NoseRub

I just release NoseRub 0.6 alpha. You can see it in action on Identoo.com or can download the package here: noserub.com/downloads

If you prefer the subversion checkout, you can now update/checkout from the trunk. More information about the SVN-Repository can be found here: noserub.com/code

The main goal for this release was to add URLs as contacts. What does this mean? If you take an URL like http://tantek.com you will see, that his HTML output uses a lot of Microformats - of course, you say :-)

The great thing about this is, that he therefore makes it easy for NoseRub to get information about him (via hCard) and his web accounts (via XFN). Basically, NoseRub already did exactly that when syncing between different servers. We just need to do some minor changes to allow any URL as contact, but we also added support for the Social Graph API from Google. That means that NoseRub does not only rely on finding information through Microformats on that site, but also uses the data that Google's API returns for that URL.

Another good example for a great URL as contact is David's homepage. Working for SixApart, he uses the Action Stream PlugIn for MovableType. The great thing now is, that I can add him as contact on Identoo.com and follow his activities, without forcing him to use NoseRub for himself.

This is a big difference to eg. FriendFeed.com, where you can only follow people that use FriendFeed for themselves. As a matter of fact: each public friend feed URL is great for adding as contact in NoseRub. For instance Johannes Kleske (mostly german content).

Right now, NoseRub ignores any FriendFeed RSS-Feed. Not, because we don't like them, but because they duplicate content in a way, that we (yet) cannot filter them. So, if you add a FriendFeed RSS-Feed to your NoseRub profile and wonder, why it does not get updated: don't worry, you probably are better off, if you just add that URL as contact...

The second big thing in this release is covered in a separate blog entry. It is about being really portable with your data.

Just one quick note, why this release is tagged as "alpha": The two new features heavily use networking features that are difficult to test locally - especially, when you're just a bunch of people dedicating their free time for this great project. We don't expect any old features to be broken. In fact, we fixed some bugs. But the new features might have their problems that we wanted to verify in the wild. So, please be patient and report any problems. Either through the ticketing system, here in the blog, or in our discussion group.