I use a third party podcast app called Overcast and I was curious how it gets the list of podcasts and episodes available, as my understanding is that it is difficult to get from iTunes. Is there a service that provides this information? I am assuming they would not maintain it themselves manually.
Overcast likely does not reference iTunes at all. When they learn about a new podcast, they can add the RSS feed to their database of podcasts. That RSS feed tells any subscribers (who are using iTunes, Overcast, and any other podcast apps) what episodes are available to download.
Related
Morning/afternoon/evening all,
I am building a website for a rental property in France and the client wants to be able to use a single solution to manage bookings across the following platforms: Booking.com, AirBNB, Abritel (French) and Gites de France. Ideally, with the possibility of integrating TripAdvisor later.
So, when the centralised platform is updated, it updates across all the other platforms automatically. And when a booking is made, it feeds through to the centralised system.
I am highly doubtful that this one-shop solution exists but thought I would ask anyway. If it doesn't exist, would a bespoke solution be possible? Any other suggestions welcome.
Thank you
EDIT: I have learned that websites such as AirBnb can sync with iCal and Google Calendar. I wonder if this could be a simpler solution.
its is very possible provided the third party platforms have services that can be called for data exchange..... first check for the services exposed by those platforms and how to consume them.
I am developing a system that has a database for news headlines from various sources. I have not worked with RSS before so I am confused about a lot of things. Can anyone please point a good tutorial for how to develop such a thing? Thanks
In my mind, I have questions like:
1) How will I get the latest news feed? do I have to check the rss feed link every few minutes and see If it's different than the previous one?
2) Is it a good practice to parse the feed xml myself or use a feed reader kind of thing?
3) Will I have any control over the feed sent to me. e.g I only need news feed for Google or Intel.
RSS is a very standard format you can start learning at w3c school.
About your questions.
If you can talk with the RSS provider, maybe they can notify each time
something new comes. They can use, for example,
XML-RPC notification.
You can also ask the RSS provider how often should you check the feed
(in case they cannot provide any kind of notification).
I think it's better to develop your own bot. There is lot of
frameworks that can deal with rss format. In case you are working with C# you can try with SyndicationFeed Class
I'm not sure if I'm undestanding your problem, but if the provider
puts a RSS link at your disposal, you must actively navigate that
feed. When you have that feed, you can work with the metadata in
order to see what's interesting for you. For example checking "category" or "channel" node.
I'm in the early stages of designing an RSS app, and I'd like to include syncing to an online RSS feed service as a feature. Most such apps make use of Google Reader's feed/syncing features, but Google is now moving sync out of its Reader service, and also its API remains undocumented. Are there any alternatives to Google Reader that offer online syncing of feeds with a desktop client, and which have a documented API?
There should be an answer to this question, but I don't think there is.
I think we got lazy. Maybe it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
What about Newsblur?
http://www.newsblur.com/
Don't know anything about them, but they appear to have a reasonable facsimile of a product in this vein.
Here are their API docs. http://www.newsblur.com/api
They are a subscription service, but you can have up to 64 feeds for free.
A couple suggestions, the original web RSS Reader BlogLines is still around, though now under new management since MerchantCircle purchased the service late last year.
The APIs maybe still functional:
Or they may be deprecated/turned off, haven't tried the APIs myself.
If BlogLines API is no longer around a better bet is LiveDoor Reader (along with it's open sourced version is called FastLadder).
Livedoor Reader is a Japanese service, but FastLadder pages and documentation are available in english and Japanese.
Downloadable Open sourced versions for running on your own machines be they windows, Mac OSX, or Linux from here
There's also a FastLadder Google source Code page.
There are RSS apps for both IOS and Android that sync with LiveDoor Reader/FastLadder instances. Just search for LDR in their respective app stores.
I don't think there's a ready answer yet, but I think Brent Simmons has a rough spec of what could be a start:
http://inessential.com/2010/02/08/idea_for_alternative_rss_syncing_system
Basically, imagine a server that manages feed subscription lists and captures annotations for feed items. Those annotations for items would be things like (un)read, starred, shared, saved, deleted, or whatever else an app might want to attach to a feed item. It should stay simple and not fetch or process feeds themselves - other apps and libraries do that fine already.
Feedlooks looks close too with no ties to Google Reader - not sure about the API, though
http://www.feedlooks.com/
Years back, I'd used a self hosted Open Source app called Gregarious - It appears to have gone missing recently.
Here's the Gregarious Archive from 2010
http://web.archive.org/web/20100925221312/http://gregarius.net/
Another contender for the do-it-yourselfer might be utilizing SimplePie.org
I've done some googling on the topic of getting older rss feeds and found clues that there's a possibility that rss feed provides such service.
Is there a way to determine whether the feed does provide older records or not?
how about the ancient art of just asking the rss provider?
I'll prefix this with: I don't much about SCORM.
I'm the maintainer for a training video delivery platform. It shows videos but doesn't test users. Clients of the company can download SCORM modules (that is a zip) which contains a link to the video on our server.
Some clients are now asking for reporting so that they know their LMS users finish watching a video. At the moment, they just know if the user loads the module but nothing else.
As for working out if the current user has watched the film, I can do that. It's just a bit of javascript to interact with the video player. Fine.
But how do I communicate that event back to the LMS? Do I post it to their server? How do I know where it is? What if it's behind a firewall? Do they poll my server? In both cases how do I identify a user from the LMS in a way that when the results go back, they line up in the LMS?
What is the standard way of a learning management system finding out the completion status of an external module like ours?
The SCORM API is what you're looking for. It enables active communication of completion status (among many other things) between the SCO (your module) and the LMS.
At runtime, a discovery algorithm (written in JS) is used to locate the API handle, which is just a JS Object. You, as the content developer, work with that API handle, and it does all the client-server communication, so you don't have to. :-)
You can find a technical overview of how to locate and use the SCORM API here.
I'm more of the "learn by example" type, so I'd also recommend downloading one of Rustici's golf (pause) courses. Check out their Basic Run-Time Calls Course to see how they are accessing and interacting with the SCORM API. They'll be doing exactly what you're looking to do.
The official SCORM docs can be found on adlnet.gov, and they have an entire book dedicated to the RTE, but I doubt you'll need to dive that deep.
Good Luck!