[aprssig] findU and RSS

[Steve Dimse]

On May 22, 2005, at 6:52 PM, Brad McConahay wrote:

> saving state with
> findu feed won't be very important because each time a findu feed is
> updated, it's meant to be a new and unique list of stuff

No, what is cool about it is that the reader keeps track of what is  
new. The first time you run the near, msg, or warn feeds, every item  
is new, but from then on, you only get notification of new warnings,  
messages, and stations which have appeared. For example, my near feed  
is set to 50 miles with this URL

feed://rss.findu.com/near.cgi?call=k4hg&distance=50

Every 30 minutes Safari checks this feed, and if, and only if, a new  
station enters that 50 mile radius, does Safari notify me (with a  
notation in the bookmarks bar) that there is a new item on this feed.  
I get the same sort of notification with a new weather warning and a  
new message. I click on the bookmark bar, and get the feed displayed,  
where the new items are at the top of the page, easily seen. That is  
the whole thing that got me excited about RSS...no longer do I have  
to call up the near page and scan the whole list of stations for  
unfamiliar callsigns to see who is visiting the Keys, Safari does it  
for me! Safari is of course always open on my computer, I can see  
that if I have to run a different program, or check a web site, this  
would be much more awkward.

Again, I do not know how other browsers do it in Windows (Safari is  
the first for the Mac to include RSS, if you click on an RSS feed in  
FireFox it launches Safari!), but it is certainly done right in  
Safari, it is easy to keep track of the state of the items. As to  
multiple machines, I do not worry much about this as I use my laptop  
for everything, but state info is automatically synced through iSync  
via .Mac, just like bookmarks, email, etc. if you have that service.

Anyway, from what Brad says it seems there is not much you can do now  
if you are a Windows user to get this sort of functionality, at some  
point I'll take a look at the web based service he mentions to be  
sure findU's RSS supports it, or if someone else has used it with  
findU I'd appreciate your comments. Since windows users do not have  
integration of RSS, this new feature may not be the most popular one  
I've implemented. I don't care though, because this is just so cool  
on a Mac...and what, you guys only have to wait about 18 more months  
for Longhorn, right? findU will be ready when you are! ;-)

Steve K4HG