Wes Maldonado: Data Junkie

12.4) Can I resolve the URI used as an XML namespace name?

Yes.

You can also eat a tractor, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

http://www.rpbourret.com/xml/NamespacesFAQ.htm#q12_4

What I love most, also from the same FAQ is this:

Furthermore, there is nothing in the processing of XML namespaces that requires you to resolve these URIs. Finally, as was noted in the previous question, many types of namespace URIs are unresolvable on the Web.

I don’t know how many developer’s have wasted hours because of a second parameter in their API that accepts an XSD and a URI:

The schema specification correctly recognizes the lack of robustness due to xsi:schemaLocation. According to the specification, xsi:schemaLocation is only a hint to the parser and the parser may use other means to decide which schema to apply.

Ever run into a website that doesn’t offer any feeds, RSS/Atom/RDf/Etc? Now with sites like Feed43, FeedTier or Feeds2B you can! quickly and easily create a feed for any site. Let’s see what each of these sites has to offer.

Feed43

Feed43 is great for anyone that understands regular expressions. Building a feed took me a couple of minutes even though I didn’t quite understand how to combine the parsing with template generation. The regular expression back reference syntax is a bit confusing to the untrained; it would be nice to see named groups, %{name} for example, rather than the plain Perl-esque %1 notation for capured content.

FeedTier

FeedTier is your choice if you require ease of use. FeedTier analyzes the webpage you submit, automatically chooses content groups from the markup and produces a feed with one click. Perfect for a simply structured website like a Little League schedule or in my case a ski racing league’s info/news page.

Feeds2B

Feeds2B is for the most part as simple as FeedTier but is perfect for a site that doesn’t have the most simple markup. Once you submit your URL to Feeds2B a real person will create the feed for you based upon their knowledge of regular expression. Your feed will not be ready instantly, but for a website with varying HTML/markup this might be your only option for feed conversion.