Feedbooks.com: Beta released

[zdevil]

Hi again,
I am trying a solution to the "one-click" question. In the meantime I combine several feeds into a newspaper. However, there is problem downloading them, either it's a "504 Gateway Time-out" error, or a 4kb unreadable PDF named by the newspaper number. Any idea? Thanks again.

[flamaest]

Originally Posted by zdevil

Hi again,
I am trying a solution to the "one-click" question. In the meantime I combine several feeds into a newspaper. However, there is problem downloading them, either it's a "504 Gateway Time-out" error, or a 4kb unreadable PDF named by the newspaper number. Any idea? Thanks again.

Interesting, I wonder how feedbooks deals with a single RSS which fails within a newspaper, does the whole newspaper timeout?

I sometimes receive a feedbook error on large newspapers, so I have overcome this by keeping my RSS feeds separated and using the sync tool to get my RSS feeds as separate PDFs. [until the caching feature appears on feedbooks]

Hadrian, did you mention that the libprs500 version of the sync tool was available? If so, my next purchase will be the Sony Reader Cradle.

Anybody know where this Sony cradle can be bought for cheap or is anyone selling there's?

2 cents,
F.

[zdevil]

Hmm... I seem to be able to identify the source of the 504 Gateway Timeout problem.
I've just tested each single feed in my newspapers and found some which failed to download. After removing those failing feeds the newspapers were downloaded successfully.
So this suggests that a newspaper will fail to download unless ALL the feeds in the newspaper are unproblematic.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by zdevil

Hmm... I seem to be able to identify the source of the 504 Gateway Timeout problem.
I've just tested each single feed in my newspapers and found some which failed to download. After removing those failing feeds the newspapers were downloaded successfully.
So this suggests that a newspaper will fail to download unless ALL the feeds in the newspaper are unproblematic.

Yes, unfortunately there's still some work to do on this point. We've successfully increased the % of supported feeds but we always find new feeds that are not standard or a few bugs on our side. That's why it's a beta ^_^ I expect Epub to be easier to generate for RSS...

As for a *nix tool, we developed one for the iLiad, guess we could make a few changes and transform this into a desktop application for Linux and Mac OS X ?

For a simple download, a shell script should work too, you can easily parse and download using wget this way.
The URL for the XML file is: http://www.feedbooks.com/newsstand/subscription
if you're already logged in on the website
or else: http://www.feedbooks.com/newsstand/s...OfYourPassword

To calculate the MD5 Hash: http://pajhome.org.uk/crypt/md5/

[zdevil]

Thanks!
Just tried your solution.
I was using

wget http://www.feedbooks.com/newsstand/subscription?user=zdevil&password=MYMD5HASHblahblahblah

Then I got this: (actual username and password hidden of course)

[1] 4838
MacBook:~/Desktop/RSS USERNAME$ --23:14:56--  http://www.feedbooks.com/newsstand/subscription?user=USERNAME
           => `subscription?user=USERNAME'
Resolving www.feedbooks.com... 91.121.16.74
Connecting to www.feedbooks.com|91.121.16.74|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [application/xml]

    [ <=>                                                                         ] 95            --.--K/s             

23:14:56 (5.66 MB/s) - `subscription?user=USERNAME' saved [95]

Then the terminal stops here without downloading anything or returning to prompt.

Then I found a small file called subscription?user=USERNAME and saw this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<newsstand>
  <status>Login Error</status>
</newsstand>

What to do?

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by zdevil

Thanks!
Just tried your solution.
I was using

wget http://www.feedbooks.com/newsstand/subscription?user=zdevil&password=MYMD5HASHblahblahblah

Then I got this: (actual username and password hidden of course)

[1] 4838
MacBook:~/Desktop/RSS USERNAME$ --23:14:56--  http://www.feedbooks.com/newsstand/subscription?user=USERNAME
           => `subscription?user=USERNAME'
Resolving www.feedbooks.com... 91.121.16.74
Connecting to www.feedbooks.com|91.121.16.74|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [application/xml]

    [ <=>                                                                         ] 95            --.--K/s             

23:14:56 (5.66 MB/s) - `subscription?user=USERNAME' saved [95]

Then the terminal stops here without downloading anything or returning to prompt.

Then I found a small file called subscription?user=USERNAME and saw this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<newsstand>
  <status>Login Error</status>
</newsstand>

What to do?

Just tried with your login/pass... I got a login error too using wget URL, but then I tried wget "URL" and it worked just right. You can also specify an output file in your wget command line.

[zdevil]

Great. Now I wget my own XML file. So how should I get the converted PDF feeds out of it? Thanks again.

[flamaest]

OMG,

I found this list of feeds, some are even full feeds, to add to my feedbooks newspapers.. yippe!

http://radio.xmlstoragesystem.com/rcsPublic/rssHotlist

Thanks,
F.

[flamaest]

Hadrien,

Can you help me make an RSS feed for this website?

http://www.keelynet.com/

I tried making an RSS feed from feedwhip and the output looks perfect, but feedbooks.com cannot understand this RSS feed for some reason.

Maybe you have an RSS for www.keelynet.com already on your list of RSS feeds..?

Thanks again,
Fabian.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by flamaest

Hadrien,

Can you help me make an RSS feed for this website?

http://www.keelynet.com/

I tried making an RSS feed from feedwhip and the output looks perfect, but feedbooks.com cannot understand this RSS feed for some reason.

Maybe you have an RSS for www.keelynet.com already on your list of RSS feeds..?

Thanks again,
Fabian.

PM me the feed that you created, I'll take at look at it.

Originally Posted by zdevil

Great. Now I wget my own XML file. So how should I get the converted PDF feeds out of it? Thanks again.

Hmmm you need to use some shell scripting with both grep and sed for this. I'll see if I can do this script myself and post it back here.

Edit: Here's the .sh file (always included a zip file with the .sh). It should work for all UMS devices (iLiad, Cybook, Hanlin etc..) and could be easily edited to support the Sony PRS-500 with libprs500.

#!/bin/sh
wget "http://www.feedbooks.com/newsstand/subscription?user=username&password=MD5" -O subscription.xml
declare -a names
i=0
for n in `grep -E "<title>.*</title>" < subscription.xml | sed -e 's/<\/*title>//g' | sed 's/^[ ]*//g' | sed -e 's/[^a-z]/_/ig'`
do

names[$i]=$n
let "i=$i+1"

done
i=0
for url in `grep -E "<url>.*</url>" < subscription.xml | sed -e 's/<\/*url>//g'` 
do 
wget $url -O "${names[$i]}.pdf"
let "i=$i+1"
done

[flamaest]

ok, I PM'ed you the feed..

I can add the feed to feedbooks, but no PDF content is ever generated..

Thanks,
F.

[zdevil]

Thanks, Hadrien. Tried your script. Wget can download the pdfs, but they are not saved anywhere. Any hint?

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by zdevil

Thanks, Hadrien. Tried your script. Wget can download the pdfs, but they are not saved anywhere. Any hint?

Well I tried it and it saved all of the feeds. If you see wget downloading the feeds than they must be saved somewhere...

[techReader]

Hadrien, your site it very cool.

I do have one problem and two questions - I was experimenting with creating my own private "newspaper", and I can see how to change the contents, but there seems to be no way to delete the whole newspaper. Is this a missing feature or am I missing something obvious?

The 2nd question relates to the iLiad - is your syncing app part of the code is it is something that has to be installed additionally?

Thanks in advance,
T.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by techReader

Hadrien, your site it very cool.

I do have one problem and two questions - I was experimenting with creating my own private "newspaper", and I can see how to change the contents, but there seems to be no way to delete the whole newspaper. Is this a missing feature or am I missing something obvious?

The 2nd question relates to the iLiad - is your syncing app part of the code is it is something that has to be installed additionally?

Thanks in advance,
T.

Haven't made a delete newspaper action yet, mostly because I'm not sure how such an action should behave. For private newspapers, it's simple: deleting the newspaper. But for public newspapers it's a lot more complicated. Let's say that 20 members also subscribe to your newspaper. Should we also delete the newspaper and therefore those 20 members wouldn't be able to use it anymore ? I need some extra thinking on all this...

The sync app need to be installed additionally, it's not something that's already on the iLiad itself. We'll try to keep this as simple as we can and we'll make a full guide on how you can install and use this app.