Here’s how to use Google Spreadsheets to import RSS and ATOM data.

ImportFeed for RSS and ATOM

All sorts of data gets pushed out as RSS/ATOM feeds. You can put those in spreadsheets too. The command takes the following form:

=ImportFeed(URL, [feedQuery | itemQuery], [headers], [numItems])

• URL of the feed.
• We'll almost always use itemQuery options ("items", "items author", "items title", "items summary", "items url", or "items created"), as they return individual items in the feed while feedQuery just returns metadata about the feed.
• "Items" will be the best default option, as it returns everything you'll ...

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By now you may have read that EveryBlock, a Knight Foundation-funded project, has released its source code to the public (here's a browsable version). Getting a chance to look under the hood is a great opportunity to see how other folks tackle some of the tasks we all face, or are likely to. The first thing to note is that the code has the GPL license, which means that if you incorporate any of it into an application you're building and then release that code, it will need to be under the terms of the GPL as well ... Read more ...

On Feb. 20, a group of my colleagues at The New York Times gathered for a daylong series of presentations on a set of APIs that we've been releasing during the past few months. TimesOpen, as it was called, gathered about 140 developers and other folks interested in working with Times data. So what are APIs? The acronym stands for "application programming interface," but another way of describing an API is a programmatic way to access data. Rather than perform SQL queries to return the data you want, you'd use your browser or a script to retrieve data ... Read more ...

Does this describe you? - Interested in learning about data-driven Web development - Stuck with a Windows box and no hope of getting something not blessed by IT - Curious, but a little nervous, about jumping feet first into Linux - A little nervous about jumping feet first into server setup - A little nervous about installing all the stuff you need If it does, then have I got a deal for you. Presenting the painless, totally free, hold-my-hand instructions to get you from crappy IT-blessed Windows install to full-blown open-source development environment that won't destroy what you have and won't require anything ... Read more ...

Folks doing CAR are blessed with a wealth of tools, which is both a blessing and a curse. For example, I frequently use two database programs, MySQL and PostgreSQL, at work. While similar in most respects, they have slightly different syntax for some common tasks such as string functions. You see this situation played out on the NICAR-L listserv all the time, when someone asks a question that usually starts with, "I know I've done this before, but I can't seem to remember the right syntax." Keeping snippets of SQL or Excel IF statements lying around in files ... Read more ...

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As NICAR conference sessions go, it was a first: "World-class CAR on 99 cents a day: Linux and open-source software in the newsroom." That demo room session by Aron Pilhofer at the 2002 computer-assisted reporting in Philadelphia was the first time that open source made an appearance on the program. But in a way, IRE itself began as the kind of project that we might consider open-source: a collaborative effort by journalists from across the United States to tackle a problem together. And the organization's role in gathering and disseminating knowledge via tipsheets, presentations and training (to say nothing ... Read more ...