It has always irritated me how that when I viewed my RSS Feed, whether the "Full Text" setting was enabled or not, the Description never included the complete post; It was in the <content:encoded> tag.

So, I did some hunting and searching just a minute ago to fix this problem. I actually fixed this problem by editing the code. I personally would rather have my entire post in the feed, instead of just a summary with a link to the full post. I mean, after all, if I am subscribing to feed with Feedmailer, I would at least like to get the full post in the email, instead of just a one liner description.

So, here's the fix. You need to edit wp-includes/feed-rss2.php and change line 42 from <?php the_excerpt_rss() ?> to <?php the_content() ?>

Maybe someone should make a plugin that is a setting to do this. I have no experience or knowledge on how to write Wordpress plugins, though, so this is just a simple fix for me.

Some of you may recall that petty little project that I started for subscribing to RSS/ATOM feeds, and having the updates sent to you by email. Better than a bulky Feed reader, right?

I took the time to actually rewrite the entire framework, so it's much easier to implement changes, templates, settings, and new features at a whim. (At least for me…)

Currently, the whole project is in beta testing by myself, Lacy and Joshua Lambert. We're testing this thing to make sure it is operating as it is supposed to, and to make sure all of the wrinkles are worked out of it before I actually release it as a stable 2.0 version number.

I welcome anyone to test it, and report bugs. But please don't complain if it isn't working correctly. Just tell me what is wrong and I'll see if I can work out a plan of action to fix the problem. The beta version is here.

Currently, Feedmailer 2.0 Beta (revision 42) is working and functioning properly. No bugs, no glitches and everyone is receiving their notices as they are supposed to. Feel free to register and give it a spin, and tell me what you think. I consider all feature requests and new ideas to be implemented.

If you would like to have the source to play with, either comment, Contact Me and I will send you an archive of the latest revision, or download the latest revision from the bazaar branch at Launchpad.

A rather unoriginal idea by myself, and somewhat of reinventing the wheel, so to speak. FeedMailer (as I have so aptly named the project) can take an RSS/ATOM feed, parse it, and send you the updates by email, unlike a fancy RSS Reader. If you enjoy receiving emails and reading your Inbox moreso than opening an RSS Reader and wading through all the updates, then you might like this. Otherwise, you will find it a horrible waste of your time.

I have half a notion to start over from scratch and re-code this entire thing from the ground up, to make it more user-friendly, efficient, readable and more poetic, if I may say so. It works for now, though, and does what I have programmed it to do.

Unlike Feedburner, where you can only subscribe to a user's feed via email updates, so long as they have registered and subscribed with Feedburner, Feedmailer allows you to add any RSS feed and receive email updates every half hour (it could be every minute, but I figure 30 minutes is good enough).

In order to use Feedmailer, you must first register with it. An email address and password is all the data that it requires to get you set up. (For your information, the passwords are md5 encrypted in the database). Upon registration, Feedmailer sends out a verification email to have you verify your account. From there, you should be able to login and add feeds to your account.

There are several options in the Settings page, which include adding feeds, deleting feeds, changing your email/password and enabling the 'vacation' mode (to opt not to receive any emails from Feedmailer while this mode is enabled). I also have statistical blog buttons which meerly provide data as to how many users are subscribed to that Feed's URL. (For instance, see my Buttons on the sidebar).

Also, there are quick and easy ways to Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Feedmailer feeds, like this:
http://levi.obeyingthetruth.com/apps/feedmailer/subscribe.php?url=http://levi.obeyingthetruth.com/feed/&type=rss2

If you would like to subscribe to my Feed notification via Feedmailer, use the link provided above. Also, if you would like to see the project index, please go here.

Also, to reiterlate my point, you don't have to use Feedmailer just for subscribing to my Feed. Use it for other Feeds too, that you wish to receive email notification for. That's what I do, and I'm subscribed to about 6 or 7 different feeds. But don't blame me if you Inbox fills up from having subscribed to a Feed that is updated very regular!!

As a quick side note, I have also set up a public calendar for us bloggers to post Birthdays/events to. You can find it here.

Ever since I posted about METAR I've been working on a Php application for decoding and displaying METAR information in a readable format. I also wanted to have the current temperature display on an image (that was my inital goal), but I just kept working on it until where I am at now.

If you look over in my sidebar, you should see a weather image that is telling the current temperature for the nearest airport to me. This little program grabs the latest METAR report for the specified station, decodes it, outputs the data on a weather page, the temperature on a button (I have had Lacy help me with making several different styles) and automatically generate RSS feeds.

In order to save bandwidth to NOAA Weather (where it is downloading the METAR report from), I have set the program up to delay how often the METAR may update. It is set at 30 minutes. So it works like this, if you retrieve the current weather conditions from a station for the first time, you get the latest update. No matter how many times you refresh or attempt to update the page, you will not get any updates until 30 minutes have passed from the first time you loaded the station.

It's trivial, and it saves bandwidth. Since NOAA doesn't recieve updates for the station except ever 50 minutes, I think it's fair enough.

METAR-Weather is opensource. I support Opensource software, so you are free to use it. Currently I don't have it for download, but if you want it, just email me.

This application is maintenance free (or, was designed that way), does not require and databases, and does not require users to register with it, in order to use it. You can find the main METAR page here. All the required information to use it is on that page. There are several different styles of buttons to choose from (and I can add more if you have any ideas! )

Upon generating a button for the station, you will be given the XHTML code that includes a link to the weather page and of course, the image. Here is the weather page for the station KLKU.

This is not bug free (what is?), so if you have any problems or questions with it, feel free to email me.