Feedburner Fiasco
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Feedburner are asking everyone to move their feeds over to Google. i hope Google are more professional than Feedburner; but I’m going to wait to see about that before I open an RSS account with Google. I have a gripe with Feedburner; and I very much doubt anything will be any different in terms of the standard of service with Google, at least not initially. I’ve closed my RSS account with Feedburner; and somehow they managed to sabotage my normal RSS feed when I did that: I’m now locked into a 30-day redirect loop that seems to go nowhere; and nobody can parse my feeds from that URL. To remedy the situation to a certain extent I’ve set up a second RSS feed, which connects to a lot of the apps and services that the original feed did; such as the newsletter, Facebook, etc. I use a Twitter app with my blog to inform Twitter via xml.RPC. I don’t know if the Ping FM notification system is still working; I can’t remember whether it’s notified via my old feed or xml.RPC. I think probably the latter. My traffic has not been affected in any way anyway, so I’m not too bothered about that right now. I have to manually update my current feed; which has its drawbacks but also has advantages: It means that I’m totally in control of the feed and can put what I like on it without having to be a php, xml, and RSS expert. Why did I close my account with Feedburner? This blog has been up and running for almost 7 months. It’s not long in the scheme of things; it’s not even very long in blogosphere terms. – Yet during those 7 months Feedburner have shut down my RSS feed three times simply because its size limit was larger than they like. OK but they do let you know that they’ve shut it down don’t they? NO they don’t: they just terminate sending any new entries and expect the customer to notice immediately. They shut off my feed on the 17th January 2009 last time. I noticed on the 21st January that my feed had stopped incrementing. I checked everything. There appeared at first to be nothing coming out of my blog in the way of RSS; but then I remembered Feedburner had taken control of it. On the 22nd I found out that Feedburner had stopped the feed without telling me; so at least 5 articles had escaped notification in certain sectors, and some of my audience who relied on the feed might have been under the impression that I’d stopped publishing.
But surely Feedburner send you an email warning that your feed’s about to run out of space and get too big for them to handle? No, they don’t: Not even that courtesy. In my view they are extremely discourteous, unprofessional, and to all intents and purposes; they suck. Yes I am aware that their service is free, and yes I am aware that there is a limit on the amount of data that they can store for free: Although I don’t understand why that amount is gigabytes in the case of Microsoft and Gmail; yet only a few kilobytes in the case of Feedburner. Anyway I made the decision based upon the evidence available that they suck and that I was going to close my account. I went to their website to do so where, in addition to being told that they’d stopped my feed for the first time, (Anyone would think that they’d never heard of email!) I was reminded to transfer my feed to Google which I did without problem. I think I was on Google’s site when I had a last minute change of mind, as my feed remained blocked on Google too, and the GUI was almost the same but with the name Google instead of Feedburner. I searched a while for how to do it and than cancelled my account. there was a box underneath the unsubscribe paraphernalia that was something to do with redirects which was already ticked – I noticed after I’d clicked “submit” but before the page disappeared – Then the page disappeared. Now when I look for my feed on that GUI it tells me that “This feed is almost toast…” and something about redirection. When I look for my feed I get a blank page, and other feed readers are unable to parse it: they just go round in a redirect-loop and give up after a number of attempts. But there must be a simple way in the GUI to get the redirect cancelled? No there isn’t: the only way to do it is to post in the Feedburner forums begging the Feedburner staff to do it for you and wait for a reply. I saw a couple of people had waited seven days for someone from Feedburner to reply and rather condescendingly agree to do it: In the meantime the forum chimpanzees, who’d probably wandered over from You-Tube, had posted messages of abuse to the person who’d made the request. I decided that this was all too much, and that I wasn’t going to fall on my face before the great Feedburner, humbly begging for them to release MY feed whilst subjecting myself to possible abuse from retards. I simply walked away. My feed is toast anyway. – Until they release it; which should be late February. Until then my current feed that I manually update at http://kkomp.com/kkompRSS.xml is all there is. Please subscribe to it. If your feed-reader won’t parse it then get a better reader. Most readers have no problem with it; but one or two are too fussy. I’m not a computer, neither am I an xml expert; so they’ll just have to like it or lump it: At least I know that it won’t be secretly stopped at the whim of some tight-fisted unprofessional company anymore. I’m not going to use Google instead just yet. ‘Sorry Google, but you appear exactly the same on first impressions; so until you can properly take up where Feedburner left off and provide a better service, I’ll be handling my feeds myself. For your edification I included this video. Enjoy: -
Just after writing this article I realised that I had Feedburner Feedsmith plugin installed; so I’ve deactivated it: Possibly my old feed might just spring back to life having done this – ? |
Apple Fanboys Join the Moaners
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We’ve heard moans twice from Apple Fanboi Michael Arrington; but we want to be convinced that it’s not just one voice in the darkness.Well here it is: The post you never expected to see from one of the new Apple fanboys:- |
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“Apple Showing Warning Signs” “As many of my readers know, I have converted pretty much everything to Apple products. I am now a Mac user and recently I switched to the Iphone. As of a few days ago, even my keyboard is built by Apple. I am a fan of the company and their products, but I am seeing big red flares that are showing signs of trouble on the horizon.” (I think that’s meant to be iPhone; but ‘easy typo either way.) -So David says; and I quote “I am a fan of the company and their products“. Fair enough: Each to their own. He continues:- |
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“Why I Like Apple““It continues to be funny when I witness the emotional reaction Apple can get out of people. A lot of non-Apple geeks are quick to dismiss me as a “fanboy” because I like Apple. Such a reaction is really asinine and, ironically, often comes from people who would buy Apple if not for monetary reasons…” Help me Wikipedia:“By 1990 the term was being used in popular music and science fiction circles, and as electronic entertainment gained popularity, the term became increasingly applied to computers and video game consoles – with people often developing an obsessive loyalty towards one platform or brand.” “Current subjects of such obsessive loyalty include areas of: TV shows; movies; music; anime; comic books; cars; video game consoles, video games and MMORPGs; and computer operating systems, hardware and software—and more recently politics.” “”Fanboy” was added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary in 2008.“ |
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“…But, There Are Warning Signs”“While I have admired the user-centric design of Apple products, the company has been showing some signs of losing touch. Some examples:
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Fail Better |
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“What I’m sensing is a bunch of Apple users who really want to continue liking Apple, but are having to find ways to explain the parade of bonehead moves and buggy products coming from the company.” That last sentance was very well written and extremely spot-on-target: Those people are called “Apple fanboys/girls”. Of course, not being a fanboy himself – and any suggestion that he might actually be a fanboy being “really asinine“; David doesn’t fit anywhere near into that category: “In all fairness, most computer companies release crappy stuff. I guess Apple is held to a higher standard because of their marketing and the loyal following that they have. Perhaps Apple is just showing us one thing: they’re a computer company just like any other computer company.” Of course; that’s not actually anything like “ways to explain the parade of bonehead moves and buggy products coming from the company.” : It’s just an excuse for darling Apple’s incompetence – ‘All companies cock-up from time to time: Apple are no different; in fact they’re much better at cocking up than any other company.’ Exactly; just one of the many things they do better than anyone else, isn’t it?
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You read it first here; unless you read it first there: Apple cocked up – As admitted under a veil by an Apple…non-fanboy himself. My analysis? Apple have lost it: I foresee a lot of their market-sector gains dwindling slowly back to much how they were. I see the crown falling from Jobsweh’s head. As a Microsoft fan I don’t see any immediate advantage to Microsoft. I would say that Linux will continue to make small gains from both M$ and Apple, at least until Windows 7 is released. Do I see Linux reaching 10% market-sector impact? It’s possible but unlikely in my estimation. I won’t rule it out altogether, but Linux had its day; in fact around 3650+ of them. Ubuntu have made inroads in a sense; but the various distros are still proving difficult to give away; even in the light of Microsoft’s shot in its own foot with Vista.
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