Buddy: Your Digital Retriever

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Technical

How does Buddy work?

Can you repeat that in Geek Speak?

How does Buddy work?

Man's best friend may fetch your paper every morning, but Buddy will fetch a dozen newspapers, clip out summaries of the top stories, stock quotes, sports scores, weather data and comics you want and paste them together into an uber-newspaper.

If your dog tried this, you'd end up with one shredded newspaper, some angry neighbors and shop keepers and a perplexed vet who can't figure out how your dog managed to glue his mouth shut.

Buddy accomplishes the feat by visiting popular Web sites and downloading files for you. Since he's not rendering each page, downloading Flash ads, negotiating cookies and putting up with lame JavaScripts, he can download files much faster than you would in your browser. He strips out all the stuff you don't want and builds a personalized newspaper for you every time you run him.

Can you repeat that in Geek Speak?

For the more-technical folks, Buddy uses a series of shell scripts (that use Curl, awk, grep, sed, head, tail, cat, tr, etc.) to make normal sites RDF-compliant. A future version of Buddy's site modules will include a switch that produces RDF files instead of Web pages so you can use them in other applications.

Am I stealing when I use Buddy?

No. You're not even "sharing" in the Napster sense. You are simply retrieving the same pages the content owner has made publicly available on its site and viewing a small portion of it in a different way. Are you stealing when you read the table of contents of a book at the store? Nope. You're just making an informed purchase. When you view a site supported by advertising, you are making a purchase with your attention and your time. Buddy allows you to check the table of contents before you buy.

Aren't you violating copyrights by redistributing the content of these Web sites?

I'm not redistributing content. I've given you a tool for viewing Web sites in a more-efficient manner. You are using the tool to download content directly from the content owner in a perfectly-legal way, as described above.

Well aren't you at least violating trademarks by including logos with Buddy?

Nope. It's legal to use a company's logo in reporting the news, which is the purpose of this tool, so long as you're not claiming an endorsement from that company. So let's be clear about this: no company is endorsing Buddy, and all the content Buddy attributes to the content owners is taken directly from their public Web sites. No reasonable person would assume that this program has the backing of any of the content owners.

OK, but isn't this going to upset the content owners?

It shouldn't. In fact, some of the content owners have actually asked me to add their sites to Buddy because they understand that Buddy exposes them to users who might not have visited their sites as frequently (because who has the time to do this without a tool like Buddy?) or at all. When you click on one of Buddy's links to their sites, their page views go up and so does their advertising revenue. Win win! Or something like that.

A growing number of content owners are grasping this content and publishing RSS or RDF files to enabled programs like Buddy to read their sites. However, Buddy is unique in that he doesn't have to wait for the content owners to get a clue -- he can read sites with or without RSS.

Legal

Am I stealing when I use Buddy?

Aren't you violating copyrights by redistributing the content of these Web sites?

Well aren't you at least violating trademarks by including logos with Buddy?

OK, but isn't this going to upset the content owners?

Tips

Scheduling Automatic Fetching

Scheduling Automatic Fetching

Just as a well-trained pet can have your newspaper and slippers waiting for you when youwake up in the morning (or if you're a programmer, sometime after noon), Buddy can do the same.

Open the Buddy Control Panel and click on the Schedule tab.
Click the Automated Fetching popup menu and tell Buddy how often you want him to fetch your paper.

That's it.

A few notes:

Buddy will fetch your paper "in the background" when performing a scheduled fetch. In other words, he won't tell you he's fetching, he'll just do it and your paper will be ready and waiting when you open it.
You do not have to be logged when Buddy is scheduled to fetch. He will fetch the paper even if someone else is logged into their account on your computer.
Your computer must be turned on and connected to the Internet when Buddy fetches. He doesn't know how to turn your computer on or dial your ISP. Sorry -- even digital retrievers have their limitations.
If you have scheduled fetch turned on, try not to click "Fetch My Paper" if he's scheduled to fetch in the next few minutes. It's possible that he will try to do both fetches at the same time and get confused. I'll fix this in the next release, but it's worth noting here.

Why doesn't Buddy fetch headlines/data from site ABC?

Because ABC is lame.

You know what I mean. Site XYZ, or whatever!

Oh, that. Because I haven't taught Buddy how to fetch data from site XYZ. It takes between an hour and three hours to teach him one site and test his skills out, so I've been selective. I'll add more for the next release, Cockerspaniel (this release was Beagle SP3), but there are no guarantees the site you want will be released then. Unless you'd care to incent me by making a donation to the "feed or employ the author" foundation. Then I'll be more than happy to drop what I'm doing and send you the new module personally.

Can Buddy check my bank balance?

Yes, actually. He can check anything your Web browser can check, and then some. Securely, too. But to teach him how, I'd have to know your username and password because I probably don't have an account at your bank. Since you probably don't want to give me your bank account information (please DO NOT email it to me... that's not safe at all), this feature may never exist. On the other hand, if I had the money to build a company around Buddy, I could afford to go open a bunch of bank accounts all over the place, so if you know any investment bankers... I'm only half kidding.

Why don't you answer questions seriously?

I answer questions seriously when you ask them seriously. Seriously. No, really.

Despite the candid nature of this F.A.Q. and some of the comments in my code, if you email me with a question or a bug report, I'm very serious and professional in resolving your issue. On the other hand, if you send me gushing praise for Buddy, I may be more candid.

Content

Why doesn't Buddy fetch headlines/data from site ABC?

You know what I mean. Site XYZ, or whatever!

Can Buddy check my bank balance?

Why don't you answer questions seriously?

Thanks

Scheduling Automatic Fetching

How can I thank you for writing Buddy if I'm rich?

Whatever you do, don't send me a million dollars. I hate it when people do that. Review the answers in the Content section of this F.A.Q. for some ideas. But remember that this software is free.

How can I thank you for writing Buddy if I'm broke?

I don't know. Tell your friends about Buddy. Visit uber.nu, where you'll find some funny essays by an eclectic mix of people. I recommend "How Not to Get a Job at Apple." Send me an email. Write a module for Buddy that I can include in the next release. Donate a GUI for Buddy. Or just use Buddy every day. That would be good.

Buddy is Copyright © 2002-2004 James Gibbs and SequenceStar Software. Originally written by Adam Guttentag.
Buddy is free software released under the GNU General Public License. See the license and readme files distributed with Buddy for more information. This software is not endorsed by or affiliated with any of the Web sites from which it draws content. All logos shown are trademarks of their respective owners.

Hosting for this Web site and Buddy's distribution are generously provided by SourceForge.