---
title: "Some quickies"
date: 2002-09-05T03:50:08-04:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2002/09/05/ooobfe/
author: Les Orchard
---

# Some quickies

<ol>
<li><b>Et tu Dave?</b>
<br /><br />
I'm mostly in catch-up mode on the hubbub surrounding <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/RSS">RSS</a>, so I can't say much other than that I like both flavors though I prefer the <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/RDF">RDF</a> approach best.  But... it's <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syndication/message/3249">strange</a> <a href="http://www.disobey.com/dnn/2002/09/index.shtml#001361">reading</a> <a href="http://winerlog.inspiredsites.net/discuss/msgReader$127">about</a>     <a href="http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&amp;entry=78025336">UserLand's abandoned trademark application for <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/RSS">RSS</a></a>.</li>
<li><b>Chimera rocks my socks:</b> 
<br /><br />
<a href="http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/09/04.html#chimera_coming_along_nicely">Mark Pilgrim likes Chimera</a>.  Personally, I've been using it as my primary browser for about 5 weeks now, and update to the latest nightly every few days.  I had a glitch or two, but it's come light years from when I first started playing with it and it already seems to leave Mozilla-proper in the dust.</li>
<li><b>Caffinated scraping:</b>
<br /><br />
I've been cobbling together an (X)HTML-to-RSS scraper using what I've learned of Java, XSLT, and XPath lately.  I've been tempted to slap together an aggregator of my own, too, but no: <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/AmphetaDesk">AmphetaDesk</a> has not made me itchy enough to do it.  The scraper might be of some use to someone though.</li>
<li><b>Strange connectivity urges:</b>
<br /><br />
I've been having these strange urges lately to start playing with P2P-ish things again and build a collection of rendevous that piggyback on a number of existing infrastructures (ie. IRC, IM, NNTP, email, etc).  I want to get back on the path of investigating complete decentralization, or at least some robust thing which lies in between.  At the very least, though, I want to start doing some sort of IM-RPCish thing between behind-firewall PCs.  And this Jabber server I just installed on my new <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/JohnCompanies">JohnCompanies</a> system should be nice.  (It's at jabber.decafbad.com)
</li>
<li><b>Soaking in <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/LiveJournal">LiveJournal</a>:</b>
<br /><br />
Blessed be, I need help:  I've convinced them at work to let me pilot a weblog/journal system on our intranet - and I've started by installing the <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/LiveJournal">LiveJournal</a> source.  
<br /><br />
I've also installed LJ here on my new server from <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/JohnCompanies">JohnCompanies</a>, but I'm not quite sure what I want to do with it beyond tweaking and personal hacking.  I've been musing at possibly enhancing some bits - particularly with regards to <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/RSS">RSS</a> syndication and aggregation, maybe some backlink tracking.  
<br /><br />
Maybe I'll polish the thing up a bit and offer it up as a sister to LJ where the 15-year-olds will not reign and reciprocal connections with the outside world are encouraged and facilitated.  Would any of you pay for something like that?
<br /><br />
This seems pretty ambitious, and it's likely I'll never do it, but hey.
</li>
<li><b>And on other fronts:</b>
<br /><br />
Still in the underworld with Java, trying to get this project dragged past the finish line.  Jaguar rocks and I took my girlfriend to the Apple Store opening in Novi, MI; we didn't buy anything, though it was close.    There's a second Apple Store opening in my area in Troy, MI; the danger has not passed.  And finally, I have succumbed lately to playing Grand Theft Auto 3 and it has affected my driving and given me pedestrian-smacking instincts to subdue while walking around town.
</li>
<li><b>That is all.  For now.</b></li>
</ol>
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shortname=ooobfe

<div id="comments" class="comments archived-comments">
            <h3>Archived Comments</h3>
            
        <ul class="comments">
            
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221090282">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.groovycompany.nl/Blog"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=e2822d781b09ef9889d1c3b610280046&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.groovycompany.nl/Blog">Quadsk8</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221090282" class="permalink"><time datetime="2002-09-05T05:43:04">2002-09-05T05:43:04</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">Re: 3.Caffinated scraping
Just stumbled accross this: SuperGrabber at http://www.bannerdots.com/scripts/scripts.php did you know about it? Is it something comparable?
Lawrence</div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221090284">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.decafbad.com"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=2ac2cffd36ada8c734b90e02a1e5c1ac&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.decafbad.com">l.m.orchard</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221090284" class="permalink"><time datetime="2002-09-05T18:52:57">2002-09-05T18:52:57</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">Hmm... close.  Basically what I have for this scraper is a few parts in a pipeline:

* Grab an HTML page
* Mangle it into valid XML with JTidy
* Run it through an XSLT sheet to become RSS

I might also implement the old "start clipping here, end clipping there" scraper method with some regex support.  Basically, I want to have my own robot that distills any data source into RSS because all the others didn't quite do what I want.</div>
            
        </li>
    
        </ul>
    
        </div>
