RSS for sites with no RSS (updated)

[Author's addendum: As of September 30, 2010, Google will discontinue this service. According to their blog post, Page2RSS can perform the same service as Google Reader's "track changes" and can even convert your already existing feeds.]

I’ve been a big Google Reader fan for years now, and I wanted to point out a feature that may not get as much recognition as others. Sometimes you want to add a feed for a site that just doesn’t have a feed. Surely there’s a better way to look for updates than bookmarking and (ir)regularly scheduled visits, right?

Turns out you can add a site to Google Reader even without a true RSS feed available. Google will watch that page for you and generate a Reader item when an update is found.

For example, I want to keep an eye on OIT Current News. I click into Reader and “Add a subscription” like I normally would, then add the normal URL of the OIT Current News page.

Google tells me, “http://oit.ua.edu/news/current.html does not provide a feed. We can create a feed for you, notifying you when the content on the page updates. (Learn more.)”

So far it’s worked brilliantly; I’ve gotten Reader items for each of the last three OIT Current News updates. Just another way Google can help bring the web to you!

Opera 9.5 Released

Over the weekend, Opera Software released the newest milestone of its browser, Opera 9.5. This is a completely new branch of the browser (Kestrel) and runs much more quickly than 9.2x (Merlin).

New features include:

• Opera Link: synchronizes your bookmarks, Speed Dial, and Notes between Opera installations on different computers, including Opera Mini on your phone. (View demo.)
• Enhanced address bar searches your entire browsing history, including the contents of each page.
• Security enhancements: malware protection, improved fraud protection, and support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates. (Read more about EV certificates here.)
• New rendering engine with improved site compatibility and performance.
• Opera Dragonfly, the long-awaited developer tools that allows for debugging JavaScript, inspecting CSS and the DOM, and more.
• Slick new default skin

Opera 9.5 Changelog (Windows) (The UI changes are really worth a read, especially the part about “Open with” command, spatial navigation highlighting, and Firefox style tab switching behavior, which I wrote about here.)

Opera 9.5 Features

Download Opera 9.5

For the record, Opera 9.5 scores an 83 on the Acid3 test.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 available for download

Microsoft has released the first beta of Internet Explorer 8.

It can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm

Also, here is the IE8 start page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie8/welcome/en/default.html

Be warned: The IE8 Beta overwrites your IE7 (or 6) installation.

The cost-benefit of coding for different web browsers

John Resig wrote an interesting blog post yesterday about how much time to devote tweaking web sites to work with all major web browsers. He determines a browser’s “relevance” by posing the question, “Is this browser cost beneficial to us supporting it?”

Resig rates the browsers like this:

• IE 6
• IE 7
• Firefox 2
• Safari 2 & Safari 3 (tie)
• – common cut-off point –
• IE 5.5
• Opera 9.2

This seems like an interesting way to phrase the argument over how to code web sites. Most of the time the arguments we hear are about standards and compliance: “Should we code to standards and then hack it to make it work in IE, or should we simply code for IE and browser sniff for anything else?” When the latter is chosen, it leads to mixed results. Some sites, like cvs.com, block Opera outright. (See here and here.) It might not seem like a big deal to block a browser that boasts less than 2% of the browser market share. But when that 2% translates to millions of hits lost to a site like cvs.com, whose sole purpose is to sell us things, it should be a no-brainer it’s a bad idea to block anybody.

But perhaps sites like cvs.com have done the math and decided the cost of coding for Opera is greater than the potential sales gain of allowing it. I would be extremely skeptical of such a position. One of the best comments from John Resig’s blog was this:

I wonder why Opera and Safari are so expensive. Personally I start developing my pages against those two – the most advanced – browsers, and than move on to Foxy, and IE6. I found that it’s much easier to move on in this particular order: Opera 9.2, Safari 3, FF 2, IE 6. If you start with Firefox you are doomed to tweak your page both ways – to more standard-oriented (O and S) and to less standard-oriented (well, completely disoriented – IE).

I believe it is a common problem of today’s web design: people tend to start from FF because it’s very powerful and at the same time very-very forgiving. I can’t say the same about Safari, so it’s painful to move towards it, and as a result no one does it. Webmasters tell users: “Choose a better browser, man.” That makes me feel sad.

As an Opera user myself, I certainly understand the feeling of sadness and disappointment when major companies (especially banks) make the decision to block one of the most standards compliant browsers on the market simply because Microsoft has saturated the internet with bad code. This is, of course, why Opera filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft.