Spider Technology Behind Video Aggregators like SideReel? - drupal

Can someone explain to me the aggregation technology behind sites like SideReel?
For example http://www.sidereel.com/the_nine_lives_of_chloe_king/season-1/episode-3/links/9080517
Did they make a spider that automatically fetch the embed links from video owners website like Hulu? Or did they submit all the video links manually?
I'm planning to build a smaller version of video aggregator. Should I use a CMS system like Drupal or code everything from scratch? Any recommendations? I prefer minimal coding because I already have another major component that requires a lot of time.
Thank you all!

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Video Catalog CSS and Loading (Embedded Videos)

I'm looking for some help/suggestions on a project I am helping with.
The basic idea is a video catalog that host a bunch of embedded videos for people to search through (Vimeo, Youtube and Facebook for now). This is just something to test out first. I am having trouble with a few things and have been trying a lot so I wanted to get thoughts/suggestions on a direction.
The website is here currently: http://veganvideos.org/
The help that I currently am looking at is a better way to display and load the embedded videos (sometimes they are slow to load or don't) and a way to make it more responsive. Other suggestions are welcome, I very much appreciate any help.
Additional Info:
To add I am using Wordpress and FacetWP plugin currently.

Suggestions for deciding on a WCMS for a hockey website?

I need to make a website for my hockey club. My main purpose for this site is allowing people to sign in and post articles and training schedules in their section. Eg Mens, Womens, Juniors and Masters. I want to have some kind of upload manager that will allow them to choose where they post the info too (eg, Mens, Masters and Homepage).
This is the main functionality I'm looking for at the moment.
The clubs previous website used Joombla which I have hated. I found it to be way to restrictive. Its on a old version of it so there are probably many improvements in the new version but from what I've read it seems like it still has a lot of restrictions in how content is managed. I am open to trying it again tho.
I've used Wordpress before and liked it but that was on a small scale projects and I'm not sure it really fits what I'll be trying to do here, since it mostly deals with blog posts and I'll need to have functionality to upload and display files.
I've had a look around at some other ones like Squarespace and Silverstripe. I'm really liking the simplicity of silverstrip(one thing I hate about Joombla is the clutter on the opening page) and am leaning towards it right now if I can find a nice way to have people post news to multiple pages at once.
If anyone has any suggestions they'd be very welcome. I know html, css, javascript and a bit of php. I'm learning Ruby atm so wouldn't be against using it so I could learn more but it might be a bit much for a sports website.
First off, its nice to see someone that likes hockey too :) You can't use Squarespace, you'll need an Apache server for what you want. You will need some way to store information, so you'll need a MySQL database, probably some advanced knowledge of PHP (I'm assuming you don't know how to connect to databases and do some other functions). Wordpress is too limited, so you can't use that. I have never used Silverstripe personally, but it seems like the best of your options here. You'll probably need some more knowledge of PHP before you attempt to make a members system.

What Tool for creating, experiencing new layouts and designs?

I am developing WebApps with Backbone, node, jQuery and so on.
In my beginnings I have used Twitter Bootstrap for designs.
Then I started to use own designs which I have created with the Chrome Addon Stylebit which allows to modify CSS in real time.
Unfortunately this is very time expensive at the end.
So I decided to develope the design by side with some editor and then rewrite this design per hand as CSS. I have read this is a common practice and most use photoshop for this task.
Is photoshop still recommend or are there other tools which should be used?
(I actually do not want a full WYSIWYG. Just something to test designs and layouts in general)
Cheers and happy new year,
Bodo
For the short answer no. There isn't a tool that I know of that will allow you to build layouts in code easily that isn't a full WSIWIG solution like Dreamweaver, Aptana etc.
For testing out designs you would normally build wire frames such as the ones you see from Balsamiq. There are other tools as well, Axure, Pencil and others. Do a search for wire frame software.
As a Sr. UX Architect I've heard and seen people mockup what they're building in Html and CSS. While this can work. You might as well continue and just build it if you're going to invest the time, effort and money into writing code.
Spin over to my "User Experience" group on Linkedin and ask the question there. Your going to get a ton of answers.
If you're searching to find Wireframing and Mockup tools.Then you can use Balsamiq Mockups
It's having features like
Low-Fi Sketch Wireframes
Click-Through Prototypes
UI Components & Icons
Export to PNG or PDF etc
You can get more details from Balsamiq Mockups Here
I hope this will help you.
You can try out ForeUI (http://www.ForeUI.com/), which allows you to build layouts visually and export your design to HTML5 simulation. You can also manually modify the generated code to fit your needs.
Some interesting examples are available on http://www.foreui.com/store/
I'm working for Pidoco.
It's a german company based in Berlin and we develop a online prototyping tool.
We have nice features like:
Interactive prototypes
Collaboration and invitations
iOS App to simulate mobile prototypes (Android is coming soon)
You can start with a 30 days free trial and then plans are starting at 9$ per month.
Here is the complete list of mockup tools:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GuiPrototypingTools

Migration to WordPress - first steps

I would like to migrate a html website into WordPress. At the moment I am not too familiar with WP but I've read that it is easy to use on the CMS side. (Also as a note I only have basic programming skills in html and css)
The website I would like to migrate is quite small, mostly static pages with 2-3 pages that are consistently updated for events and news articles (looks like in-line blog updates).
For the most part I would like to keep the theme of the website and then update with plugins as the website grows (i.e to include video and interactive content).
Could someone recommend the first steps to my conversion? I am currently reading Professional WordPress but migration isn't addressed until the end of the book and I would like to get the ball rolling (I have to because of my job).
Here's a good overview video. To get into specifics would really depend on what you're migrating from, so we'd need a little more detail.
Migrating A Massive Legacy CMS To WordPress Without Losing Your Mind:
http://vimeo.com/21118033

dashcode and external rss feeds

I was wonder if anyone can help me with this. I've been looking everywhere for this information, but I want to make a web application using dascode rss. I know that you can't link external sources. Does anyone know a way I can get around it. From what I understand a little php can get around this, but I'm unsure where to look.
OK, first thing no PHP. Dashcode is limited to HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Although having said that there are a whole range of system calls that cna be made using the functionality provided by various parts of the x-cde system.
Second yes you can link to external sources such as other web sites, api on say Twitter, google etc. RSS feeds and so on, not sure where you got the idea to the contrary.
If you want to learn how to do a Dashcode RSS then open up Dashcode, start a new project, either web based or Dsashboard based and choose the RSS project. This will give you an out of the box template to add you own information and then see how it works. Then customise it.
In the above i am assuming Snow Leopard and the latest Dashcode/X-code but it will still gove you most of what you want on earlier version.

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