FeedDemon Update Concern

The other day FeedDemon told me that there was an update available. I thought that this was a little strange, given the fact that there has just been a major update correcting connection problems to the NewsGator server. Not only that both the FeedDemon and NewsGator community have been very quiet about it; as in silent.

So after I saw the invite to get a new version I went and got the new version. But why I thought it was strange was that this comes right on the back of a new beta tested version that addressed connection issues. I thought about that after I installed it, which I wished I had not. Even stranger still is the fact that nothing was said in the blog from Nick Bradbury or from the NewsGator News Feed. I thought then that maybe it was because they had not had a chance but now it has been a few days and still nothing. I suppose that usually what I would have expected was hey guys there has been an update for … whatever reason, not this time.

Worse, is the fact that this version seems to be a bit funny with stories not fully loading and I actually had it hang tonight for the first time ever. Then I thought maybe I have been had! That I had inadvertently installed a dodgy update… So what I have done is to shoot off an email to Jack Brewster at NewsGator Support. I only did that this evening and I am yet to get a reply, which I am sure I will have tomorrow. I will let you know the result.

This is  not to say that in the past updates have been issued without notice, just "feels" a little strange to me. That said I would like to know what the changes were, if it is a legit update. I was thinking that maybe it was updated due to the fact that they needed to do an urgent security update or something like that and they do not want to discuss the details, I truly do not know. 

Watch this space… I will be so peeved with myself if I have done a stupid thing…

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FeedDemon 2.0.0.22 Beta Tested: Positive Results

Tonight FeedDemon was tested with an unable to connect to server error. I was impressed with the performance, there were a few bugs but nothing major. This may or may not have been a NewsGator Server problem.

I fired up FeedDemon and got the "cannot connect to server message". I got the option to un-synchronize the feeds and to manually page each feed for updates. I selected that and I was presented with a message that informed me that the feeds would be updated directly from the feed URL's and that it would be slower. So I selected OK.

To say that the feeds would update slower is an understatement, it is really slow and I have a 1500/256 connection (that is pretty quick here in Australia), so bear in mind that with functionality comes a slowdown. That said it was not something that bothered me too much. One error that occurred was that when the feeds updated it imported "old" updates. I got posts from January 2006 and they were out or order by date and some were marked read and others not read even though I knew I had marked them as read previously. I did however get the new feeds at the top, which is what you want.

While this was going on Sebastian had asked me to listen to a podcast he had done the day before, so I went to the folder, I did have to manually update the folder with the "update feed" command; but when I did I got the new podcast listed. I clicked the "paper-clip" and FeedStation opened and started to download. It noted that it could not connect to "my podcasts" but it did not seem to bother the download. The podcast downloaded and synchronised to my sync folder on my local machine with no problems.

One thing that is not made as clear as it could be is how to re-synchronise your folders. Basically; you get an icon in the bottom left corner of FeedDemon that has a disconnected symbol on it – or something like that. You can click this icon and get options, one is to test the connection and another one to say you are not synchronised with a tick – selected next to it. I just presumed that to resynchronise you "deselect the box". I was right, but it is not indicated that you have; or are trying to synchronise again. The indication that you are trying to connect and have been successful is the fact that the synchronising with NewsGator splash comes up. I think this needs to be improved.

A new feature is the "test" connection option, again an option within the click icon at the bottom left. So every once and a while I tested the connection and I eventually got a "good" result back and I went through the resynchronise process described above. No problems. FeedDemon synchronised and updated the feeds and did not have a problem with the fact that I had read some new posts and download an enclosure. FeedDemon even marked those as read – so it performed better then expected there.

As far as the reason for the outage, I am not sure if the NewsGator server was down or that I could not connect to it because of the connection between my machine and the server. If it was the server, it was not down for long, which makes me think it was a connection problem. Well done Nick, this is what I expect from you guys, thanks.