Service status and new podcasting application

As many of you have already noticed some time ago, RSSHANDLER.COM stopped working as it was working earlier and stopped servicing podcasts. The reason for this problem are recent YouTube format changes. I can describe it in details, but basically, problem is that video, must be downloaded from the same IP that issues request. And it causes a lot of problems for hosted services like RSSHANDLER. Hopefully, something will change or someone will find solution and will share it with everyone and one day service will continue to work, as it was easiest way to watch YouTube podcasts.

But problem is still here and podcasts are not working. So, I decided to find some solution (maybe temporary), and today I am ready to make it public. It functions similarly RSSHANDLER.COM, but it is not hosted on server in the internet, but on user's own computer. So, it is standalone application. It is quite new, so expect some bugs and glitches, but it was already tested with several brave users, and general response is positive.

As special bonus, I have already implemented several long awaited features, like 50 results per feed and feed ordering. Also, as there is no traffic issues for application, now it is possible to return item descriptions.

There are pluses and minuses for application compared to service:
Pluses:

• does not depend on service, so will work even if service is down
• open sourced, so if you want, you can add your own features
• better customization, it is possible to implement more features in application then in service

Minuses:

• requires installation

Installation

1. Program requires Java to run. Download Java at http://www.java.com/. Download it and restart browser or computer if required.
2. Click at http://rsshandler.googlecode.com/files/rsshandler.jnlp . It will start launching and downloading of required components. Accept all prompts. It will start program and podcast server.

Usage

Create podcast URL

1. Start server
2. Enter type of feed you need: user (channel), playlist, favorites.
3. Enter feed id. It is user name for user feed (for example Google), playlist id for playlists (for example 288B4A1BBFEF7424), user id for favorites (for example Google).
4. Click Generate podcast URL button.
5. Copy/paste this url into your podcast application (for example iTunes)
6. Watch

Updating podcasts
Server must be running all the time when you doing updates (or all the time when podcast application is running, if updates are automatic)

1. Just launch application, server starts automaticaly

General application installation is described at http://code.google.com/p/rsshandler/, and all technical updates and documentation will be stored there. You can also find some tips there.

Application is still new and there is defenitely a lot of bugs, so please report anything you find here in comments or at http://code.google.com/p/rsshandler/issues/list, also please offer new features and improvements the same way.

There is Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/rsshandler for technical and general discussion about application, so if you have some question please create new topic there or post comments. If you plan to contribute, also register and post requests to Google Groups.

As about what will be with RSSHANDLER.COM, I don't plan to shutdown anything yet. I plan to freeze web site for few monthes, put memos on every page about new opportunities with application. If it will not become possible to restore service in this period, I plan to turn RSSHANLDER.COM into application's web site.

URLOF.COM will be shut down

For some time ago I have created url shortening service called URLOF.COM, it was used here and there in RSSHANDLER.
But recently someone used it to redirect traffic to some sites and was sending emails with links to URLOF redirects in them. GODADDY send me emails, that my domain is involved in spam, I explained them that it is only url shortening service and I cann't be responsible if someone includes my sites name in some bad email, but they didn't wanted to listen and understand anything and demanded money for dealing with this situation, so as this service does not bring much money, I finally decided to shut down URLOF.
So if you are using links via URLOF for rss feeds, you probably will have to change them and use direct links or another url shortening service.
After some time I plan to built in some url shortening directly into RSSHANDLER, so it will generate shorter urls by default.

Updates

I have not detected any major issue. Only problem is that some videos are not being downloaded occasianaly. It is not really clear what is the reason, but it maybe related to service or YouTube load. Maybe some blocking of excessive requests or something. I increased number of retries for downloads and this problem should be less annoying. At least it was in my tests.
Please keep reporting when there will be some problem that I have not noticed.

Download page added

Added new page to download videos from YouTube. There are many sites that allow to download YouTube videos, but this also generates Nokia Mobile Code for each download, what makes it a little bit easier to download video to mobile phone.

Downloader supports both: embeddable and not embeddable YouTube videos.

You can find new page here, and it is available from the main menu of the site.

RSS Handler launched

RSS Handler is online service that allows to subscribe to YouTube RSS feeds and get feed of FLV videos.
Problems with usual YouTube RSS feed is that it provides content for online RSS clients, where each item is SWF Flash player. This is not very convenient for podcast players, where you can subscribe to feed, download it and watch videos later, while you are not online.
So far, service does nothing more than downloads requested YouTube RSS feed or channel and replaces links to SWF files with links to FLV files.
If you want to know more about FLV, podcast, etc. you may check F.A.Q. section or Google.