Tag Archives: podcast

FastWonderPodcast

Online Community Podcast: Dawn Foster, Marshall Kirkpatrick and Alex Williams

If you missed the discussion that Marshall Kirkpatrick, Alex H. Williams, and I had in the Blogger Pavilion at the Business Leader NW conference yesterday, you can still listen to the conversation thanks to Luke Lefner of Broken Hours. You can visit his blog post about the discussion to learn more.

Podcast: Download

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Yahoo Pipes Videos

YQL (Yahoo Query Language): 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Video Demo

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After learning that Yahoo Pipes introduced a new module called YQL (Yahoo Query Language) last week, I knew that I had to find a way to work it into one of my 2 minute videos. YQL uses an SQL-like syntax for more powerful and flexible inputs into Yahoo Pipes; however, working it into a 2 minute demo was quite challenging, since queries can be complicated. I cheated a little by glossing over the query language and focusing on how to use YQL effectively within Pipes. Honestly, I’m never going to teach someone to use an SQL syntax without extensive training, so this 2 minute demo is really geared toward people with database experience or programming backgrounds. I also did a more complicated version of this pipe with a more extensive explanation that you might be interested in reading to get more details about using YQL within Pipes.

More Details

  • The Demo Pipe. A copy of the YQL: 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Demo pipe click “View Source” to see the modules.
  • YQL. The query:
    select * from flickr.photos.info(20) where photo_id in (select id from flickr.photos.search(20) where tags = “igniteportland”).
    Selects 20 photos from Flickr with the tag “igniteportland”. flickr.photos.search is used to find the images, but it doesn’t provide much information about the images, so I ran it through flickr.photos.info to pull in more data. If you omit the (20), YQL returns 10 results by default, and you can set this number to something appropriate for your needs.
  • Rename. Maps item.urls.url.content into the more standard item.link, which is recognized by RSS readers and the Yahoo Pipes output for clickable links back to the original content.
  • Pipe Output. The final module in every Yahoo Pipe.

I’ve created many Yahoo Pipes, and most of them have been published on my Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks page where you can also learn more about my Yahoo Pipes Training courses.

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Yahoo Pipes Videos

Filter By Date: A 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Demo

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This 2 minute Yahoo Pipes demos shows how to filter by date using the filter module combined with the date builder module to find all of the posts in the past 2 days from our feeds. If you haven’t already watched the 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Introductory Demo, I strongly suggest that you watch it. This demo builds on the basic structure developed in the introductory demo with the same feeds from ReadWriteWeb and GigaOM that we used in the original demo.

More Details

  • The Demo Pipe. A copy of the Filter By Date Pipe click “View Source” to see the modules.
  • Fetch Feed. Fetches the elements from 2 feeds: ReadWriteWeb and GigaOM.
  • Date Builder Module. Defines the date parameters for filters. In this case, I’ve filtered on ‘2 days ago’
  • Filter Module. Filter by blocking any item where date (item.y:published.utime) is greater than 2 days ago.
  • Sort Module. Sort by date in descending order to make sure things are sorted in a logical manner.
  • Pipe Output. The final module in every Yahoo Pipe.

I’ve created many Yahoo Pipes, and most of them have been published on my Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks page where you can also learn more about my Yahoo Pipes Training courses.

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Yahoo Pipes Videos

Pipes within Pipes: A 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Video Demo

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We’ve talked about many different uses for Yahoo Pipes in previous 2 minute Yahoo Pipes demos, but you can also use most existing Yahoo Pipes within other pipes. In this demo, we’ll use a couple of pipes I’ve previously created as the input into a new Yahoo Pipe, and we’ll introduce the union operator as a way to pull several inputs together.

More Details

  • The Demo Pipe. A copy of the Pipes within Pipes demo pipe click “View Source” to see the modules.
  • Union Module. Pull several inputs together into a single output.
  • Unique Module. Use this to prevent duplicate results when multiple search queries might return the same results by filtering on item.link.
  • Sort Module. Sort by date in descending order to make sure things are sorted in a logical manner.
  • Pipe Output. The final module in every Yahoo Pipe.

I’ve created many Yahoo Pipes, and most of them have been published on my Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks page where you can also learn more about my Yahoo Pipes Training courses.

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Yahoo Pipes Videos

Modifying RSS Feeds: 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Video Demo

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While many people use Yahoo Pipes to filter RSS feeds, Pipes can also be used to modify RSS feeds to work better for your purposes. In this example, we will add the author name to the beginning of the title to make it easier to see the author without opening the item in your rss reader. I recommend watching the Introduction to Yahoo Pipes: 2 minute Yahoo Pipes Video Demo if you haven’t already, since we’re going use the basic pipe developed in that demo using fetch feed and sort modules, but without the filter module.

More Details

  • The Demo Pipe. A copy of the Modifying RSS Feeds demo pipe click “View Source” to see the modules.
  • Fetch Feed. Fetches the elements from 2 feeds: ReadWriteWeb and GigaOM.
  • Sort Module. Sort by date in descending order to make sure things are sorted in a logical manner.
  • Loop module with String Builder Module. Loops through each element in the feed and builds a string with item.author: item.title. This string is assigned back into item.title.
  • Pipe Output. The final module in every Yahoo Pipe.

I’ve created many Yahoo Pipes, and most of them have been published on my Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks page where you can also learn more about my Yahoo Pipes Training courses.

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Yahoo Pipes Videos

CSV File Inputs: 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Video Demo

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This video shows how to get input from a list of items in a CSV file, and it introduces the loop module. A CSV file is a great choice when you want to fetch a bunch of feeds and change them frequently without having to update your pipe. If you haven’t already watched the 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Introductory Demo, I strongly suggest that you watch it. This demo builds on the basic structure developed in the introductory demo. The CSV file I’m using also contains the same feeds from ReadWriteWeb and GigaOM that we used in the original demo plus a few others.

More Details

  • The Demo Pipe. A copy of the CSV File Input in Yahoo Pipes Demo click “View Source” to see the modules.
  • Fetch CSV Module. Enter the URL of the CSV file (make sure that it already exists in a publicly accessible location) along with information about column names and separation characters as needed.
  • Loop module with Fetch Feed. Loops through each element in the CSV file and fetches the feed associated with the item.
  • Filter Module. Filter by a couple of keywords.
  • Sort Module. Sort by date in descending order to make sure things are sorted in a logical manner.
  • Pipe Output. The final module in every Yahoo Pipe.

I’ve created many Yahoo Pipes, and most of them have been published on my Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks page where you can also learn more about my Yahoo Pipes Training courses.

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Yahoo Pipes Videos

Using The Debugger: 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Video Demo

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The debugger serves a couple of functions in Yahoo Pipes. The first one is pretty obvious – debugging. It allows you to see exactly what is happening in each component of your Yahoo Pipe to help with the debugging process when something isn’t working quite right.

The debugger also serves a less obvious purpose. You can use it to learn more about the elements of the rss feeds that you are using as input. For most blogs, the rss feeds are fairly standard, but other services store all kinds of useful information in their rss feeds in addition to standard elements like link, title, and date. The debugger can help you find this additional information in the feed.

More Details

  • The Demo Pipe. A copy of the Yahoo Pipes Debugger Demo Pipe. Click “View Source” to see the modules.
  • Fetch Feed Module. Contains 1 feed from Shizzow, which contains a wealth of location information within the feed.
  • Filter Module. Filters posts with a certain keyword out of the feed to demonstrate the debugger.
  • Pipe Output. The final module in every Yahoo Pipe.
  • The demo also spends time using the debugger to explore various elements of the feed.

I’ve created many Yahoo Pipes, and most of them have been published on my Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks page where you can also learn more about my Yahoo Pipes Training courses.

Previous videos in the series:

Yahoo Pipes Videos

User Input: 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Video Demo

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This video shows how to request a user input and use the keyword from the user as the filter in a Yahoo Pipe. If you haven’t already watched the 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Introductory Demo, I strongly suggest that you watch it. The user input demo starts with the simple pipe created in the introductory demo and changes the filters from keywords hardcoded in the introductory pipe to the keyword from the user input.

Podcast Feed and iTunes

More Details

  • The Demo Pipe. A copy of the User Input Demo Pipe click “View Source” to see the modules.
  • Fetch Feed Module. Contains 2 feeds: ReadWriteWeb and GigaOM.
  • Text Input Module. Leave Name and Position as the defaults. Prompt: “enter a keyword” or other instructions for the user. Default and Debug: “apple” in this example. You can generally use the same term for default and debug, but make sure that you use a word commonly found in your feeds that will generate enough volume for testing and will generate default results for your users to view.
  • Filter Module. Filter by the keyword entered in the user input module by connecting the text input to the filter module as seen in the demo.
  • Sort Module. Sort by date in descending order to make sure things are sorted in a logical manner.
  • Pipe Output. The final module in every Yahoo Pipe.

I’ve created many Yahoo Pipes, and most of them have been published on my Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks page where you can also learn more about my Yahoo Pipes Training courses.

Related Fast Wonder Blog posts

Yahoo Pipes Videos

Yahoo Pipes Video: 2 Minute Quick Vanity Feed Demo

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If you haven’t already watched my 2 Minute Yahoo Pipes Introductory Demo, you might want to back up and start by watching it. This quick vanity feed demo builds on the concepts learned in the introduction with a practical example of how to create a quick and dirty vanity feed using Yahoo Pipes. Let me start by saying that this is a quick and easy way to create a vanity feed, but it isn’t the most elegant solution, since it has limited configuration options. However, that would be a much longer demo, and I wanted to have something that you can get started with quickly.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a vanity feed is where you search for mentions of your name, your company’s name, your products, your website and other mentions related to what people are saying about you online. In this example, we are using Gartner Research and assuming that the person building this pipe works at Gartner and wants to better understand what people are saying about the company online.

More Details

  • The Demo Pipe. A copy of the Quick Vanity Feed Demo pipe.
  • Example. We are using Gartner Research as our example company throughout this demo.
  • Fetch Feed Module. Contains 3 preconfigured searches using various sites. You can enter your search on any search engine that allows RSS feed output. Grab the RSS feed from your search and place it in the Fetch Feed module.
  • Unique Module. Use this to prevent duplicate results when multiple search engines return the same articles by filtering on item.link.
  • Filter Module. Filter out any unwanted results based on item links, keywords, or any other criteria. After watching your feed for a few days, you will start to see things you want to filter out even if you can’t think of any now.
  • Sort Module. Sort by date in descending order to make sure things are sorted in a logical manner.
  • Pipe Output. The final module in every Yahoo Pipe.

I’ve created many Yahoo Pipes, and most of them have been published on my Yahoo Pipes and RSS Hacks page where you can also learn more about my Yahoo Pipes Training courses.

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shizzow

Listen to Shizzow on Strange Love Live

On Friday night, Mark, Sam and I spent a couple of hours with Cami Kaos and Dr. Normal on the Strange Love Live couch to talk about Shizzow. We talked about how it works, interesting things people are doing with Shizzow and our plans for the future. You can listen to the podcast, download it or subscribe to their feed if you want to hear more episodes of Strange Love Live.

Here’s what Cami Kaos had to say about Shizzow (expressed via Toonlet):


A huge thank you to Cami Kaos and Dr. Normal for having us on the show!

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