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.
Rooster's Rail 
Sending SMS in Skype 2.5 Beta
May 11, 2006 — The RoosterI have been having fun with the SMS ability of the new Skype 2.5 Beta. But I have had some issues like SMS send failures when I know the number is right and the network should accept SMS from Skype. I had some mobile phone numbers already listed in my Skype contacts. I upgraded to Skype 2.5 in the usual fashion. I found that some numbers worked with SMS and some did not. New numbers that I put into Skype worked, that got me thinking as to why that was.
A typical number here in Australia might be "0449557250". I discovered that the "0" prefix should be omitted when using Skype, as it works with international dialing codes and these are usually not required and indeed cause problems when they are used. I found that the numbers that I had already stored in my contacts retained this "0" in front of the number and some did not. The ones that did not have the "0" worked with the SMS. So what I did in my wisdom is input-ed all my mobile numbers omitting the "0". Wrong move! They still did not work. Seems that I was too smart for the new Skype dialing wizard!
The correct thing to do is to select "Add a Contact" then select "Add new SkypeOut Contact" then select the country that the number originates from and enter the number in full (yes including the zero!). Skype will "strip" the zero out in the final number that you will see listed in your contact list. This may or may not be a bug in upgrading from 2.0 to 2.5 Beta and might be fixed in the final version.
As far as the existing numbers are concerned. It seems that Skype had failed to "strip" out the zero and that was causing the SMS failure. This was not an issue in Skype 2.0 as we were not able to send SMS and as far as SkypeOut to mobiles it did not seem to matter. What I have done is to delete these contacts and add them again in the above method and all seems to be working fine now. So try that before you throw your arms in the air screaming shite!
One other thing that I have noticed is that I am getting SMS failures from SMS messages that I know have gone through. I am not sure why that is but I know that the SMS sending feature is in early development and all the bugs have not be ironed out yet. In addition this is all part of the plan to enable Skype users to receive SMS in Skype. Now that would be cool!
Just remember that if you are using the 2.5 beta and you are having some issue that seems to be a bug, log a problem with the Skype team and let them know what it is, that way we all get a better final version!
Happy SMS'ing!
Also check out this article as it has a lot more on SMS and what can go wrong and why and how to fix it and where this is all headed.
Skype SMS… what's up with the beta?