[omaha] FeedJack

Thu Mar 14 19:10:00 CET 2013

man that is a lot of commentary for a quick email before running lunch
errands.

On the non-techie side:

Free apps going away is, unfortunately, typical in our web-app world. I
think this post from the guy that runs Pinboard really explains it well:
http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/

So the morale to the story is either pay for it or build it yourself.

I'll save my other rants for Google+. Lots of angry people there.

On the techie-side:

I'll freely admit that I just got FeedJack up to the point that I could see
the webapp working. The images don't display, etc but the Admin goes. The
code is crufty, but that's mostly because it used some things that are no
longer in Django. I've seen worse. Heck, I've written worse.

I also found this, which was spun off of FeedJack:
https://github.com/matagus/django-planet

One thing that is wrong in all of these is feed ownership -- if you want
more than one user on the system, these need some work. My wife doesn't
want to see my Python blogs and I probably don't want to see her food
blogs. But if she is making a recipe and wants me to get things for it,
then it makes sense to share it with me and add a comment. This is really a
killer feature that Google Reader *used* to have, but, as Jeff said, they
shut that off a while ago to force G+  on people.

On the search front: I've used Haystack with Whoosh and was underwhelmed.
It took 4 hours to update the indices on 250k items and took sometimes a
minute to do a search. I have used ElasticSearch in the past and it's nice,
but I don't like having to monitor yet another system to get something to
work.

I've used PostgreSQL's Text Search functionality to replace the Haystack
and it's amazing. Took some work getting it going, but now I don't have to
do anything -- no extra process! Heck, try it yourself:
http://powerhousetoolparts.com/newsearch/?q=type

On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 12:06 PM, Shawn Hermans <shawnhermans at gmail.com>wrote:

> I think a Django based app could be a good solution.  I used feedparser a
> lot in my previous job and found it was a really powerful tool.  It would
> be easy to create some Django tasks using something like Django Celery that
> go out and poll the feeds and scrap them on a regular basis.    With regard
> to search, Django Haystack is great for enabling search and indexing of
> text.  It can tie into stuff like Solr and Elasticsearch or you can have a
> standalone index based on Whoosh.
>
> Very cool thoughts.
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 9:52 AM, Jeff Hinrichs - DM&T <jeffh at dundeemt.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Mike and Matthew -- Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this.
> Annoyed
> > that goog is dropping my favorite tool outside of search, I've been
> > grimacing.
> >
> > I think you both have the right idea about getting out from under the
> > services yolk of some 3rd party (in this case goog) [They ripped out the
> > social features from Reader when G+ came on line, and now the are saying
> --
> > oooooh users have fallen off.  B*st*rds] {can you sense me not getting
> I/O
> > tickets yesterday too?}
> >
> > attributes in a good reader --
> >
> > * keeps feed updated when you are away.  RSS only shows X previous
> stories,
> > so if you are off line you'll have a gap unless the backend fetches on a
> > regular basis for you.
> > * ability to "star" an an entry -  for easier recall
> > * search
> > * share
> > * desktop and phone  UI
> > * multi-device access with read tracking.
> >
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Matthew Nuzum <newz at bearfruit.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I've used Feedjack on a few projects. It's a mess. (
> > > http://voices.canonical.com/ is an amalgamation of Feedjack and
> > Wordpress
> > > MU) I've been looking for other alternatives for the last year and
> played
> > > with a few features in Wordpress, which alas is not Python. After the
> > news
> > > yesterday I stayed up too late last night working on it and documenting
> > it
> > > and now have it set up in about a 15 min process for basic
> functionality.
> > > You can check out my notes at
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.bearfruit.org/2013/03/14/dont-panic-build-your-own-google-reader-in-12-minutes-with-wordpress/and
> > > I would love suggestions on how to improve this.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Mike Hostetler
> > > <mike at squarepegsystems.com>wrote:
> > >
> > > > On the demise of Google Reader, I decided to see if there was a
> > > > Python-based Feed Reader that I could bring up. And I did find
> > something
> > > --
> > > > FeedJack. It hasn't been updated since 2008. :(
> > > >
> > > > I got it at least working (there has been a few deprecated Django
> > > features
> > > > it was using) and now it at least runs.  I put my work on github if
> > > someone
> > > > else wants to help me finish this off.
> > > >
> > > > https://github.com/squarepegsys/feedjack
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Mike Hostetler
> > > > SquarePeg Systems
> > > > http://www.squarepegsystems.com
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Omaha Python Users Group mailing list
> > > > Omaha at python.org
> > > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/omaha
> > > > http://www.OmahaPython.org
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Matthew Nuzum
> > > newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin and twitter
> > >
> > > ♫ You're never fully dressed without a smile! ♫
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Omaha Python Users Group mailing list
> > > Omaha at python.org
> > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/omaha
> > > http://www.OmahaPython.org
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Best,
> >
> > Jeff Hinrichs
> > 402.218.1473
> > _______________________________________________
> > Omaha Python Users Group mailing list
> > Omaha at python.org
> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/omaha
> > http://www.OmahaPython.org
> >
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>

-- 
Mike Hostetler
SquarePeg Systems
http://www.squarepegsystems.com