Saturday, November 21, 2009

PDC09 RSS feed file for your podcast catcher of choice (i.e. Grab all the PDC sessions for your Zune, Reader, FeedDemon, etc)

This is a VERY quick and dirty RSS feed which includes the PDC09 video sessions as enclosures (i.e. so you can grab this in your podcast system of choice). I’ve only tested it in Zune 4 and FeedDemon so YMMV. This is my first attempt at generating a RSS feed, attempting to host a feed on SkyDrive(now it’s hosted on my Office Live Small Business site), playing with the System.ServiceModel.Syndication namespace, etc, etc. So the fact that it seems to work at all is amazing… :)

The enclosure is the WMV version of the session (i.e. not the uber WMVHigh version).

The only place I have to host the file/feed is on SkyDrive, so hopefully that will work for you all and for this purpose. (Now hosted on a Office Live site… )

I’m currently playing with providing more versions of the file, with more targeted sessions (like one file with the CL sessions, SVC, etc) and to also offer the WMVHigh as the enclosure. The end game will be to create a utility where you can create your own feed list/rss file with only the sessions you want, which you then host yourself & hook to your catcher.

PDC09-Complete-RSS.xml (direct, use this one in you podcast catcher. Right click on it, Copy Shortcut, paste into your catcher… ) and the SkyDrive file link (this is if you want to grab the file yourself to mod it, host it elsewhere, etc).

Update: 11/25/2009 1:55PM
Now MP4 and WMVHigh feeds available too. There’s only a couple sessions missing in the MP4 list (you can see what’s included in what list on my PDC09 List page, PDC09 Session Video List (Okay, so I lied))

PDC09-Complete-MP4.xml

PDC09-Complete-WMVHigh.xml

 

Here’s some screenshots of it in the Zune software;

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And how am I generating the file you ask? Why via my, still VERY much work in progress and way fugly coded, Microsoft Conference Resource List Maker (http://pdclistmaker.codeplex.com/) of course! :)

 

Update #1 11/23/2009 @ 8:00AM PST:
Instead of hosting the file on SkyDrive, where there’s no permalinks directly to the files, I’m now using my OfficeLive Small Business site I created a billion years ago. There at least I have a permalink to the file, one that won’t change over time. And heck it’s free and I can get download reports, etc. If this works out, I’m going to have to use this service for more stuff! lol

Update: 11/25/2009 1:55PM
Now MP4 and WMVHigh feeds available too. There’s only a couple sessions missing in the MP4 list (you can see what’s included in what list on my PDC09 List page, PDC09 Session Video List (Okay, so I lied))

PDC09-Complete-MP4.xml

PDC09-Complete-WMVHigh.xml

 

Related Past Post XRef:
PDC09 Session Video List (Okay, so I lied)

2 comments:

Eric said...

The direct link seems to be broken (at least, neither reader I have can download anything from it).

Greg said...

Thanks...

I think hosting the file on SkyDrive is going to be a problem... I'm using it in a whay that I don't believe supported... There's doesn't seem to be a permalink to the file itself, just the SkyDrive page for the file (which is not the same)

Anyway, I've updated the direct link to the URL that's available as of now. Try it again...

Thanks again for the heads-up