Nick Bradbury

Web-based forums almost live

As announced earlier, my support newsgroups will soon be replaced by web-based forums which are currently being tested.

Once I'm done tweaking the forum code, the newsgroups will be made read-only - which should occur within the next few days. If you have a new support question, you might want to post it in the web-based forums now instead of starting another newsgroup thread.

Note that since I'm sill working on the forums, you may run into an occasional slowdown (or cryptic error) while the code is recompiled. These problems should be infrequent, and should no longer occur after the forums "officially" go live.

FeedDemon Tips

Now that the TopStyle Tips blog is off and running, I'd like to announce FeedDemon Tips. This new blog will be regularly updated with helpful tips and tricks for FeedDemon users. Authors include myself and these FeedDemon power-users:

• Radek Gontarek
• Oskar van Rijswijk
• Matt Zur

If you'd like to be a FeedDemon tips author, just use my contact form to let me know. You don't have to be a prolific poster to be an author - just a few tips a month will suffice.

To visit FeedDemon tips, point your browser to:

http://nick.typepad.com/feeddemontips/

PS: Don't forget to subscribe to the FeedDemon tips RSS feed :)

Banana phone

I hate it when a song gets stuck in my head without my permission. I have a long history of having my work interrupted by some catchy tune that wants to roll around my brain for a few hours before moving on to the next victim. So, I never should've listened to this little ditty.

My kids got a kick out of it, of course, but now I'm stuck here with "banana phone" in my head, like a loose tooth I'm playing with instead of just yanking out.

ME: Okay, brain, I need to concentrate on improving FeedDemon's Atom support, so let's get to work.
BRAIN: Ring, ring, ring, ring, banana phone!

ME: Uhmmm, yeah...nice tune. So, how about getting to work now?
BRAIN: Ring, ring, ring...

ME: Okay, enough already - I've got a product release coming up, and I need your help!
BRAIN: BANANA PHONE!

So, my day is shot now, but I'm hoping by passing it to you that I can wake up with a clear head tomorrow.

MovableType, HomeSite and satanic cults

In the midst of the uproar about MovableType's recent licensing change, it's nice to see a few rational comments.

Although the situations are obviously different, the uproar reminds me of when I started charging for HomeSite. You see, the first version of HomeSite was free, but after months of providing free software - and free support - I decided I needed to start charging for it. It was impossible to handle my full-time job and work on HomeSite, so I had to give up one of them. My day job paid well, but it wasn't much fun - so the choice was obvious.

Now, I announced that I'd be charging for the second version of HomeSite several months in advance, so I was completely unprepared for the uproar once the price went into place. Messages similar to this Usenet post hit my inbox, and my support forums were peppered with personal attacks.

Having been where the Six Apart crew are now, can I make a suggestion to those who are flaming them? Even if you live in some bizarro universe that equates earning a living with belonging to a satanic cult, if you're really not willing to pay for MovableType, at least have the courtesy to thank them for the free ride up to this point.

TopStyle Tips going strong

The new TopStyle Tips blog has seen a number of new posts since it was announced, including this one from Roy Reed which links to a handy chart for converting Pantone colors to RGB and hex values.

Digital Web Redesign

Kudos to Nick Finck and his team for the excellent redesign of Digital Web Magazine.

FeedDemon 1.10 RC3

I've just uploaded FeedDemon 1.10 RC3, which fixes a long-standing (but hard to reproduce) bug that caused read items to be marked as unread. I realize it's only been a week since the last release, but given the number of people who have reported this bug, a new build is certainly warranted.

For download details, stop by the FeedDemon beta site. For complete details on what's new, please check out the release notes.

Feel free to post comments about RC3 in either the beta newsgroup or in the new web-based forums. Either way, please be sure to include 1.10 RC3 in the subject line.

Enjoy :)

Google Groups 2: Usenet Atom Feeds

Hey, just noticed that the Google Groups 2 BETA offers Atom feeds for each group. To see feeds for a specific group, use this format:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/NAME-OF-GROUP/feeds

Here are a few examples:

• http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.www.webmaster/feeds
• http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.html/feeds
• http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets/feeds

W3C wants Atom

Looks like the W3C wants the Atom community to work through them.

I'm undecided whether or not I'm for this. On the one hand, the W3C certainly has the tools to promote and document Atom. On the other hand, adding Atom to their semantic web effort could make Atom even more complex - and simplicity is what makes RSS so great, despite its imprecise specification (via Scoble).

CSS vs. Tables - an objective look

Andy Budd offers an objective look at table based vs. CSS based design, arguing that using tables for layout sometimes makes more sense than relying on CSS. He also states that the "CSS only" approach of some standards enthusiasts may alienate those not so well-versed in CSS.

Although some of the purists in my customer base may be shocked to hear this, I'm inclined to agree with Andy. IMO, you should use whichever technique makes your work easier - both long-term and short-term. Now, I tend to avoid tables since they're a pain to maintain, but I also realize pure CSS designs can be equally painful given all the cross-browser pitfalls.

When I advocate CSS, it's never from a dogmatic position - instead, it's simply because CSS makes things so much easier, especially when it comes to updating your site. If using CSS doesn't simplify your work, then you need to simplify how you're using CSS, even if that means (shudder) using tables for your layout.