Linux systems give you many possibilities and one of them is good scheduling (cron), another is good scripting capabilities. I’ve done things with linux fairly easily that with Windows would have been next to impossible and required me to download several other things to make it happen. Anyway, I recently saw mention of a linux, bash scripted podcatching client. Basically you tell what podcasts you subscribe to and it downloads them on a schedule. It reminded me of a couple scripts I’ve got running that do similar things, but not from a true rss/podcast feed.
Search results for: “feed”
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Microsoft to use same RSS icon as Firefox
Beta news is reporting that Internet Explorer 7 will use the same Icon for RSS feeds that Firefox currently uses. What’s more they say they’ll continue to work with Mozilla on consistency between the browsers….. All right, I’m going to be watching for the pigs flying next. No, seriously it’s great to see Microsoft warming up and not acting like they want to take over and crush the competition.
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Mars was once a hostile environment?
This is just funny to me (as if it’s inviting now….) Rover’s find evidence that Mars was once hostile.
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AMD comes out on top in Dual Core CPU showdown
ZDnet has a showdown between AMD and Intel dual core processors. It looks as though AMD has won in every comparison. This is not the only good news for AMD lately as summarized here. Intel’s overwhelming dominance is not what it used to be.
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Yahoo moves to offer RSS reading
Yahoo is offering RSS reading through email folders, in part countering moves by Google with their Reader web-based RSS aggregator. Apparently, posts show up looking like mail messages and can be forwarded or read in a way similar to the way mail is dealt with. They’ve also launched a beta of Yahoo Alerts which can send a text message, email or messenger alert when a feed updates.
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The eternal beta…
Slashdot has a story from the Wall Street Journal online about why beta’s last so long. Google News’ beta, Microsoft’s Antispyware beta are both mentioned. This has become a new way of marketing software it seems, beta has gone from being considered pre-release/buggy software to… oooo new shiny software. However, with the beta is the disclaimer of liabilities of polished release software. If something goes wrong, “oh it’s just in beta anyway…”
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OpenDocument format (ODF) versus Microsoft’s opening of MS XML
There are a couple articles out today (last few days) on the growing conflict between the ODF (Open Document Format) Microsoft’s XML. For starters, the ODF came about as a response/alternative to closed formats such as Microsoft’s. The concept is that it is in the public interest for information to be stored in formats that are open and accessible to anyone. Last week Microsoft fired a volley with a modification to the license for their MS Open XML. They hope the file format will become an international standard. The format is to be used for the next version of Microsoft Office.
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One alternative to Google Book (formerly Google Print)
Search Engine watch has reported on a less controversial alternative to the Google Book Search (formerly Google Print). Less controversial, of course from the standpoint of Book publishers and those with concerns about Google’s potential for their size and leverage.
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Running UltraVNC viewer under wine
I talked in the last entry about using UltraVNC and UltraVNC Single Click (ultravnc sc) as a means of doing remote desktop support. The idea is that you (the technical support person), setup vncviewer to listen for connections, then the end user with pc problems can download your customized ultravnc server that will connect to your viewer through firewalls/etc. This has a lot of things going for it. 1) ease of use by the end user 2) only one network to make firewall configuration changes on, 3) small quick download. The biggest downside I see is that the ultravnc viewer doesn’t run on linux.
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Opendocument format getting more support
There is support building for the opendocument format, it seems. The format is designed to prevent document lockin to proprietary formats and the group promoting it would like to see it supported by all office suites. (Currently OpenOffice.org 2 and Staroffice support the format, koffice 1.4.2 partially supports it (1.5 due for release after the new year should fully support the format. IBM Workplace (based on openoffice) also partially supports the new format.)