I really love Yahoo Pipes. I don’t use it much, but it really comes in handy the few times I have used it. I currently use it for MacPhobia.org, which basically is a compiled list of all the technology posts written by me or my friend Bob. Yahoo Pipes grabs our RSS feeds and merges them, and MacPhobia.org simply displays the results.

Well Apple’s RSS screen saver is really handy, but it’s number one flaw is that it only allows for one RSS feed. I have more than one RSS feed they like to read, so instead of deciding which one  I wanted to be shown, I decided I wanted them merged together. I could scour the internet looking for a screen saver that would work, I could spend hours working with Quartz Composer to create something that would work, but I have a better solution. Yahoo Pipes.

I logged onto Yahoo Pipes, and in about 5 to 10 minutes I have compiled a simple “Get Feed” command which grabs from 8-12 feeds that I read, and merges them together with a command called “Union.” I run the pipe, and grab the output as an RSS feed, plug that into my RSS screen saver, and it works!  I have a wonderful screensaver with multiple RSS feeds. I think Yahoo has really done a fine job with their Pipes, if you haven’t given it a look, take a gander over there sometime, it’s really well done.