June 02, 2004

LawTech Guru RSS Feed Changes

Some good news for those of you subscribing to LawTech Guru via RSS feeds:

1) I recently made time to distinguish my RSS feeds, since it didn't make much sense to have the same content syndicated in redundant RSS 1.0 and 2.0 feeds (most RSS readers handle both anyway):

CURRENT RSS SUBSCRIBERS, PLEASE NOTE: The RSS feed filenames have not changed at all, so you will continue to receive them automatically. Thus you do not need to make any RSS subscription changes unless you desire different RSS feed content:

If you prefer a bandwidth-friendly, excerpts-only feed, subscribe to the "RSS 1.0 - EXCERPTS" feed button on the home page. Perfect for dial-up users with numerous RSS feed subscriptions. The excerpt size was increased to send the first 100 characters, which is still compact.

If you prefer to receive the complete body of the posts in your RSS reader, subscribe to the "RSS 2.0 - FULL" feed button on the home page.

Full feeds are advantageous because you don't have to do the news aggregator "two-step" (i.e., read the partial feed text, then click through to the blog to get the rest of the post and embedded links). Also, if you're using a threaded news aggregator, such as SharpReader, receiving full feeds enables the reader to do its job to show you the inter-blog postings. Enjoy.

2) RSS 2.0 Feed Format Fixed:

Those of you receiving my RSS 2.0 feed (featured in Ernie the Attorney's "Legal News" blog listing) may have noticed that all of the paragraphs mysteriously ran together and the hyperlinks were removed. Not a good thing, and I've chalked it up to a Movable Type glitch. I'm happy to say it was easily corrected once I had a chance to look at it.

It's always satisfying to fix problems while adding enhancements at the same time. From the very beginning, the layout and format of this blog was designed with you, the reader, in mind. It's PDA browser-friendly, appears virtually identical in all popular browsers (no small coding feat, I assure you), and all of the useful tools are located at the top for easy reference: Search, e-mail, RSS feed buttons, categories, etc. Also, the body font size is adjustable in various browsers (particularly IE) so you can make it easier on your eyes. While my goal was to keep things simple in appearance, this is no ordinary blog under the hood.

Lastly, thanks to Rick Klau for providing the know-how for distinguishing feed content, and Dennis Kennedy for reminding me of it recently.

Topic(s):   Blogging Tips
Posted by Jeff Beard
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