We’ve been busy adding new features to Linux Today for the past
several weeks, and I feel that I’m ready to open the floodgates by
announcing them.
Your Linux Today:
First off, and most importantly, LT readers now have the option
of customizing their Linux Today homepage. To avoid the overused
term “My …” when describing a customizable website, we’ve decided
to name this “Your Linux Today”. By signing up for an account, you
can customize Your LT homepage in a variety of ways (with more in
development), sign up for E-Mail newsletters, remove certain topics
from the newswire, remove boxes on the right-hand column, set your
talkback viewing preferences.
Additionally, any form on Linux Today (contrib, talkback) will
automatically plug in your name and E-Mail address.
The system is still considered beta, but I believe it’s strong
enough to handle a full-scale announcement. Send bug reports to
me.
Go signup for an account at our login page.
Free Content Syndication:
We have a new backend text file
that webmasters can use to syndicate Linux Today content. This
backend file is different from the others, in that it has
all the content that one would find on the Linux Today
homepage, and you are free to use it on your own website.
The format of this file is more complicated than out other
backend files, so I also have an example perl script
that will allow you to see what the fields are, and how to convert
the file into a pretty HTML include file.
Use your imagination here – there are a lot of interesting
things that you can do with this information. The webmaster who
comes up with the most clever use of this backend text file within
the next 30 days will get a nice prize. 🙂 Send me your URLs.
Some hints: this file includes the fifteen most recent stories.
You could have a script get it every 30 minutes, check against
duplicates, insert it into a database, and then display a website
showing the last 24 hours of stories, sorted by number of
pageviews, number of talkbacks, date, etc. Or, how about an ICQ
program that sends out an ICQ message to users (who have signed up)
whenever a new story is posted, with user settings like “only send
me stories who have been viewed at least 2,000 times, or have more
than 10 talkbacks posted)…
Stay tuned for even more features who are being developed as
this is written!