I’ve described how one can use rss and bit torrent as an alternative to a monthly cable television subscription before and even pointed to a few implementations. I figured it was time to update the list after a conversation with my brother where he wasn’t quite clear on how one might use the Mediagate MG-25. In brief, the model is this: you use a bit torrent client to download content, and you use RSS feeds to inform the client what content you’d actually like to download. Just like a tivo with the season pass, the RSS feeds can be used to tailor a very specific selection of shows/movies/whatever that you’d like to see. A couple of tools that facilitate doing this which I haven’t blogged before – RSS Feed Scanner for the superb java-based bit torrent client, Azureus. If that’s too complicated for you, give Videora a try instead – a task specific (ie get video from rss feeds via bit torrent) client which is somewhat easier to configure.

No, make that three. I’ve blogged before about the excellent firefox web developer extension – anyone doing web development should have it installed imo. Today I happened across two other most excellent tools. First, check out the Mouseover DOM inspector, a bookmarklet (favelet if you’re an IE person, though if you are I’d be surprised to know you’re doing web development) that works in most of the major browsers and gives you a fabulous tool to look at the structure of your pages. This is the most comprehensive tool of this sort I’ve come across. Even so, aardvark is also worth a look as it enables editing of the reviewed content as well as a slightly less robust exploration of the structure if the page.