Genealogy Tools: RSS

Ξ October 15th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ |

There are many tools to research and display genealogy results and keep up with genealogy news. They are range from the simple to the complex, to match your level of interest and expertise.

We’ll examine a few of these tools, beginning with genealogy news, and how to get it. We’ll add more tools to this page, and other pages, as time goes on. I won’t be in a hurry, because I want to do a thorough job, so check back here often.

Let’s begin with RSS, an acronyn, according to most people, stands Real Simple Syndication. (we’ll let the eggheads debate about the term RSS). Suffice it to say that RSS can help you stay on top of genealogy news, and help you display it on your Web site.

Decide what you want to do

How you use RSS is really up to you. The fundamental questions you must ask yourself:

1. Do I just want to read RSS-generated genealogy news?
2. Do I want to display genealogy feeds on my Web site?
3. Do I want to create RSS feeds so others can keep tabs on my news?

How you answer that question will determine which tool you need. You can, therefore, break RSS tools into readers, displayers and creators. Of these two choices, displayers far outnumber creators.

Readers are a dime a dozen, and the latest version of Web browsers can display RSS feeds quite well and, really, they are all you need. So, let’s just concentrate on tools that help you display and create your genealogy feeds. Further, let’s just use tools that are free.

RSS Displayers

I’ve spent several months scouring the Internet for tools to help display genealogy RSS feeds on a Web site. Below are some of the better tools, and they are all free. None of them require any programming on your part; you just need to learn how to display them on your Web pages. Each of the Web sites below give you instructions.

  • Page2RSS: Free service provided by Google. Page2RSS is a service that helps you monitor web sites that do not publish feeds. It will check any web page for updates and deliver them to your favorite RSS aggregator. The Google goal: RSS updates provided every 2 hours.
  • Feedity: Free online service. Feedity is an RSS generator for web pages without a web syndication format. Feedity, RSS Web Feed Generator for Web Pages without Syndication, Convert any web page to a RSS web feed.
  • Feed43: Free online service. Your favorite site doesn’t provide news feeds? This free online service converts any web page to an RSS feed on the fly.
  • RSS to HTML: Takes an RSS feed and turns it into an HTML page. You can either run it online, or put the php script on a Web server. This is one COOL program.
  • RSS2GIF: This is an oddball program, but it works, and there is no javascript involved. This is handy, especially on sites like wordpress.com, that don’t allow javascript or php. This free online program takes an RSS feed and turns it into a graphic (gif), with embedded links in the graphic you can click. You place it on your Web page as you would any graphic. This progam is so unusual, you may want to try it for fun.
  • RSSgenr8: Free online service, or use on your own Web server. RSSgenr8 is a hosted HTML-to-RSS “Scraper Tool” which dynamically generates a RSS feed from any HTML web page. This is for the more advanced in the crowd, but it’s free, so I thought I’d list it.
  • RSS Editor: Free plug-in for Firefox that lets you create and maintain your RSS feeds using your browser. This really works, and is one of the few programs that let you GENERATE your own RSS, too. And it’s easy to use.

RSS Creators

RSS-creation tools put you in the driver’s seat, allowing you to create your own RSS feeds. Your feeds also serve as a mechanism to drive traffic to your site, and keep people informed without having to send e-mails to your site’s visitors.

Below are some of the better feed-creation tools.

  • RSS Editor: Free plug-in for Firefox that lets you create and maintain your RSS feeds using your browser. This really works, and is one of the few programs that let you GENERATE your own RSS, too.
  • How to Create an RSS Feed With Notepad, a Web Server, and a Beer: Try this if you want to create your RSS feeds manually. This is a tutorial for using a low-tech, but effective, way to create your own RSS feed. After you’ve created you RSS feed, use an FTP program to upload it to your favorite Web server.
  • As an alternative to the two methods above, you can get a free blog. RSS-creation tools are scarce, but if you run a blog, WordPress, Drupal and others have RSS-creation capbabilities built right in. All you have to do is blog. You can get a blog free on WordPress.com, although you are limited to 50 megabytes — but you don’t have to pay to have it hosted, unless you want more room. With a little ingenuity, you can get more bang by including RSS feeds from other sites on your WordPress site, since they take up negligible space on the server. Please also note that WordPress.com doesn’t allow the use of javascript or php on its company-hosted sites.

If you want more information about RSS tools than is here, please visit Syndication Nation, a site that covers RSS in depth.

 

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