Still on the quest to simplify my life with RSS feeds, I gave AmphetaDesk a try. It was a simple install, not to mention a nice interface. However, it’s way too glitzy for my needs – it took several screens to fit in what my own concoction fits in a little over one.

Furthermore, I have to run it on my desktop and proxy in the request, since my simply K6/233 doesn’t need the strain.

So, I’m pretty much resolved to continuing to build my own. It’s really simple, a CGI that calls a TT2 template. The template spits out two columns of RSS feeds, to which I can customize on a per feed basis. Right now, all the hooks are in to do things like change refresh times (since the rss feeds are cached), or display comments. It’s just a matter of writing some admin screens to automate it, otherwise I end up hardcoding the options in the script.

Here’s a screenshot:

Through this blogging thing I’ve also got around to figuring out CSS, which made the layout easier.

Those looking to learn Perl and web development, this is an excellent project (I suppose almost any language will do). There are several patterns in use, such as Caching and Templating, not to mention XML parsing and the opportunity to build some elegant data structures.

Sean