Blogging with LiveJournal | Secrets of RSS

LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com) is a blogging site that has an astounding 1,981,685 active users, according to its home page (Figure 5.13). Blogs you create at LiveJournal are automatically converted into Atom or RSS feeds.

Figure 5.13. LiveJournal has nearly 2 million active users.

To create a new blog, you click the Create link to open the Create New Journal page (Figure 5.14).

Figure 5.14. Simply follow the directions to create a new blog at LiveJournal.

Next, enter your username (rssmaniac here), email address, date of birth, and account type. Leave the radio button next to Free Account selected, as it is by default, to create a free account, and read and accept the terms of use, which are listed in a text area control. Then, as with Blogger, you decipher a set of letters and numbers, enter them in a text field to prove you're an actual human, and click the Create Journal button.

LiveJournal emails a link to you that you have to click to complete the registration. This takes you to the success page (Figure 5.15).

Figure 5.15. LiveJournal validates your email address.

With rssmaniac as the username, your new blog will be accessible at www.livejournal.com/users/rssmaniac/.

Posting with LiveJournal

After you enter a new subject for your post and the text in the Entry box, click the Update Journal button at the bottom of the page (Figure 5.16).

Figure 5.16. To post to your new blog, click the Update Journal button to open the Update Journal page.

Doing so takes you back to the Update Journal page, where you click a link to see your new blog (Figure 5.17).

Figure 5.17. Take a look at your new blog at LiveJournal.

LiveJournal's RSS and Atom feeds

At LiveJournal, you can get both RSS and Atom feeds for your blog. In general, here's the URL you'd use to gain access to the RSS or Atom feed for your LiveJournal blog:

www.livejournal.com/users/username/data/rss

www.livejournal.com/users/username/data/atom

Here's what the RSS 2.0 feed looks like at LiveJournal:

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>     <!-- If you are running a bot please visit this policy page   outlining rules you must respect. http://www.livejournal.com/bots/     -->     <rss version="2.0"   xmlns:lj="http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/">     <channel>     <title>rssmaniac</title>     <link>http://www.livejournal.com/users/rssmaniac/</link>     <description>rssmaniac - LiveJournal.com</description>     <managingEditor>steve@lightlink.com</managingEditor>     <lastBuildDate>Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:09:54 GMT</lastBuildDate>     <generator>LiveJournal / LiveJournal.com</generator>     <item>     <guid isPermaLink="true">     http://www.livejournal.com/users/rssmaniac/362.html</guid>     <pubDate>Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:09:54 GMT</pubDate>     <title>Steve shovels the snow</title>     <author>steve@lightlink.com</author>     <link>http://www.livejournal.com/users/rssmaniac/362.html</link>     <description>It snowed once again. Time to shovel!</description>     <comments>http://www.livejournal.com/users/rssmaniac/362.html     </comments>     </item>     </channel>     </rss>

You can see your new blog's RSS feed in FeedDemon (Figure 5.18).

Figure 5.18. View your new blog's RSS feed from LiveJournal in FeedDemon.

As with Blogger, when you update your blog in LiveJournal, your RSS and Atom feeds are automatically updated to match. One cool thing about LiveJournal is that you can post just about anythingincluding photosusing a cell phone from anywhere.