Using the MSN Spaces' RSS Feed

Some people are asking how I am able to use the MSN Spaces' RSS Feed on my personal website. The beauty lies in MSN's support for "Really Simply Syndication" 2.0, or RSS. Every space has the abilty to support syndication, which is enabled by default. See an example.

As seen on:

If you have the ability to create your own web pages using a "server-side programming language", like PHP, JSP, ASP, ASP.NET, Python, Perl, etc., then you can also use the MSN Spaces' RSS Feed on your own website.

Using the MSN Spaces' RSS Feed (or any RSS feed) in ASP.NET

• Download the files necessary
  


• Save the file "Eric.Web.Controls.RssFeed.dll" to your website's "/bin" directory.
  
*If you don't know what a "/bin" directory is, you don't know ASP.NET


• Save the file "RssExample.xsl" to the same directory that the ASP.NET file you wish to include the RSS feed in is saved to.
  
*In order to customize how the content of your feed is displayed, you will need to know how to program in HTML and XSLT.


• Enter the code below in the ASP.NET file you wish to include the RSS feed in under the <%@ Page %> directive.
  
<%@ Register TagPrefix="eric" TagName="RssFeed" Src="RssFeed.ascx" %>


• Enter the code below in the ASP.NET file you wish to include the RSS feed in wherever you would like the RSS content to appear.
  
<eric:RssFeed RssUrl="http://spaces.msn.com/members/%YOUR_SPACE%/feed.rss" RssTemplate="RssExample.xsl" CacheDuration="120" RunAt="server" />


• I also included an example ASP.NET file called "RssFeedExample.aspx" that you can use
  

Example MSN Spaces' RSS Feed in ASP.NET