What’s New: RSS feeds and URLs

While some of the old links are still operative the change to a new domain has made some of them obsolete. There’s even a couple new ones you’ll probably be interested in. Let’s see where’s what now.

URL changes

Let me first list you the most important changes in URL addresses:

• Robomeks can now be found at http://catolate.com/robomeks
• Robomeks (español) can be found at http://catolate.com/robomeks-es/

I’ve placed several redirections already that should make finding the new locations easier. For instance, http://robomeks.com now leads directly to the Robomeks section. I’ve also tried to remap the popular http://robomeks.com/lang/en/ entrance, but my limited knowledge of regular expressions and .htaccess tinkering don’t seem to be enough to achieve it. I’m planning to try with PHP and/or META redirects later.  (solved)

RSS feeds

The old RSS feeds are still operative and, thanks to (Google’s) FeedBurner,  they are still working without forcing you to change anything in your side. But there’s now a new member in the RSS family, the Catolate feed, which will keep you updated about all the things that happen in this site. That includes not only updates for new pages in Robomeks, but also newsposts like this and updates for the new webcomic series. As I said, it notifies about everything that is updated in this site.

There’s also now a feed that diplays only the updates to the blog section of Catolate, in case you want to keep it separated from your actual Robomeks feed subscription.

So, let me make a quick recap of the RSS feeds available:

• Catolate feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/catolate
• Catolate Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/CatolateBlog
• Robomeks feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/robomeks
• Robomeks (español) feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/robomeks_es
• Twitter feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Twitter/Mchaves

You can also access them at any time by clicking the “Get Updated” links and icons spread through this site.

RSS feed readers

I love RSS feeds, but without a good tool they become quite difficult to follow and manage, particularly if you’re following the RSS feeds of dozens of sites (like myself). Here’s a short list of some free tools to read those pesky feeds:

• Google Reader: Probably the easiest way. All you need is to have a Google account. It’s web based, so you can check it for updates wherever you are.
• FeedDemon (Windows): My new favorite. It’s a fast, flexible and powerful desktop solution and my highest recommendation if you’re on a Windows machine. It automatically synchronizes with your Google Reader account, so you can leap from one to the other without having to change anything.
• NetNewsWire (Mac): While I still have my old Apple PPC 7300/200 gathering dust somewhere I haven’t tested this tool myself in a Mac, so it’s kind of a blind recommendation. But it’s from the same guys of FeedDemon and it seems to have some positive reviews if you google it. So, here it is. Use it at your own risk and report back if your machine hasn’t exploded yet.

There’s probably more easy ways to keep updated (like Live Bookmarks and the like) so if you prefer another tool or way to keep track of those RSS feeds just let me know in the comments section below.

UPDATE: I added a new feed that contains only the blog section of this site.

UPDATE: The redirection for http://robomeks.com/lang/en/ is finally working.