to the RSS feed, follow one of these instructions:

• Internet Explorer: Click on the "Subscribe to this feed" link in the upper left hand section of the page.
• Mozilla Firefox: Click on the "Subscribe Now" button.
• Safari: Click on "Add bookmark" under Actions on the right hand side of the page.

Note that by subscribing you won't receive any additional e-mails from me. All that will happen is that your browser will automatically check for new content and this will only be shown when you view the RSS feed in your browser.

To view new content, follow one of these instructions based upon your browser:

• Internet Explorer: Click the Gold Star in the tool bar or press alt-c. Next to the Favorites button you'll see "Feeds". Click on Feeds. You should see "Geoff Schultz's BlueJacket Sailing Logs." Click on that and you'll see the index of the latest 15 logs.
• Mozilla Firefox: Click on Bookmarks and then Bookmarks Toolbar Folder. You should see "Geoff Schultz's BlueJacket Sailing Logs." and to the right of that you'll see the index of the latest 15 logs. Logs which have been read will have a blue sailboat next to them.
• Safari: Click on Bookmarks and then Bookmarks Bar. You should see "Geoff Schultz's BlueJacket Sailing Logs." Click on that and you'll see the index of the latest 15 logs.

I think that you'll find this a very nice way to view the content and catch up on any logs that you may have missed.

[May 8, 2008] Both RSS 2.0 and ATOM 1.0 feeds have been implemented. The ATOM feed is located here

-- Geoff

Log ID: 1138