We’ve added the ability to get candle lighting times for your city as an RSS feed (for use in news aggegator programs like Radio UserLand , FeedReader, AmphetaDesk, or NetNewsWire.

Simply go to the 1-Click Shabbat Candle Lighting Times page, enter your zip code, and hit Submit. You’ll notice this little orange XML button (example: ) in the upper right corner of the page.

Sometime before Pesach, I hope to change the Hebcal Torah Readings pages to correctly show special haftara/maftir when the Parashat ha-Shavua corresponds with a special day like Rosh Chodesh or Shabbat Shekalim.

Currently we’re displaying this message:

NOTE: This site does not yet indicate special maftir or haftarah when they occur. Always check a luach or consult with your rabbi to determine if this Shabbat has a special maftir and/or a special haftarah.

But of course it would be much better if the website actually had the proper data. This would make hebcal.com one step closer to being a full luach.

There are a bunch of other feature requests and bugs to fix this year, too.

I got an email from Bill Kearney at Syndic8.com about a small error with the RSS feed from 1-Click Shabbat:

http://www.syndic8.com/feedinfo.php?FeedID=21674

Apparently I had a broken ISO date format; timezone formatting was using -8:00 instead of the correct -08:00 format. It’s been fixed.

Gotta love that sprintf(“%02d”) stuff. 🙂

Just in time for the (Gregorian) New Year, we’ve added a News section to the hebcal.com website. Here you’ll find out about changes and improvements to the Hebcal Interactive Jewish Calendar and related web tools.

Kol Tuv!