I finally got around to publishing an updated version of my OPML file (aka all the blogs I subscribe to). I use RssBandit as my blog reader, and I found out the hard way that it doesn’t support the most current OPML format. OK, well maybe that statement is incorrect, since Dave Winer’s tool marks the OPML as version 1.1, but there is only a 1.0 public spec. The strange thing is the Dave’s tool is that it will “convert” 2 OPML formats, Bloglines and RSS Bandit to his format. I’m not sure what is going on with Dave’s tool, but the OPML 1.0 spec is pretty vague on the valid attributes of the outline element. Using his tool, a link is a url attribute, but if you convert an OPML produced by RSS Bandit, the tool just copies over all the attributes on the outline element, without creating a url attribute. This is the type of loose specs Dave is famous for, and just reproduces the whole HTMLness mess all over again.
So, in the end I have published a file that can be loosely considered an OPML file. To make it easier for everyone, I wrote up a quick XSLT to convert it to XHTML, and included a stylesheet PI statement in the OPML file, so that modern browsers can convert it on the fly.
Here’s a list of some of the newer/interesting blogs I subscribe to:
- Freakonomics – Great book, and decent blog
- Chip Lemmon – Trying to spread the gospel of Entry Level Enterprise development to the masses that use Rapid Application Development (aka spaghetti coders).
- Vinnie the 80’s Guy – A coworker at my newest consulting gig who just took his blog public (from an internal online blog).
- Uche Ogbuji – XML from a non .Net view.
Oh, the Archive category in my OPML is for folks that at one time I subscribed to, but for some reason they have not blogged in over a month (shame on you). One step from deletion.