Author Archives: Peter

Topix

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Some of you may be familiar with ***Topix|http://www.topix.net/***, either through ***Bloglines|http://www.bloglines.com/*** or otherwise. If you’re not, you should check it out. Simply go to ***this page|http://www.topix.net/city/list*** and enter a city, state, zip, or click on the map to find a locality. Topix uses some pretty cool proprietary technology to automatically track and collect news items for any given locality, pulling in data from area news sources, government sites, etc. In Boston, for example, you’d get local news from the Boston Herald, Boston Globe and news releases from CityofBoston.gov. In Beverly, we get news from the Beverly Citizen, Lynn Daily Item, Gloucester Times, Salem News, etc. You can sign up to get email alerts for your chosen city, and you can even subscribe to an RSS feed. I use the RSS feed with my Bloglines newsreader to get news updates for Townsend, Beverly, Oak Bluffs, and Mount Vernon.

Check it out!

Not So Much Snow

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There wasn’t quite so much snow on my car today…

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…as there was one year ago today…

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Yes, today is the anniversary of last year’s fantastically huge ***Nor’easter|http://gallery.prwdot.org/noreaster***. We got a light dusting at most, but sadly nothing more than that is in the forecast for the next week or so. We only have the ***photos from last year|http://gallery.prwdot.org/noreaster*** to dream of. Here’s hoping for a white Christmas!

New Feeds

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I’ve added some new feeds and modified existing feeds, so please check out the list below to make sure that you’re subscribed to exactly the right feeds for you.

Note that I’ve removed the annoying comment count from the RSS feeds, so if you want to be notified of new comments, you’ll either have to subscribe to the fulltext + comments feed, or the comments only feed.

Also note that the previous link to the comments only feed from the bottom of the page was incorrect, so if you had previously tried to subscribe to it using that link, give it another try.

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RSS 2.0: Blog Entry Excerpts
RSS 2.0: Blog Entry Fulltext
RSS 2.0: Blog Entry Fulltext + Comments
RSS 2.0: Blog Comments Only
Atom: Blog Entries Fulltext
RSS 2.0: Clip Blog

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Enjoy, and please let me know if you find any problems with the feeds!

P.S. This list can also be found at the bottom of all of our pages, as well as in the header of each document (so it should show up, for example, in Firefox’s feed detector).

WeatheRSS

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First, there was the ***news|http://news.yahoo.com/rss***. Then, there were ***traffic reports|http://www.traffic.com/Mobility/rss.html***. Now, the National Weather Service offers ***current conditions, forecasts, warnings, and more|http://www.nws.noaa.gov/forecasts/xml/***. Pretty soon, it’s likely that I’ll never have to leave my aggregator again.

Full-text RSS?

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Currently, we offer an RSS feed with excerpts from our ***blog entries|http://prwdot.org/blog.xml***, and an RSS feed with the ***most recent comments|http://prwdot.org/comments.xml*** for all entries on the blog. Would anyone be interested in a full-text RSS feed for our blog, which would include both the complete text of blog entries *and* the complete text of the comments on each entry?

Feeds can be used to read new items from blogs and news sites in one central application, such as a web-based aggregator like ***Bloglines|http://www.bloglines.com/***, or a desktop aggregator like ***NetNewsWire|http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/***.

Actors/Heroes

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Last night, Becky and I turned on TBS to watch ***Galaxy Quest|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/***, a fabulous parody of the science fiction genre. We’ve seen it before, but the last time I watched I simply wasn’t in tune to the movie as much as I was last night. So now I have a few observations that I’d like to share.
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Advantage

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Today on the way home from church, Becky and I stopped at one of our favorite stores: ***Family Dollar|http://www.familydollar.com/***. We picked up one of those scrubbing devices with a sponge on one end and a handle that can be filled with liquid dish soap, as well as some cough drops, since we’re both feeling a bit under the weather. One dollar each! On the way out, I noticed that the Family Dollar brand cough drops had a handy comparison chart on the back to show how they stack up to Halls brand cough drops.

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This answers the age-old question, “Are Halls cough drops economical?” NO!

Update: We were at ***Wal*Mart|http://www.walmart.com/*** tonight and spotted Halls brand cough drops on sale for $0.97! NOOO, we’ve been duped!! Dark is the day when Wal*Mart even outsells Family Dollar.

Chunky Friends

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Last night I went to ***Chunky’s|http://www.chunkys.com/*** with Jeremy, his brother Justin, and Justin’s CompSci senior project partner Anna. We watched National Treasure, which was about as campy as I had expected it to be, but nonetheless we had a wonderful time.

I took just ***three photos|http://gallery.prwdot.org/chunkys_jeremias*** last night, in the theater and then a couple pics of Jeremy’s sweet little PocketPC/car stereo setup. Nifty, but not as nifty as an ***iPod|http://www.apple.com/ipod/***.

Poor Becky was at home sick last night! She is feeling a bit better now, but still is under the weather. So everyone send her some well-wishes!

More WP Meetup Photos

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***Nikkiana|http://everytomorrow.org/***’s photos of the WordPress Meetup are ***now available|http://www.everytomorrow.org/album/Wordpress-Meetup***. Check ’em out! There’s even a few good ones of yours truly. 🙂