[aprssig] findU and RSS

[Steve Dimse]

Over the next couple weeks I'll be adding RSS feeds to findU. If you  
don't know, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and is a way to  
consolidate headlines and links into a newsfeed. I'd played a bit  
with this, but until I saw it integrated into the new version of Mac  
OS I didn't realize how cool this could be, especially as it relates  
to findU. Unlike most sites where there is one or a small set of news  
feeds, findU will support custom feeds.

So far I have one example done, the weather warnings. This works very  
much like the weather warning cgi:

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/warn-near.cgi? 
exclude=go&call=k4hg-8&nomap=1

but the URL is:

feed://rss.findu.com/warn.cgi?call=k4hg&max=1500

You have to look at this on an RSS enabled program, otherwise it is  
just jibberish, but the way it works is at defined intervals the  
newsreader (in my case Safari, Apple's web browser) fetches the feed  
and looks for new news items, in this case weather warnings within  
1500 miles of K4HG's location. Any new items are flagged by the  
browser, and the user knows there is new news on this channel.

The next things I'll be doing are message feeds and a near function.  
You can be automatically notified if a new station appears near you,  
or if someone sends you an APRS message! After that there will be a  
position function, where you can track individual stations, and of  
course weather feeds...I can see lots of potential here.

I'm open to any ideas on this, feel free to comment...

Steve K4HG