Yahoo Pipes Tutorial - Learn How To Use Yahoo Pipes In 15 Minutes Or Less

Overview

Yahoo Pipes is a powerful tool for mashing up content and RSS feeds from around the web without knowing any complicated programming languages. You can use Yahoo Pipes by dragging different modules onto the canvas to perform different actions, which are explained below. After you've made your Pipe and mashed up your content, you can save it and export it using different publishing options. We're going to assume that you have a Yahoo Pipes account setup and are on the canvas page, ready to create your first Pipe.

Now you're going to learn what each module does and how you can use them!

Sources

These modules allow you to gather different types of data to build your Yahoo Pipe.

Feed Auto-Discovery - Identifies whether a website has an RSS feed.

Fetch CSV - Grabs the data from a CSV file (ie. An Excel file)

Fetch Data - Grabs data like XML or JSON files (useful for affiliate product feeds)

Fetch Feed - The most popular module in Yahoo Pipes. Grabs RSS, Atom and RDF feeds.

Fetch Site Feed - Automatically discovers if the specified website has an RSS feed and grabs it if there is one.

Flickr - Fetches pictures from Flickr based on keywords or a location that you specify.

Google Base - Gets product listings from Google Base

Item Builder - Allows you to rename and restructure different attributes of your data.

Yahoo! Local - Lets you find local businesses and services and get reviews on them.

Fetch Page - Your chance to "scrape" HTML websites without knowing PHP.

YQL - Lets you perform SQL-like commands to tap into XML and JSON data.

RSS Item Builder - Turns a non-RSS source into an RSS feed by renaming attributes.

Yahoo! Search - Lets you tap into the Yahoo! search results and perform advanced searches.

Input Modules - Lets users specify data to make the Pipe run.

Input Modules - Are self-explanatory and include: text, date, location, number, URL, and Private (where only the Pipe author can see the data)

Operators - Operators manipulate and filter data.

Count - Counts the number of results in the input feed.

Filter - Filter data from your Yahoo Pipe based on settings you specify.

Location Extractor - Examines the input feed for a geographic location and outputs geographic data (so you can plot it on a map).

Loop - Insert a sub-module and run it once for each item in the input feed.

Regex - Use regular expressions to do advanced "search and replaces" on data.

Rename - Rename elements of the input feed.

Reverse - Reverses the order of the input feed.

Sort - Sorts the input feed based on elements you specify.

Split - Splits a feed into two identical output feeds.

Sub-Element - Allows you to extract certain parts of XML feeds.

Tail - Lets you grab the last X items from a feed (where X is the number you specify).

Truncate - Lets you grab the first X items from a feed (where X is the number you specify).

Union - Merges up to five modules into one feed.

Unique - Removes duplicate items from a feed so they are only displayed once.

Web Service - Lets you export your Yahoo Pipe to external web services.

Create RSS - Allows you to convert data into RSS feeds by changing element names from a drop down list.

URL Modules - Manipulates and controls URLs.

URL Builder - Manipulates and controls URLs.

String Modules - Lets you control and manipulate strings of text. In English, a string is simply a word, and a text string is a sentence.

String Builder - Lets you build strings from multiple substrings.

String Regex - Uses regular expressions to find and replace strings of text.

String Replace - Finds and replaces strings, the simple way.

String Tokenizer - splits strings of text into multiple strings using a specified delimiter.

Sub String - Lets you fetch a specific part of a string.

Term Extractor - Picks out the most important words within a text string.

Translate - Translates from one language to another.

Yahoo! Shortcuts - Places strings of text into these categories: place, person, identifier (ie. Phone number, email address), organization, event, and concept.

Private String - Used for sensitive data like passwords. Only the author of the Yahoo Pipe can see this.

Date Modules - Lets you control and manipulate dates.

Date Builder - converts strings of text into a recognizable date format.

Date Formatter - Converts dates and times into different formats.

Location Modules - Controls and manipulates dates.

Location Builder - converts a description of a place into geographic data (so you can plot it on a map).

Number Modules - Performs calculations on numbers.

Simple Math - A basic calculator that can perform: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, modulo, and powers.

Depracated Modules - These shouldn't be used because they've been replaced with new modules.

BabelFish - Replaced with the Translate Module.

Content Analysis Module - Replaced by the Term Extractor Module.

For Each: Annotate Module - Replaced with the Loop Module.

For Each: Replace Module - Replaced with the Loop Module.

Recap

Now that we've covered every module in Yahoo Pipes, you should have a solid understanding of what you can do with Yahoo Pipes and how you can mashup content from around the web. Yahoo Pipes is great for working with data from affiliate product feeds, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, social bookmarking sites and more. Now it's your turn to give er' a try!

What If You Could Recreate The Web? You Can. With Yahoo Pipes. The Pipes Tutorial teaches you how to use Yahoo Pipes, one pipe at a time.

WordPress Tutorial: How to Include Or Exclude Certain Pages From Your Navigation Menu

Today I want to talk about a neat little tip for hiding or displaying certain pages from your WordPress blog or site's navigation menu. It's really quite simple, and very handy if you don't know how to do it already.

Here is the line of code that is either already inserted somewhere in your WordPress template files (most likely the header.php file) or needs to be added to your WordPress template files in order to display the list of your website's pages:

This line of code displays every single one of the website's pages that you have created in your WordPress admin panel. But suppose you don't want three of the pages to be displayed in the main navigation? How do you control which pages are displayed and which are not?

All you need to do is simply add to the code mentioned above. We are going to add the page IDs that you want to exclude.

(Note: You can find the page or post IDs by going to the list of pages or posts in your WordPress admin panel. Hover your mouse cursor over the page or post titles and look at the status bar at the bottom of your screen. The ID number is the number at the very end of the link that shows. Leave a comment below if that is not clear and you need more help.)

Now that you know which page or post IDs you plan to exclude, add the numbers to your code, like the example below:

And that's all there is to it! Now the pages that you want to hide from the navigation menu will not be displayed.

Now - if there are more pages to exclude than to include, you may want to do this the other way around. Add this line of code to define the only pages that you want to display in the navigation menu:

So, there you go - a very easy way to control which pages do and don't display in your WordPress navigation menus! Let me know if you have any questions or need further help or explanation.

TheLibzter.com

Tools You Need to Build Webpages

There are a lot of web design tutorials available on the internet for beginners as well as experts. Web design is not as much difficult task as some people thought it to be. However, with a little extra effort, you can be a proficient web designer. The syntax structure of all the languages, which are used in a web designing, are similar to each other but the compiling of each language is different from each other.

For example, if you write a program in visual basic, the looping system will remain same but the interpreting system will change. In all the web developing programs, HTML is the easiest way to develop a website.

Developers have developed numerous languages and software for web design such as visual basic, C++, SQL and java scripting but the widely used web designing language is HTML, My SQL, PHP and AJEX. All these languages are very much similar to each other in syntax but different in execution.

These syntax include looping, if...else statements, declaration of variables, and printing statements. Every new version beats the old one in its interpreting and execution system and makes it easy for you to learn and develop a web page with its progressed syntax structure. There are a lot of websites on internet which allow you to learn basics and advance in their free courses. I find w3school.com one of the best web designing tutorial website in this regard.

Apart form learning form these tutorial, you can also design your website through the software, you need not to work hard. There are many people, who give their own build website on internet even if they were unknown to a bit of web designing in these languages.

However, the standard of this website is not like that which one has been developed by a professional developer.

You can also get templates by searching on websites. There are a number of layouts for this cause. However, you can also purchase these templates from a professional designer. After making a website using software or language, it is very easy to upload it on Google.

The rate of the visitor on your website very much depends upon the designing sheets and material which you used for your website. However, you need to be expert through the tutorial if you want to develop a good website.

Get more tips on graphics web design tutorials.

Get more free web design tips and tutorials by visiting http://www.designdashboard.com/blog.

This site provides a free comprehensive and easy to follow guide to learn web graphics. It also includes a beginner's web design course relevant to web design and how to create effective sales letters. The site is valuable tool for anyone interested in creating a web site themselves and developing creative additions and supplements to their site in order to increase marketing of products and services.

Hire PHP Developers to Save Time and Money For Web Development

PHP is a very simple language to learn and it can work with a mixture of operating systems. When you hire PHP developers they can provide you with a large variety of websites and various other applications of the web. PHP is preferred by many website developers because it is very clear and easy to use unlike various other web scripting languages.

Some of these languages need an average amount of programming surroundings before the developer can apparel to speed in the development of the website. PHP on the other hand, is so easy that even non-programmers have been able to develop web-based solutions just with-in a matter of days learning the basic tutorials of PHP languages.

To get cost effective and fast development of website you can always hire PHP developers from worldwide community where PHP is an open source product. PHP is always monitored and frequently refined by a huge network of developers striving always to it better product. They have successfully created huge records of very useful inputs periodically to achieve present PHP which has become a very powerful web script. PHP has a frivolous design which helps it perform fast and extraordinarily well. This language is highly capable of handling large amounts of traffic given to it regularly.

PHP will provide whatever is required by website developers, be it a basic website, a powerful database, a user friendly content management system or even a forum site absolutely free if you are a PHP developer yourself. Outsourcing work from PHP developers India could be the best deal to go for when you want your web site to be developed at low prices. PHP developers India has are very talented and experienced at using the language properly and can do it for you at absolutely lower prices. PHP has various different kinds of frameworks available to choose from.

When you hire PHP developers you could always ask them to utilize the framework you would like to opt. The aim of a framework is to make the web-based applications process easier and simple which helps in reusing the developed code.

Mahendra Sharma runs a Software company called Sharma Infoway, they provide prominent php developers India, He also owns web development India company.

What is Drupal?

It is one of the leading content management systems (CMS) available online. Modules are used to display and organize content, manage tasks and customize the site.

Drupal is an open source CMS and is therefore accessible to anyone free of charge. There are some web designers who will sell some of their customizations, but those are not the majority of Drupal users who tend to use the software to design their own websites, blogs, forums, etc. Top do so, however, they have to learn how to use it.

The programming language used is PHP which is a good language for creating dynamic web sites, and is also compatible with many operating systems; among them Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It also needs a database to store the settings and contents, although the ubiquitous MySQL is good enough for this.

Drupal can be used to create e-commerce systems and photo galleries, as only two examples of the many modules that Drupal has to offer. Even though the system comes with default settings these can easily be changed to allow more advanced forms of website to be built.

The Drupal CMS package has received a lot of praise, but there are some who have found it difficult to learn. However, its dynamic nature allows modules to be modified to produce professional looking websites, and enable communities to quickly and easily create, publish, organize and manage content on their websites.

The difficulty in learning how to use Drupal should not be difficult to resolve, and there are Drupal video tutorials available that can not only answer the question what is Drupal, but also answer 'how is Drupal used'.

One of the benefits of using Drupal in your online business is that it allows for consistent branding. Using this system you can have your images, content, surveys, blogs, polls and e-commerce sites on the same web site. You are therefore able to brand your site accordingly. Drupal is also easy to use if you have the right tuition.

Your website can be up and running in under a week because it is easy to use once you have mastered the basics. You will quickly be able to insert videos, create documents, put up images and sell products on your site. Drupal is also is flexible. There are a large number of modules you can use in your design, and you can ignore those you need not use.

A Drupal video course is the easiest way to learn, and once mastered you can design forms, ecommerce stores, polls, survey and blogs with ease. Manuals are fine, but most people learn best by video, where they can pause and follow exactly what is being done by carrying out the same actions on their own computer. The truth of a video is that if you do exactly as shown, you will get, exactly the same results. You can't say that of a manual.

If you are a first time user of Drupal then a video tutorial will be an excellent choice. You will have someone walking you through every step of the site creation process. This means that you will not get lost or feel overwhelmed in the process. Additionally, a video tends to be interactive unlike a book or manual. You watch the person demonstrating the actions being taken in the video, and as they demonstrate one step you can follow along, pausing if necessary.

What is Drupal? It is a method of designing the physical form of what is seen by others online: websites, blogs, forums, shopping pages and so on. If it looks good people will stay on your website, and Drupal makes it look good.

For details on a Drupal Video Tutorial, check out Pete's website Drupal Tutorials where you can not only download Drupal, but also learn how to use it.

Finding the Current URL With the PHP Language

When you go about building your PHP scripts, you will soon find that there are many cases in which you need to know the current URL. PHP 5 comes loaded with several functions in which to do so, meaning that there will be very little programming on your part in the process.

PHP uses what are called server variables to access different pieces of information about the current HTTP request, as well as a myriad of other miscellaneous server information that can come in quite handy. It should be noted before we get into the specifics of server variables that some information can be spoofed or faked- so be carefully when trusting HTTP information.

The first server variable to consider is HTTP_HOST. This server variable will allow you to find the current domain that is being browsed. Most of the time you already know the domain, so this is probably one of the least useful variables to you. Also keep in mind that this variable will store the domain in the format of "ThisDomain.com" - so you will have to include prefix or trailing path information to build a proper link.

The SCRIPT_NAME server variable is also of great use, as it can find the actual path to the running script. This is most used to find the current location of the file so that the developer can make a link to the current page. This is mostly done for search engine optimization reasons, but also helps out in the overall ease of use of the application you are working on.

The query string is a valuable tool used to pass information from one script to another. We use the server variable QUERY_STRING to reference it. Be very careful that you don't forget to encode all of your URL strings, so that malicious users don't try and befuddle your database information. With even a simple line of code and the right security hole, your entire database could be deleted in seconds without URL encoding.

A great way to get the current URL even if you are using rewriting on your domain is to use the server variable REQUEST_URI. This variable will ignore any rewriting information that the ".htaccess" file tells the server to perform, and instead report the actual name of the running script. This is must-know tool for anyone who makes use of the Mod Rewrite tool.

Closing Comments

As another warning, consider the many security flaws you can put into your application by relying on server variables without regards to your application's health. Always be sure to sanitize all input when interacting with your database and query strings, and remember HTTP information isn't always trustworthy.

Learn more about current URL in php and php basics.

Drupal - Simple System For Everybody

Drupal is CMS, created on the base of PHP, it uses a database as a data warehouse. Drupal is free software and it is developing thanks to enthusiasts' efforts all over the world. A Belgian, Dries Buytaert has started working on it in 2000, and he has been still supervising the project. The word itself is the distorted pronunciation of the Dutch word druppel ("drop") and was born as a result of an error.

In 2000 some students used the common modem for access to the Internet, and Dris created an internal site for users of this small local area network to intercommunicate. The program on which the site worked had no name until Dries had to register a domain name for the new site and as a result of a misprint, instead of dorp-org (dorp - the village, quite a good name for a small community) drop-org was registered. A lot of people became constant visitors of the site, the community, interested in web technologies development, grew bigger. As a result, the new site has imperceptibly transformed from an experiment into the web programming project.

In 2001 Dries published drop.org system under the name "Drupal". That time development and programmers' intercommunication moved to the site drupal.org which has gained and up to this day has the status of the official site. Hundreds people were involved in the developing process since the time the site was created. Official developers now are a score of people, but also many people send the units which are possible to include in a system code. Still system functionality is extending with the help of units of distant developers which embody in them the necessary functional.

The Drupal architecture gives an easy possibility to use it for construction of all kinds of sites: from blogs and forums to informational archives and news sites. The major functionality part is provided with the connected units accessing to a common Drupal API. The standard set of units includes many functions such as RSS, a forum, files uploading, a blog, voting, search and many other possibilities. A large quantity of the additional units considerably expanding base functions, is possible to find on an official site and, actually, in the Internet.

Alesia Arefjeva is an author of web design tutorials, photoshop tutorials and other articles