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Andrew B.
September 2nd, 2007, 03:31 PM
There is just no easy way to read CompuServe. It was looking hopeful for Omea Reader in this thread (http://www.tapcis.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5041), but it is not panning out. I thought that every time someone posted to a thread, I'd get notified. But it looks now like it doesn't work this way. And I'm not sure what it is doing. Maybe I only get notified when a thread is first created.

I also tried subscribing to forums (as opposed to threads) on CompuServe. This feature sends and email with links once a day, showing the new activity for that forum. Problem is, the links don't work. I've notified CompuServe about this problem (twice), with no change.

So, that's that. I give up.

jdh
September 3rd, 2007, 02:06 AM
There is just no easy way to read CompuServe. It was looking hopeful for Omea Reader in this thread (http://www.tapcis.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5041), but it is not panning out. I thought that every time someone posted to a thread, I'd get notified. But it looks now like it doesn't work this way. And I'm not sure what it is doing. Maybe I only get notified when a thread is first created.

I also tried subscribing to forums (as opposed to threads) on CompuServe. This feature sends and email with links once a day, showing the new activity for that forum. Problem is, the links don't work. I've notified CompuServe about this problem (twice), with no change.

So, that's that. I give up.

It is possible to define your own blog search criteria in order to make up your own "artificial" RSS feed using this:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch/advanced_blog_search

A couple things I don't know tho' : 1. does google consider CS forums to be blogs and 2. does google actually crawl CS ?

If the answers are both yes, then it may be possible to finagle an advanced google blog search to make up one or more "blog feeds" from CS forums.

Never tried it myself , tho'.

DH

P.S. Maybe Technorati.com would be worth looking at too?

Mike
September 3rd, 2007, 02:36 AM
I thought that every time someone posted to a thread, I'd get notified. But it looks now like it doesn't work this way. And I'm not sure what it is doing. Maybe I only get notified when a thread is first created.
I think thread subscriptions send a notification once per the period you've requested; e.g., once a day or once a week. I know another option is to be notified by email whenever a post is addressed to you.

I also tried subscribing to forums (as opposed to threads) on CompuServe. This feature sends and email with links once a day, showing the new activity for that forum. Problem is, the links don't work. I've notified CompuServe about this problem (twice), with no change.
Could it be a CompuServe brand vs. Netscape brand problem?

Andrew B.
September 3rd, 2007, 10:03 AM
I made a mistake. It looks like they might have fixed this.

I didn't notice at first because it is still sending links that point at forums.prospero.com. And I assumed that this Prospero address would not work, just as it had not worked before. But now when I click the link, I get taken to the message (or at least the page the message is on) and I can log in and see My Stuff (even though I'm at the Prospero URL).

So I'm going to expand my test to more forums and I'll see if this is practical for day to day use.

Andrew B.
September 3rd, 2007, 10:05 AM
I might have posted a false alarm. CompuServe might have fixed the problem. I need to test it more.

jdh
September 4th, 2007, 06:33 PM
It is possible to define your own blog search criteria in order to make up your own "artificial" RSS feed using this:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch/advanced_blog_search

A couple things I don't know tho' : 1. does google consider CS forums to be blogs and 2. does google actually crawl CS ?

If the answers are both yes, then it may be possible to finagle an advanced google blog search to make up one or more "blog feeds" from CS forums.

Never tried it myself , tho'.

DH

P.S. Maybe Technorati.com would be worth looking at too?

FWIW, I did make a couple of tries to make up an artificial RSS feed by using Google blogsearch on Compuserve Prospero forums. As far as I can tell, Google does NOT crawl those forums as if they were blogs but ONLY as regular web pages. I was hoping maybe to use some such trick to perhaps get a blog feed off Compuserve Prospero with a longer time span, for example, covered, or whatever. So bottom line appears to be that all one can get is just the regular feed such as one would get by clicking the RSS feed icon(s) in the browser (I don't use IE, so I've only done it with Firefox, click those icons, I mean).

DH

Andrew B.
September 5th, 2007, 11:17 AM
It looks like Goggle Blog Search relies on RSS feeds. From what I've seen of the CompuServe RSS feeds, they don't include bodies.

jdh
September 5th, 2007, 01:09 PM
It looks like Goggle Blog Search relies on RSS feeds. From what I've seen of the CompuServe RSS feeds, they don't include bodies.I suppose not having bodies might be a reason not to bother crawling the feeds as being blogs.

Perhaps another reason for Google apparently not treating the Compuserve forums as blogs is that the Compuserve forums are differentiated from each other by the query part of the URL's, i.e. the part AFTER the question mark "?".

DH