Feed me, Sara! Feed me, Sara!

I suspected that Blogger might have something with which I could easily create an RSS or XML feed -- seemed likely they would have an automated system by which such a feed would be created for me.

As it turns out, I was correct. In fact, Blogger has been automatically creating this feed for me the whole time without my knowledge.

So, yeah. Now jwalkernet leaps (blindly) into this new wave of...uh, whatever it is.

If you're new to this whole XML party, lemme educate ya -- or, better yet, lemme let someone else educate ya...

RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.

RSS-aware programs called news aggregators are popular in the weblogging community. Many weblogs make content available in RSS. A news aggregator can help you keep up with all your favorite weblogs by checking their RSS feeds and displaying new items from each of them.

So. All you need now is an XML reader (like, oh, I don't know, the totally free Feedreader), plug in the feed address (http://jwalkernet.topcities.com/feed.xml), and you're in business. Whenever I update, you get a message. It's that simple.

A fair warning, however. The feed doesn't exactly look perfect. Nothing I can do about it -- Blogger's the one making the feed. According to this, I never use a paragraph break. But in any event, Feedreader's interface comes complete with a link to the actual post, so you can read my embarrassing drivel witty writings as they were meant to be read. And look upon Andy Pettitte's contorted visage over there.

I should probably note that I got the quote on RSS from this place. And bonus points if you get the movie reference in the title.