How to get desktop updates of Free Republic all day!

RSS Beta ^ | 3/13/2003 | Jakenuts

[Jakenuts]

Do you spend a fair amount of time hitting 'refresh' to keep up to date with the current news from Free Republic. If so, you might consider this free & efficient alternative that will automatically keep you on top of the news, “FreeRSS”.

RSS or ‘Really Simple Syndication’ is an internet format that lets news sites publish a index of current stories with brief descriptions and links to the main stories. Because the readers only view full stories if they are interested in the topic, this saves bandwidth and time. RSS feeds are available from almost every major news site on the internet including AP, BBC, CNet, etc.

How to use RSS and Free Republic:

1.) Get an RSS reader.

Just about any one will do. I use this one which is free and seems to work fine. A list of other ones can be found at this site.

2.) Point it at this feed: http://www.dev1.eraserver.net/PACIFICA/FreeRSS/Index.xml

Note, this is a somewhat experimental site, please be patient if it seems troublesome, I’ll do my best to keep it going.

3.) Set the “Update Frequency”

I have mine set to ‘5 Minutes’ so that every 5 minutes the reader gets the latest headlines. You might also wish to limit how many topics it ‘archives’ to something like 50 (one page).

That’s it! You now have a full-time Free Republic monitor that saves you the effort of hitting refresh, and saves the web servers from unnecessary traffic. Again, this is a somewhat experimental setup, so please let me know if you notice any problems.

*** Disclaimer – This stuff is all free, non proprietary, and devoid of commercial intent. All articles link directly back to Free Republic, which is as it should be. No rabbits were any way harmed by the creation or use of the index, though if the Froggies could be adversely impacted by the content, so much the better.

Screenshot:

[dware]

Oh yeah...I think I'm gonna like this...

[Mini-14]

Thank you

[Jakenuts]

Great, glad it works! 8)

[Johnny Gage]

Bumping for later.

[Robe]

Fer later

[BA63]

TY! - Works Like A Champ!

[CLRGuy]

Have to plug NewsGator.. it's the best RSS Aggregator out there, it integrates with Microsoft Outlook. NewsGator

[NativeNewYorker]

Opera browser (opera.com) has an auto refresh function that can be customized for any window. That's how I FREEP the day away...

[Bogey78O]

Try the FR patch. I hear the gum works....

[cyborg]

LOL... thanks I will.

[cebadams]

Great effort although I am getting this error:

Can’t display news for this subscription because:
[NSPlaceholderString initWithString:]: nil string (or other) argument

Any idea what is causing this error messsage?

[bwteim]

I get this via AmphetaDesk

Free Republic
Last Downloaded: 2003-03-13 22:36:57.
This channel has no items that AmphetaDesk can display.
 

[Jakenuts]

Ooo, yeah, that's no good. I'll see if I can resolve that in the morning.

[Cultural Jihad]

There's also the built-in FreeRepublic Pager at this address which notifies you when a new message on the forum is addressed to you:
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/notify?spoken=no

[Sunshine55]

This is fantastic! Thanks so much!

[Schnucki]

Proxy option is busted.

If you go to Properties --> General --> Misc and checkmark the "Get proxy settings from IE on startup" it seems to work fine. Dunno what happens if you don't have IE, though.

[tomkat]

reminder

[Luis Gonzalez]

What numbers are you buying?

I want in on your day.

[Mr_Magoo]

bump for later

[aShepard]

A thanks bump