Michael Lehman's 7 Day Software

7 Day Software - Feed For All - RSS editor extraordinaire

Michael Lehman — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:34:00 GMT

In the "modern" world of 2007 fewer and fewer people are building the XML representation of an RSS feed "by hand" as most blogging and podcasting software now handles this function. However, if you're a software developer, want "full control" over your feed or you're doing something somewhat out-of-the-ordinary with RSS, as we do at Project Glidepath, you need the tool we use, FeedForAll, which creates, edits, uploads, downloads, and even error checks RSS data; a tremendous time saver.

Created by the folks at NotePage, Inc., a MicroISV based in Hannover, MA, FeedForAll, which is available for both Windows and Mac, is the ultimate tool for "hand-rolling" RSS feeds. It gracefully handles all of the date-stamp issues (which is a *big* deal), understands all the iTunes XML idosyncrancies as well as includes a WYSIWYG HTML editor you can use to edit the description fields and even has built-in image editing functions.

FeedForAll even includes support for XSLT style sheets that can be used to control how an RSS feed is displayed if someone looks at it using a web browser (i.e. nicely formtted as opposed to just raw XML).

I've been using FeedForAll for more than a year now and it certainly passes the "7 Day Software" test rating a "Highly Recommended".

p.s. The NotePage, Inc. folks also other interesting products including a podcasting-creation tool RecordForAll that you might want to check out.

7 Day Software - WeatherBug

Michael Lehman — Sat, 19 May 2007 18:51:00 GMT

Ok, so there you are, getting ready to leave your home or office and it suddenly hits you... what's it like outside? WeatherBug is an application and website that delivers real-time nearly-local environmental information for your PC, your Mac, your phone and even via an RSS feed.

Called the "World's largest live, local weather network", backyard, school co-located and commercial weather stations all across globe deliver real-time observations to the WeatherBug servers. According to the www.weatherbug.com website, "Over 8,000 WeatherBug Tracking Stations bring you the most accurate weather conditions available anywhere".

On the Windows desktop, WeatherBug lives in system tray displaying the current temperature. When the full-client is shown, you can see real-time temperature and wind speed/direction information and the forecast. If you live in an area that has many micro-climates, such as the Puget Sound area around Microsoft, or San Francisco, this can be crucial information... there's nothing like being caught without an umbrella in the pouring rain.

WeatherBug has a free version, a "plus" paid version and a web version that will give you static weather information. The application version gives you real-time temperature and wind speed/direction and, sometimes, a webcam with periodically updated photos from the weather stations.

Finally, if you're a total weather geek, you can even put up your own weather station. Cruise on over to WeatherBug's Product Site for more information.

Welcome (Once again) To 7 Day Software

Michael Lehman — Sun, 13 May 2007 18:26:00 GMT

Hello there...I'm Michael Lehman, Technology Evangelist at Microsoft for MicroISVs. MicroISVs are self-funded, independent software developers who build useful applications that enhance and supercharge your computing experience.

Starting this week, I'll be writing a regular review of a useful and productive application that we think is worth your time... something that has stood the test of the "7 Day Rule". Jesse started down this path last year but, as happens, got involved with other things and now it's time to fire it up again... so here we go!

All the applications we'll feature will be ones that either I, or someone on the 10 team have personally installed and used. We will be featuring applications that run on Windows, Microsoft web technologies (ASP.net & Silverlight) and Windows Mobile.

If you know of, or make, an application you think I should feature drop me an email and I'll check it out.