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Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/4/2011 1:20:40 PM

Eric

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In an ongoing effort to defeat the unscrupulous scrapers of the world, I will shortly introduce some changes to the CellarTracker RSS feeds. Specifically, each registered users now has two keys (one for notes and the other for inventory related feeds) that are specific to them. It will no longer be enough to just pass a user ID to the feed, as shortly the feeds will also require the user keys. Also, feeds that are 'global' (e.g. the most recent tasting notes from all users) will no longer be supported for unregistered users. I have been monitoring all recent RSS feed activity, and once I turn on these changes I will email all users who have actively used the feeds over the past week.

Please go to the RSS feeds page while logged-in, so that you can obtain the latest feeds with your customized keys.

< Message edited by Eric -- 7/4/2011 1:35:11 PM >

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-Eric LeVine

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Post #: 1

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/5/2011 6:53:53 AM

JavaMonkey

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There used to be an RSS feed for "wines tasted by my favorite tasters". I don't see that one anymore. Has it been removed?

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 2

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/5/2011 8:13:49 AM

Eric

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Nothing has been removed. There were never links exposed for your favorite tasters, although you could modify your own feed. For example, add &Favorite=1 to the provided link to see notes from others on your wines to just filter for your favorites.

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-Eric LeVine

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Post #: 3

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/5/2011 1:03:42 PM

JavaMonkey

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The feed I used to have was ALL wines (whether I had them in my cellar or not) tasted by my favorite tasters. I don't see an "all tasting notes" feed that I could filter to get that. Unfortunately, I deleted that feed when it stopped working, so I couldn't tell you what the URL was anymore.

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Post #: 4

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/5/2011 2:13:32 PM

Eric

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This will work for you if you replace the xxx with your actual handle and password: http://www.cellartracker.com/rssnote.asp?All=True&Favorite=1&User=xxx&Password=xxx

Obviously you should NOT expose this to an RSS reader that will make the feed public (e.g. MyYahoo).

Down the line quite frankly I might break this even and come up with a syntax that forces you to use the per-user tokens for the global notes. I have been somewhat undecided on how best to allow the global feeds.

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-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to JavaMonkey)

Post #: 5

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/7/2011 11:57:40 AM

gene_mo

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Eric,
I use the RSS feeds on my Yahoo homepage. When will I get my new keys to update the feeds?

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Post #: 6

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/7/2011 12:03:50 PM

Eric

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Gene, everything you need is already posted in this thread and was available the moment I posted. Go to your page of feeds when logged in, and all of the links are decorated with your personal keys.

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-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to gene_mo)

Post #: 7

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/7/2011 1:55:10 PM

gene_mo

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Eric, so maybe I am challenged. I click on the orange XML link on my cellartracker home page while logged in. I select notes from other users on my wines (last 50). I cut and paste that entire link into my RSS feeds in My Yahoo home page. It adds the content, but all I see is the same "Important Changes to Cellar Tracker RSS Feeds" note. What am I doing wrong?

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Post #: 8

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/7/2011 2:01:21 PM

Eric

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You are doing the right thing. Maybe MyYahoo doesn't like the URL encoding. Try clicking on the link to the feed and THEN copying the address that shows up in the new browser window. If that doesn't work please email me eric@cellartracker.com so I can send you a URL-decoded alternative link (just changing some things back to {} and - in a few places.

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-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to gene_mo)

Post #: 9

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/10/2011 3:56:24 PM

joshwoodward

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It's a drag that you have to deal with scrapers, but the ongoing changes are getting to be really irritating on the user end. I found a treasure trove clearance rack on vacation, and I was using my smartphone to try and look up reviews. About every third or fourth wine I looked up, I was getting a captcha challenge that I had to try to type in on my tiny keyboard, and I had to leave before I had a chance to go through them all. That's a small example of the annoyances I've had since these changes started.

Proposal: Disable all of the bot detection junk for paid accounts. Replace it with occasional "watermarks", ie, certain reviews which have a dynamically-generated code inserted in them that would identify them with a given account, as well as obviously fake wines. If someone scrapes you, you can easily find who it was, and as an added bonus, you'll have their contact information from PayPal.

Or, even better, just disable all of the bot detection junk for logged-in users entirely.

I know it's not cool to have the data used on other sites, but that data ultimately comes from the very power-users that you're annoying the most. Locking up your data to protect your business has a tendency of backfiring in the long run.

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Josh Woodward - http://www.joshwoodward.com/

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Post #: 10

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/10/2011 7:38:25 PM

Eric

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Josh,

I am sorry for the annoyance. That said, this is a new system that we are still tuning. Please see: http://www.cellartracker.com/forum/tm.asp?m=146470
Pointing out to us when you get excessive CAPTCHA's is helpful. I will stop there, as frankly your note upsets me. To be brutally clear, we have had egregious scraping happening from unregistered users, registered users and EVEN paid users. Crooks will stop at nothing. Sorry, everyone has to deal with the anti-scraping sanctions. However you may have hit a case where the rules incorrectly identified you as a scraper. What we need to know, as outlined in the note linked to above, is your IP address at the time you are hitting this. With that we can look you up and determine why the system though you were a scraper.

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Cheers!
-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to joshwoodward)

Post #: 11

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/10/2011 7:40:26 PM

Eric

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And to be clear, ARE you in fact hitting the site with a bot? If so, perhaps you should be using my API?

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Cheers!
-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 12

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/11/2011 7:01:17 PM

joshwoodward

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It's your call how you choose to share our reviews and data, because we've given you permission to make that call when we signed up. But I hope you eventually decide that the benefits of open data outweigh the downsides.

And no, they weren't being caused by a bot. It seems like any search that comes to CT from anything except the (tiny) search box on the main site cause problems. Create a search form on another site that submits to CT's /list.asp to see the problem. I have a custom start page for searching for wine reviews, a simple HTML form which submits directly to CellarTracker. I've also had problems using a custom browser search shortcut. In both cases, I'm a real human pointing a real browser to your search results, bypassing only the on-site search box. Doing that triggers the bot code frequently.

As an example, I set up a custom search engine in Chrome, with http://www.cellartracker.com/list.asp?fInStock=1&Table=List&iUserOverride=0&szSearch=%s as the URL (that way, I can type "ct wine name" in my URL box to search for "wine name" on CellarTracker). I searched for test wines, and after the 8th hit on IP address 98.30.50.221 at around 10pm EST, I got the captcha.

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Josh Woodward - http://www.joshwoodward.com/

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Post #: 13

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/11/2011 8:02:45 PM

Eric

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I have to wait until my anti-scraping vendor is awake in Israel but I have a theory for why you are hitting so many CAPTCHA's. There was an issue with some ISP's where they were throwing away some key content on the pages and making the system think that some real users (well three in particular and maybe you are a fourth) were bots. That was fixed yesterday. Mentioned here: http://www.cellartracker.com/forum/fb.asp?m=151966

Well all of your hits from over the weekend were before that, and in several cases you were suspected of being a bot due to lack of script. Anyway, today was the first successful CAPTCHA that the system shows for your IP. Do that a few more times and the system should adjust quite a bit. Meanwhile, the best thing you can do is fill the CAPTHA's when you see them and ping me here with your IP address.

And please do NOT assume that the system is fully tuned and operating the way I want and expect it to.

_____________________________

Cheers!
-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to joshwoodward)

Post #: 14

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 7/11/2011 8:15:45 PM

joshwoodward

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For what it's worth, it doesn't seem to be an ISP-specific situation. The same thing happens on a desktop running Chrome from home, or an Android phone from a cell phone using an in-store WiFi connection in another state. One common thread there is Webkit, not sure if that's a factor.

The system wasn't adjusting very quickly on my phone. I had probably a dozen challenges over a half hour, and if anything, they seemed to become more frequent (but that may have been my rage magnifying the apparent frequency :) And the test from my last message that triggered it with the Chrome search engine shortcut caused the problem tonight, so the bug is unfortunately still alive and kicking. I'll keep an eye on them.

Thanks!

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Josh Woodward - http://www.joshwoodward.com/

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Post #: 15

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 5/31/2015 3:45:37 PM

ewsb

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Eric - Apologies as I have read all the notes on feeds but seem to not be able to get it to work. I use blogger.com to share my latest tasting notes.

When I insert my rss feed from my account it tells me it is an invalid url. eg: https://www.cellartracker.com/rssnote.asp?T=100&Mine=True&iUserOverride=41508&CK=%7B59A8412D-1169-4016-9DB2-1076BA1FE12C%7D

I am sure I must be doing something wrong - please help or direct me in the right direction.

Thanks

Sean

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Sean

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Post #: 16

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 5/31/2015 10:19:58 PM

Eric

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That is a valid feed URL. Perhaps blogger is having trouble with the curly braces.

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-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to ewsb)

Post #: 17

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 6/1/2015 6:16:19 PM

ewsb

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Eric

Sorry if I am slow on this but I cannot see curly braces in the url:

https://www.cellartracker.com/rssnote.asp?T=100&Mine=True&iUserOverride=41508&CK=%7B59A8412D-1169-4016-9DB2-1076BA1FE12C%7D

what change should I make? - I use blogger.com from google

Thanks

Sean

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Sean

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Post #: 18

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 6/1/2015 9:43:51 PM

Eric

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From: Seattle, WA
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The %7B and %7D are URL encoded curly braces. They are reproduced correctly here. If you are having trouble in Blogger, those would be the first culprit.

_____________________________

Cheers!
-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to ewsb)

Post #: 19

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 6/2/2015 4:54:15 AM

Eric

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From: Seattle, WA
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FWIW, there is no record in the logs of anyone ever hitting the URL above other than you or me. No hits from Blogger at all in the past 2 weeks using even a fragment of that URL....

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-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 20

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 6/2/2015 4:58:57 AM

Eric

Posts: 17314
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From: Seattle, WA
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I do see this request:

Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; feed-id=7554206519875496172)

http://www.cellartracker.com/rssnote.asp?iUserOverride=41508

That fails as expected. None of the required parameters are on there.

Blogger does not have the proper URL.

_____________________________

Cheers!
-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to Eric)

Post #: 21

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 10/20/2017 1:28:26 PM

Quiet Lion

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I'm trying to get an RSS feed of all tasting notes on all wines from my favorite tasters. I read through this thread. Is it still true that I have to put my user name and password in the URL? I'm not sure that's secure (I use Feedly/Nextgen Reader).

Richard

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Post #: 22

RE: Changes to CellarTracker RSS feeds - 1/15/2018 9:28:11 AM

Eric

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From: Seattle, WA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Quiet Lion

I'm trying to get an RSS feed of all tasting notes on all wines from my favorite tasters. I read through this thread. Is it still true that I have to put my user name and password in the URL? I'm not sure that's secure (I use Feedly/Nextgen Reader).

Richard

We make it easy to get a feed of notes from wines that have been in YOUR cellar at some point.

Do the normal feed for tasting notes from others on your wines from https://www.cellartracker.com/rssoptions.asp and then also tack on &Favorite=1.

To do a global query of ALL 7 million tasting notes from our database that are filtered down to your favorite authors, yes, you need to be logged in with your handle and password.

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Cheers!
-Eric LeVine

http://twitter.com/cellartracker
http://facebook.com/cellartracker

(in reply to Quiet Lion)

Post #: 23