Sometimes, you want to use an RSS feed as a data source. This may be for publishing on your website or for mashing up data with another service.

Recently, I’ve been building a corporate intranet with the functionality to embed RSS feeds within the content. It’s a great way of generating fresh content in a controlled environment with minimum effort. Unfortunately, there are quite a few RSS feeds which include embedded links for sharing the item via services like ShareThis or Feedburner’s FeedFlare. One such example was the Post Online RSS Feed.

This seemed like an ideal job for Yahoo’s Pipes to tidy up. Here is the process I went through to create the sanitized version:

1. Create a Pipe on Yahoo Pipes (you may need to sign in with a Yahoo! account).
2. Drag Fetch Feed from Source on to the canvas.
3. Enter the URL of your feed.
4. Drag Regex from Operators on to the canvas.
5. Select the item to sanitize, e.g. item.description.
6. In the replace text box, enter <(.|\n)*?>.
7. Leave the with text box empty.
8. Check the g checkbox.
9. Drag a connection from the bottom of Fetch Feed to the top of Regex.
10. Drag a connection from the bottom of Regex to the top of Pipe Output.
11. To test your Pipe, highlight the Pipe Output box and check the results in Debugger panel at the base of the browser.
12. If all has gone to plan, you can Save your new Pipe, give it an appropriate name and start using your new clean feed.

Hopefully, you’ll find this useful. If you do, leave a comment below. Equally, if you encounter any issues with the process, share the problem and how you may have fixed it.

It may have been a short and bumpy ride but, equally, it’s been educational and emotional. Last Summer, I started working at Yahoo! Europe in the heart of London’s West End. After nearly a year, it saddens me to say it is time to turn the page and move on to the next exhilirating chapter that is my career. As of 5pm this evening, I shall no longer be a Yahoo.

When I took the plunge last June and handed in my notice at West Midlands Fire Service, I knew I was signing up for quite a large challenge, mentally and physically. Yahoo! hired only the finest web developers in the industry so expectations were high. Personally, I had long admired the work of many Yahoo’s such as Christian Heilmann, Tom Coates and Drew Mclellan so it was a great honour to join the team too.

On joining the company, I was thrown in the deep end on a new community-driven website (that I’m still under an NDA on so can’t really elaborate). I was glad to see Yahoo! was mainly a PHP house so I felt comfortable getting my hands dirty on the code, as well as conversing with colleagues over Best Practises for certain aspects of the development process. It was a refreshing change to see active discussions in the team and department as a whole - it all felt right. Christian pushed the idea of Lightning Talks, giving members of the team a five minute outlet opportunity to showcase their recent studies, Norm was busy compiling “Norm’s Laws” (better described as Best Practises in the coding world) while everyone enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of working in (arguably) the coolest company in the World. From a professional point of view, I was in heaven!

So what changed? Commuting to and from London daily was never going to be easy. Everyone said that. But, in all honesty, it didn’t bother me. Apart from the ridiculous maintenance works on the East Coast Mainline, it only took an hour and half from door to door and with 50 minutes or so on the train to relax or work. The biggest problem was the cost. With the hike in prices at the start of 2008, my monthly travel cost was in excess of £600 which simply exceeded my budget for travel. Among other reasons, I decided it was time to move on and find something local to home.

On browsing the Reed recruitment website, I found a few positions that interested me so sent off the recently refreshed resumé and got a fairly fast response from one company. The interview was pretty prompt and, within the day, they were offering me a package I couldn’t turn down. So, as of Tuesday 27th May, I shall be responsible for the migration and redevelopment of the online presence for high-end vehicle insurance company Premium Choice, a branch of KGM. The company are based in the recently refurbished Fort Dunlop building near the M6 of Birmingham so travelling will be cheaper and quicker and it also allows me to spend more time with the family (flexi time is certainly a benefit worth seeking too ).

While it is a shame to be leaving Yahoo! at such an interesting time (the products that are lined up for the next year or two look really exciting), as well as leaving behind a lot of great friends, I am really looking forward to starting the new job. There will be a lot more responsibility involved that shall cover a lot broader range of skills than was required at Yahoo! or WMFS but that hasn’t disheartened me. I am determined to deliver some high-end products to match the high-end market Premium Choices target and I already have some interesting ideas to develop with the company that have never really penetrated the insurance market up to now. Let’s just say “watch this space”…

Some of you might be interested to hear that Yahoo! are looking for some new Web Developers.

Ideally, they’re looking for juniors so they can adapt to the company methods a bit easier but that’s not essential. As long as the candidate is passionate about Web Standards and can demonstrate their ability with some examples, that should be enough to land an interview.

For anyone who is interested or might know of someone who is, you can download the job description here.

From a personal point of view, this is a great opportunity. Yahoo! is a great company to work for (regardless of all the negative press lately) who are keen advocates of the Web Standards movement and adopting modern methods and technologies such as OpenID and the Semantic Web. As far as your personal development is concerned, there is a huge team of amazingly talented “Webdevs” for you to mix with while picking their brains and training packages (internally and externally) are fantastic too.

Give me a shout if you want in, sending me a CV with some example URLs.

I’ll also be at the next Multipack meeting on Saturday 12th April 2008 if you want to ask me any questions directly.

Yahoo! Junior Web Developer - Job Description

As the world’s number one Internet brand Yahoo! delivers news, entertainment, information and fun to over a half billion people every day. Our European web development team, based in London, is seeking standards-savvy front-end developers to work on Europe’s busiest sites.

You should be able to provide examples of your work showing use of progressive enhancement techniques (e.g. unobtrusive scripting), and clear separation of structure, presentation and behaviour layers.

Required Skills

• Hand-coded (X)HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Solid knowledge of standards-based, accessible, cross-browser web development
• PHP programming skills
• User-level experience with BSD/Linux
• Experience using version control systems such as CVS & Subversion

Desirable Skills

• Client- and server�side performance optimisation techniques
• Search engine optimisation
• Experience in developing web applications with rich client interfaces using AJAX, drag and drop, and other DOM Scripting techniques.
• Experience with JavaScript libraries, especially the YUI
• Experience of Web Services (eg REST, SOAP, XML-RPC)
• Knowledge of web site internationalisation issues and experience developing web sites in multiple languages particularly in Europe.
• Use of the following technologies: XML/XSLT, Perl, Microformats, JSON, Flash/Flex
• Experience developing functionality/applications by assembling existing code modules

Responsibilities

You will work closely with Information Architects, Visual Designers, User Researchers, Software Engineers, and Product Managers to ensure that our web based products in Europe provide the best possible experience for our users.

If you’re desperate to get out to Miami’s South Beach next week for this year’s Winter Music Conference but stumped for the cash or time, never fear as Yahoo! have come up trumps (sort of).

Last month, Yahoo! Live was launched - the latest “social network” from Yahoo! to make the most of the online video market, allowing users to stream live video internationally using the Flash video camera technology and some hefty streaming servers. Generally speaking, it’s been quite well received. Not only have they opened up the API for developers to mess around with, but there has also been quite a large following in the DJ community with many DJ’s broadcasting live sets on the system too. When I’m online (and have something to actually broadcast), I’ll be available on my channel (which can also be viewed in my labs).

With such a huge event coming up full of DJ’s and producers kicking off the party season in Miami, it seemed like a match made in heaven for Yahoo! Live to head on out to all the parties and broadcast everything live to the globe from Tuesday 25th March to Sunday 30th March 2008. Rather than leave you to find your way around all the available streams though, they have created a dedicated pool of live video streams just for the week at wmc.live.yahoo.com.

Among the frivolities, expect to see big name DJs like:

• Paul Oakenfold
• Moby
• Paul Van Dyk
• Satoshi Tomiie
• Adam Freeland
• Mark Farina
• Roger Sanchez
• Armand Van Helden
• Steve Lawler

… as well as concerts and parties from:

• X-Mix Productions
• Oakenfold Bourne Sessions
• Defected in the House
• CR2 Live and Direct
• Stealth
• Marine Parade
• Ultra Music Festival
• Remix Hotel Beatport pool party
• SAW Recordings

Below are some of the scheduled Yahoo! Live streams from the Winter Music Conference in Miami. To make life even easier for you (and make sure you don’t miss your favourite gig), you can download or subscribe to the schedule in your computer calendar.

(All times are Eastern Pacific Time (GMT-5) which obviously has a knock on effect for all the UK viewers.)

• It all starts with Paul Oakenfold who will be accompanied by members of the Florida Classical Symphony with special guest Cee Lo of Gnarls Barkley on Tuesday evening from 7-9pm.
• SAW Records & Stussy presents SAW WMC 2008 with music from the likes of Satoshi Tomile and Audiofly from Shine Nightclub (Shelbourne Hotel), Miami Beach
  Wednesday night til 10pm to 5am.
• The X-Mix Productions WMC Party at Suite, Miami Beach is sure to be a huge night with Armand Van Helden on the decks
  kicking off Friday night from 10pm to 5am.
• Stealth will be pulling an all-nighter at the Mynt Lounge, Miami Beach on Saturday evening from 10pm to 5am Eastern Pacific Time (GMT-5)

If you’re into your dance music (and knowing the majority of the visitors to this website only come for the podcast, that is quite likely), be sure to check out the WMC Y! Live site over the course of next week to get some exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of new music for 2008. It should be amazing!

Please note: Yahoo! Live is still a beta product so don’t be entirely surprised if the service is temporarily down from time to time. The guys in Sunnyvale have been working their socks off to create this product and are continuously making improvements so be gentle!