Easy lifestreaming with SimplePie
This easy lifestreaming script is handy but it lacks rich media features such as embedded video. If you want something less utilitarian with more wow factor, check out what you can do with Sweetcron.
Lifestreaming became a popular buzzword in 2007 and doesn’t show signs of letting up. While there are several hosted services that allow you to easily create a lifestream (as well as a myriad of WordPress plugins), you might prefer a quick and easy self-hosted solution (like Jeremy Keith’s). SimplePie’s got you covered!
With just two short PHP files, a SimplePie installation, and a little RSS icon to pretty things up, you can create your own stand-alone lifestream, tying together all the content you’re publishing on the web into a single source, enabling your favorite contacts (or anyone else who happens to stumble across your stream) to stalk your every online move.
- Install SimplePie. If you have any trouble with this step, check out their excellent documentation.
- Next, download these files. (These files are a bleshing of Nat Welch’s source and Webmaster-Source.com’s merge code.) Change the extension on the .phps files to .php.
- Open the files up in your favorite editor and configure as needed (they are commented so it should be fairly self-explanatory.)
- Upload the .php files and the RSS icon to your web server.
- Make it your own: add some CSS.
- Presto chango, you’re lifestreaming!
Here’s my lifestream.
If you’d like to setup a lifestream blog, archiving everything in a database, check out Yongfook’s how-to, using the Tumblr API and the CodeIgniter framework.
I’d like to include my Amazon.ca Wish List to my lifestream, but had some trouble getting that up and running. (Why doesn’t Amazon provide Wish List RSS files?) I found a few sources that helped me generate an RSS feed of my Wish List:
- Technology Evangelist’s Amazon RSS Wishlist Generator using Yahoo! Pipes
- Raymond Yee’s Amazon RSS Wish List Generator
- edazzle.net’s Amazon RSS Wish List Generator
However, I haven’t yet figured out how to pull the DateAdded into the feed, making it kind of lame in a lifestream. Andrea Mignolo has it going on though. I’ll have to dig a little deeper into Amazon’s Web Services documentation to get that sorted.
For more about lifestreaming, see lifestreamblog.com.
