• Along the lines of this not-so-nice comment I left over on the Social Software Weblog, I've been considering some add-ons to a Scuttle install that would broadcast and copy bookmarks out to various other services via their respective APIs. I could channel all my daily bookmarking habits into an install of Scuttle on the server in my basement and CC: all the other places where I have bookmarking accounts - thereby remaining in possession of my data whilst still participating in the other services. Seems like it might be a bit of a wrongheaded idea, though.

  • Heh, heh - looks like I got a response from Dr. Steve to my mini-review of The Radio Adventures of Doctor Floyd. Very cool - and, of course, I only listen to cheer for the masterminded schemes of Dr. Steve. Oh, and to try to figure out what Fidgert's saying.

  • decafbadNewsRiver v0.213 is available

    • I've gotten some questions about this, so in case anyone would like to install my newsRiver add-on, here's a direct link:

    • If you've installed it before, use that direct link instead of the "Get Latest Code..." menu item. I think that that feature is broken as of the present moment, and should probably be excised.

    • If you haven't installed it yet, be aware that it's still early days yet - and though it shouldn't clobber anything in your existing NewsRiver stuff, I can't quite yet make any guarantees.

    • If you don't know how to install this tool, you may not want to yet. ";->" I'm releasing this in the spirit of release early, release often - it's useful to me, and it might be useful to you, but know that Here Be Dragons.

    • A few highlight features that might make it worth your while:

      • Reading List support for filtering items, along with a "Further Reading" filter list at the bottom of the page. This feature is meant to help satisfy my desire for a stratified river of news.

      • One new outline-inspired theme comes equipped out of the box:

      • Modular HTML system with initial support for switchable themes via prefs. For nerdy styling fun, take a jump to this location after installation:

        • decafbadNewsRiverData.themes.default

      • The new default theme uses the Aggregator API built into NewsRiver to enable AJAX-style per-item and per-feed deletion, as well as deferred loading of news item text until the item node is expanded. (It also requires that you've set a username and password for the API in the prefs, and uses a very nasty and insecure hack to get at that username and password. Suggestions welcome!)

    • Note that this add-on does not replace your existing NewsRiver installation, and you'll need to visit /decafbadNewsRiver on your local OPML Editor web server to see the new stuff. And, while deleting items and such from this new view does delete the same items shown in NewsRiver, this tool tries to otherwise be as non-destructive to NewsRiver data as possible.

    • Anyway, let me know what you think!

  • This really needs to not become a feature of Wrox book covers. ";->"

  • Hmm. I just added a new feature to decafbadNewsRiver that uses the Aggregator API to defer loading of news item text, but it looks like the updater code is somehow funked up now when I try to update on my "production" machine after publishing from my "dev" machine. The dev machine goes into a 100% CPU consumption death spiral. Unfortunately, the updater code is 90% voodoo to me and entirely unrelated to how code gets updated elsewhere in the OPML Editor, so at this moment all I do is shrug and go to bed.