Tutorials for setting up your project

Syndicate RSS feeds (quick start)    Syndicate RSS feeds (advanced)   

Note: These tutorials are provided as a way to help you get started setting up your program. They are offered as is, and without warranty or support. They are as accurate as we can make them, but there are many web hosts with many, many unique configurations. BE SURE TO UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPTS AND BACKUP YOUR SERVER BEFORE MAKING ANY CHANGES TO YOUR DOMAIN! Please contact your webhost if you need help, or would like them to do the setup for you.

Set up a blog and syndicate RSS feeds quick start guide

FigureBaby Partners provides RSS feeds for use on your website or blog. RSS feeds are a great way to add content like blog posts to your site and help drive traffic with constant periodic updates. When you add a feed to your blog, your blog will automatically check the feed for updates and publish new items as blog posts. Read on to find out how to quickly and easily set up a blog, and syndicate our feeds.

Difficulty: moderate

Items required

• A Wordpress blog
• A syndication plugin for Wordpress. This tutorial uses FeedWordpress, which we like alot, but you can use whatever plugin you prefer
• FTP/SFTP access to your server.
• An FTP client. If you need an FTP client, we like Forklift for OSX and SmartFTP for Windows. We also like FireFTP which is a Firefox extension and works on all platforms.

Step 1 - Set up your blog

• First you must install Wordpress on your server. Many web hosts offer a 1 click wordpress install through their web based administration console. You may need to contact your host to find out if this is available. If it is, begin by installing Wordpress through the admin console.

Step 2 - Install FeedWordpress

• Download FeedWordpress and extract the files on your computer.

  Using your FTP client, create a directory called feedwordpress in the wp-content/plugins directory of your Wordpress installation. Upload the contents of your FeedWordPress archive to the new directory that you just created on your web host.

  Log in to the WordPress Dashboard and activate the FeedWordPress plugin.

  Once the plugin is activated, a new Syndication section should appear in your WordPress admin menu. Click here to add new syndicated feeds, set up configuration options, and determine how FeedWordPress will check for updates.

Step 3 - Add a feed

• Login to your Wordpress admin console, and select Syndication from the left hand menu.

  Your FigureBaby morphing RSS feed is feed://www.figurebaby.com/mfeeds/feed/?PA= You can add this as your first feed.

  Enter your feed URL and click Add

  Your feed now appears in the list of feeds. Click the checkbox next to the feed and test by clicking the Update Checked button. The posts from the feed should now appear as articles on your blog.

Step 4 - Schedule automatic updates of your feeds

• To make your blog update itself from the feed(s) you just added, you must set up a cron job. Cron is a feature on Linux/Unix servers that lets you run tasks automatically on a timed schedule.

  For your feeds, you want to update them often, so we need a cron job that runs every 10 minutes, pulls new content from your feeds and posts it on your blog. FeedWordpress comes with a script to do this, and it is located at this address: http://YOURBLOGDOMAIN/?update_feedwordpress=1 Of course, YOURBLOGDOMAIN in the above URL is whatever your blog domain is.

  To administer cron, many hosts provide a web based interface to manage your cron jobs. If so, login to your dashboard and add a cron job to run the script at http://YOURDOMAIN/?update_feedwordpress=1 every 10 minutes. If no admin interface is available, you can send a support request to your host to set up the cron for you, or you can skip to our advanced tutorial if you'd like to try it yourself.

Set up a blog and syndicate RSS feeds (Advanced)

These are advanced instruction for those who don't have one click installs available, would like to have more control over their installation, or who, like us, just want to geek out for a bit and do something completely by hand.

Please note: These are advanced instructions. You can do serious harm to your website if you do not fully understand what you are doing. We are NOT responsible for the outcome. BE SURE TO MAKE APPROPRIATE BACKUPS BEFORE YOU BEGIN.

Difficulty: advanced

Items required

• A domain for your website.
• A web server where you can set up your website.
• A MySQL database.
• Blog software: Wordpress (use the latest version)
• FTP/SFTP access to your server.
• An FTP client. If you need an FTP client, we like Forklift for OSX and SmartFTP for Windows. We also like FireFTP which is a Firefox extension and works on all platforms.
• A syndication plugin for Wordpress. This tutorial uses FeedWordpress, which we like alot, but you can use whatever plugin you prefer
• Access to cron, either via SSH or via your host's maintenance panel. cron is a tool available on most Linux/Unix servers that allows you to run a script or application periodically.

Step 1 - Set up your database

• Before installing Wordpress, we must set up a database for it to use. Most hosts have a web based administration page for MySQL. Usually this is phpMyAdmin, and your host can provide you with the URL to your admin page.

  Login to your MySQL admin page and create a new database and name it wordpress, or any name of your choice.

Step 2 - Install Wordpress

• Before we begin, you should have a hosting account with a web host, such as Dreamhost or any host that allows you to install software. Some hosts offer the ability to install software through their web based maintenance panel. You can use this feature, if it's available, provided you can access the installed software via FTP when finished.

  Install the latest version of Wordpress by following the instructions at Wordpress.org.

Step 3 - Install FeedWordpress

• Refer to the FeedWordpress installation instructions for greater detail.

  Download FeedWordpress and extract the files on your computer.

  Create a directory called feedwordpress in the wp-content/plugins directory of your Wordpress installation. Use an FTP or SFTP client to upload the contents of your FeedWordPress archive to the new directory that you just created on your web host.

  Log in to the WordPress Dashboard and activate the FeedWordPress plugin.

  Once the plugin is activated, a new Syndication section should appear in your WordPress admin menu. Click here to add new syndicated feeds, set up configuration options, and determine how FeedWordPress will check for updates.

Step 4 - Add a feed

• Login to your Wordpress admin console, and select Syndication from the left hand menu.

  Your FigureBaby morphing RSS feed is feed://www.figurebaby.com/mfeeds/feed/?PA= You can add this as your first feed.

  Enter your feed URL and click Add

  Your feed now appears in the list of feeds. Click the checkbox next to the feed and test by clicking the Update Checked button. The posts from the feed should now appear as articles on your blog.

Step 5 - Configure cron

• Refer to the FeedWordpress cron setup instructions for complete explaination and detail of running FeedWordpress via cron.

  So far we've installed Wordpress and syndicated a feed. But the feed is only updated when you login to your Wordpress admin console and do it manually. To automate updating the feed, we'll set up a cron job to run

  At first glance, cron looks too cryptic, but it is really a simple thing. You enter a command into your crontab (your list of tasks for cron to do) and everything else happens automatically.

  To edit your crontab via the command line, SSH to your server and enter the following command at the prompt crontab -e

  Insert this line to tell cron to update your feeds every 10 minutes. Be sure to replace YOURDOMAIN with your domain. */10 * * * * /usr/bin/curl --silent http://YOURDOMAIN/?update_feedwordpress=1

That's it. Your blog should be updating itself from your syndicated feeds.