Lots of sabots in the works. First and foremost the RSS from The Weather Network is no good (incorrect/invalid/inconsistent date formats, some other brokenness). Twitterfeed offers two ways to detect a new posting – the GUID, or the pubDate. As mentioned, the pubDates used in the feed are just plain wrong, so no help there. The GUID for each post, also not helpful – it’s the static link to the current weather page; long-term forecast is indicated by ref=day1, ref=day2, etc in the URL – so that doesn’t change, even when the content does.

I have meant for a long time to fix it (before today, the last post form Twitterfeed was July 18), but aside from a few quick hacks, never completed it. Lately, the explosion in Kingstonians using Twitter has inspired me to fix it, especially the new followers @KingstonWeather has gained.

After some trial-and-error, I ended up building a php script to write an entirely new RSS feed, based on the one provided by The Weather Network – this one is valid, has proper (unique) IDs for the posts, and appears to work in Twitterfeed.

This is a huge step towards an open, interoperable social web; Google and Facebook are probably the two largest collectors and holders of data (social and otherwise) on the web, and they have been among the most reticient about sharing their data.

Still in the works on the SN side is implementing OpenID for logins and order tracking, and hCard, hCard+XFN and FOAF profile-pulling.

Technorati Tags: Rosebleed, microformat, hcard, hCard+XFN, FOAF, OpenID

My aim is to gather the collective knowledge of humanity; failing that, I’d like to maintain an interesting sort of site about the things that interest me – technology [the web, social networking, microformats, DHTML, and a bunch of other buzzwords], philosophy [spirituality, the Meaning of Life, stuff like that].

I’m currently employed as a Web Application Developer at DAS Software, Inc.. I’m one of the fortunate minority who genuinely love my job – I always have a number of projects on the go to keep me interested, and I get to work in several fields at the same time.

Some of my current projects at DAS include:

• SquashPOS
  Squash is our flagship product. It’s a web-based, multi-user point of sale system. Our main design goals are good functionality, easy-to-use, and good-looking.
• SquashWEB
  SquashWEB is our ready-to-play e-commerce front end, which integrates seamlessly with the Squash POS system in-store.
• HR Centric
  HR Centric is a Human Resources consultant based in Ottawa, ON. I develop and maintain their web-based HRM and HRIS software. Our clients include Bell Business Solutions, Blacks Photo Corporation, and the ACQ.
• VerifAction
  VerifAction is a Human Resources service provider based in Boucherville, QC. DAS Software is partnered with them to develop web-based HRM and HRIS systems; specifically pre-employment (reference checks, etc.) and post-employment (exit interview) services.