Surfing The Web So You Don't Have To
…I removed all the MySpace blogs from Bend Blogs since apparently their RSS feeds are dead. The archives of what I have indexed are still visible, but I will not be checking for updates to their feeds nor listing them on the front page of the site.
On the bright side, the signal to noise ratio has significantly gone down over there, and we won’t be seeing crap like this on the front page.
By now, everybody has heard about the offensive traffic posts in Keizer. It’s easily fixed as I think Jack has found a perfect solution to the problem.
I scored 85%. How Oregon Are You?
And after you’re all done feeling smart, take this gigantic version here, much of which is Portland-related, but still a fun trip down memory lane.
Like it or not, we have a bunch of bloggers locally who are using MySpace for their blogs. Just look for the MySpace icons over at BendBlogs.com. The problem is that every single one of the RSS feeds for those MySpace blogs are now dead. I’m getting 404 errors for every single one of them that I have indexed on BendBlogs.com.
I have automated Google searches that help me find new blogs to add to the site, and it found this one. When I tried to add it to Bend Blogs, it gave me an error saying that the RSS feed couldn’t be found. So I looked at the source code for the page, looked at the auto-discovery tag and got this URL. It doesn’t resolve, and I get this 404 page:
That was the entire contents of the page. And it’s been like this for a couple weeks now.
Anybody know something I don’t? Since I don’t follow MySpace news (don’t really care to), I don’t know if this was publically announced or not. If indeed MySpace blogs no longer have RSS feeds for their blogs, look for them to disappear from Bend Blogs (which everybody will probably be happy about).
Just an FYI: My RSS feed address has changed. I’m going to start taking advantage of some of FeedBurner services that they’re giving away since Google bought ’em. I’m combining these two feeds:
Into one new feed URL: http://feeds.utterlyboring.com/utterlyboring. I’ve updated my auto-discovery feeds, and redirected the above URLs to the new URLs, so it should all be fairly transparent. But if you’re having trouble, use the new URL.
Questions/problems, comment here.
Leave it to a crazy local to fly in a lawn chair from Bend over 200 miles to the Northeast.
As I mentioned last week, I was looking to find a local car dealer so I could get myself a new rig. I would’ve preferred to have dealt locally, but the local dealers just didn’t have much at a price I could afford. And the ones that did have something of interest knew they had a monopoly on the area and could charge more money.
So I started looking elsewhere around the state, following some advice from the commenters in that previous entry, as well as some folks who privately e-mailed me. The problem was that I didn’t have time to sit on the phones with these folks, and had to rely on what was online and had to communicate via e-mail. So here’s some advice to car dealers who want to deal with folks like me…
…there’s a Simpson’s movie coming out this summer. As part of the marketing blitz, they turned a bunch of 7-Eleven stores into Kwik-E-Marts (here’s a full list of where they are). They’re even having a contest decide on the best Springfield with the winner getting the premiere of the movie (Oregon’s governor Ted Kulongoski is encouraging you to vote for our Springfield). And Vanity Fair has a big article along with a Q&A with Conan O’Brien (who wrote for the show in its better years) and their 10 favorite episodes (most of which were the earlier years).
And despite all that, I’ll still wait until it comes out on video before I see it.
Stolen from one of my favorite local blogs:
The Mountain Gate developers are telling us that, unless we approve what they want, they just might build what we don’t want. Which is a bit like saying, if you don’t let us fart all we want, we’ll poop on your floor. Charmed, I’m sure.
Here are some random geek links while I wait for the war to end.
Hope everybody had a safe Fourth. I’ll be up for a couple more hours (despite the fact that I have to work tomorrow) to make sure my house doesn’t suffer the fate of this one.