Brandon LeBlanc - Self-Proclaimed Windows Geek

Tweaking my Theme

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:17:13 GMT

I’m tweaking my theme today. I am going for a more simple and whiter (brighter) look. I’d like to utilize less dark colors and go a little lighter. Any feedback/thoughts/suggestions would be welcome!

Upgrading to Graffiti 1.1 Worst Blog Upgrade Experience Ever

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:08:46 GMT

I just finished upgrading to Graffiti 1.1 which was probably the worst upgrade experience for a new version of a blog platform I’ve seen to-date. I came into using Graffiti from being a WordPress user. I was used to the easy upgrades WordPress offers. However this is not the case with Graffiti. To upgrade your blog with Graffiti you have to migrate your database which is a complete mess in itself – mainly due to poor documentation. The upgrade instructions make it look really easy and their announcement post didn’t include much (note someone had to leave a comment in their 1.1 release announcement post to include the upgrade instructions). Things go whacky when you are required to migrate your database. I read and re-read what I was suppose to do but simply could not get my database to “migrate” using the migration tool included with the Graffiti 1.1 release. Why the heck isn’t this automated in the backend where I go to some upgrade page where it updates my site for the new release? WordPress does this with their releases. After a few hours of troubleshooting, as you can see I am now back online. But several parts of my theme are borked and my RSS feed looks to be busted as well. To top things off my site runs like crap. Everything is extremely slow compared to the 1.01 was release I was running previously. The Control Panel is the most noticeable with performance degradation over the previous release. Blog posts seem to load slower etc. No, I’m not seeing a increase in traffic to my site either. I am hoping to resolve some of the outstanding issues with the site by tonight.

I’m frustrated because I’m not a very technical person. I never faced these issues with WordPress. When it tells me my database won’t migrate and throws a bunch of code at me it frustrates me because I have no idea (other than by trial and error) how to fix it. When my RSS feed simply stops working I have no idea what to do to make it work again.

I am comparing Graffiti with my experiences with WordPress because my hope is Graffiti will become the best ASP.NET blogging platform to go head-to-head with WordPress (which runs on PHP). I’m just not sure at this point if Graffiti will ever be that and from what I gather Graffiti’s primary focus isn’t really blogging anyway. Its really suppose to be a content management system for websites with blogging features. I’ve not gotten any indication from Telligent they want to focus on making Graffiti a excellent blogging platform and go head-to-head with WordPress. So I am now faced with the question of whether I should continue to stay with Graffiti at all? Will Graffiti be something for more technical ASP.NET folks to manage websites and content on websites rather than a worthy blogging platform competitor to the likes of WordPress? Will is remain something for the more technical folks versus how WordPress accommodates the lesser-technical peoples such as myself?

I apologize for the rant.

UPDATE: RSS seems to be working. Unfortunately it may cause dupes of posts to appear (it did for me in FeedDemon). At least it is working now. Also: I tweaked my theme and I believe I corrected some of the wonkiness.

Graffiti 1.1 Released

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:37:00 GMT

Telligent has released Graffiti 1.1 to the Web. You can download it here. I’ll be upgrading my blog here to Graffiti 1.1 hopefully this evening. If you’ve already done the upgrade I’d love to hear how it went.

I am now a Sync Owner

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:28:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I went out a bought myself a new 2008 Ford Focus. I was unhappy with my Mazda 3 and wanted something with a bit more options (I got the low-end Mazda 3). I had forgotten that Sync came with the new Focus models. Back in January – Nick White and I got a first-hand demo of Sync by Velle Kolde, Senior Product Manager for Microsoft Auto. The demo actually took place in a 2008 Ford Focus they had on the showroom floor. Getting a demo was one thing but actually buying a car and having the features/abilities of Sync is another thing entirely. I am incredibly impressed with how well Sync works. Using my BlackJack II – hands free – has to be the best feature but coming up close behind is the ability to connect my Zune 80 to Sync and listen to my music, playlists, etc. What is even better is that while I am listening to the music via Sync off my Zune 80 – it charges my Zune 80 so I never run out of battery.

I can’t wait for the Sync update coming this fall!

Update to my FeedDemon Problems

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:26:00 GMT

Apparently others are having issues with feeds in FeedDemon too. It looks like it might be specific to feeds on blogs.msdn.com. According to a helpful forum member on NewsGator’s support forums in this thread – its not FeedDemon that is the issue, its NewsGator Online. It is suggested that for any blogs.msdn.com feeds that you move them all into a new folder that is not synchronized with NewsGator Online.

I have several problems with this.

First off: where is the communication from NewsGator on this issue? This is a nasty big issue. Sure, it only looks like it might be a problem with blogs.msdn.com but how can I be sure? How do I not know other feeds are having problems? FeedDemon simply stopped updating these feeds. No errors. No nothing. I would never know when a feed goes into this bogus state. NewsGator has yet to respond to the support forums (or the specific thread linked to above).

Secondly – I’m expected to move almost 100 blogs.msdn.com feeds into a entirely separate folder just to get these feeds to update? Meh.

Unfortunately this is all becoming too much hassle. I’ve moved back to Windows Live Mail and the Windows RSS Feed Store. If I’m going to lose the sync feature FeedDemon offers with it’s NewsGator Online for a bunch of my feeds with no idea when the issue will be fixed I mind as well just ditch FeedDemon and syncing my feeds all together for something I know at least updates my feeds. A few friends recommended (of course) Google Reader to me as well so I may give that a spin too.

Thanks to Kip for looking into this issue who is also having this problem as well.

Major FeedDemon Problems

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:00:00 GMT

Today I realized I don’t know of the hundreds of feeds I am subscribed to in FeedDemon which ones are updating and which ones are not. I’m currently running the latest version if FeedDemon: 2.7.0.0. The IE Team made a blog post this morning about IE8 Beta 2 hitting this summer. I never knew they made this blog post. I caught it via Techmeme. I went to FeedDemon and despite the post being made hours ago… the new post has not yet come in to FeedDemon.

As you can see – the recent post showing up for the IE Blog is the one from 5/22. Not the one from today.

Now if you look at the xml that is the RSS feed for the IE Blog you will see that today’s blog post about IE8 Beta 2 is in fact part of the RSS feed (which I’m supposedly subscribed to via FeedDemon).

And to top it off: when I view the RSS feed in IE7 and IE8 today’s post appears as well.

So what’s the deal here? Why is it that the RSS for the IE Blog is updated with the latest posting from today yet FeedDemon has yet to pick up the new post? The xml for the IE Blog’s RSS doesn’t look broken.

Having so many feeds I am subscribed to and not knowing which feeds are failing to update like this is really frustrating. FeedDemon offers no good way at troubleshooting issues like this. I’ve gone into the IE Blog’s feed properties in FeedDemon and “validated” the feed which does give me some highlighted issues with the IE Blog’s RSS. You can see what it gave me here. It actually highlights a giant part of today’s post with issues. Is this why FeedDemon is not picking up today’s blog post from the IE Team? How the hell should I know? I’m a user who is no RSS master. The validation also picked up issues with posts prior to today which FeedDemon did bring in just fine.

I’ve also tested the IE Blog’s RSS feed in RSS Bandit and it works just fine including today’s most recent post.

I’m seriously considering moving away from FeedDemon. I use it mainly because of the sync capabilities of syncing what I have read/unread on one PC to the web that is then synced to other PCs as well. This is wonderful but what’s the point of enjoying this if I don’t know which feeds are even being updated?

If anyone has any ideas as to what might be causing this issue please let me know.

Embedded Zune Card issues

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:46:00 GMT

I’ve embedded my Zune Card here on my blog from the Zune Social and am having issues with it actually working. Most of the time it displays the following message:

Anyone else seeing this issue on their websites where they’ve embedded their Zune Card?

It’s really tacky having this on my blog all the time – I’m thinking of just completely removing my Zune Card completely.

My thoughts on Twitter’s problems

Brandon LeBlanc — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:47:00 GMT

If you’re using Twitter – you’ve most likely noticed lots of issues and downtime with the service. Essentially Twitter is having a hard time dealing with the large amount of usage it is seeing these days. A developer for Twitter did a Q&A answering people’s questions and mentioned that “power users” of Twitter were causing many of the issues with the service – which led to somehow people thinking he was blaming Robert Scoble. Of course the blame wasn’t at any single “power user” specifically and the dudes at Twitter invited Scoble over to “clear the air”. Read Scoble’s post, transcript, and video here. Now Michael Arrington is calling Twitter out with some questions of his own – which are pretty interesting questions to say the least. Overall – this weekend is bringing some interesting discussion with the community and Twitter regarding the service’s problems.

These problems Twitter is having completely sucks. Twhirl keeps telling me I’ve “exceeded the limit” of tweets I can receive when I’ve not had the client running on any PC for many hours. Or Twhirl simply just can’t connect to Twitter at all. I can’t get Witty to work at all with Twitter but I’m not sure if its Witty or Twitter. When Twitter is working – it does so without some of its features like being able to browse to previous pages when accessing Twitter on a mobile device. It is a hassle to use Twitter today unfortunately.

But what keeps me on Twitter today?

Honestly I really appreciate the openess the Twitter folks have with the community and their problems. They admit Twitter has some major issues and are making a honest effort to fix those issues and are even going as far as explaining how they are looking to fix the problems. This kind of communication makes “toughing-it-out” when Twitter hits major issues a lot easier – at least for me.

I also believe that because of today’s problems – Twitter will eventually become a much better service in the long term.

Of course its the pain of getting through the short term of major issues that is becoming harder and harder to deal with.

Someplace it says we may be having major issues with Twitter for months until they fix the issue. Will I continue to say and use the service? We’ll see. This is a topic I’ll need to re-approach in a couple of weeks/months and see where things are with Twitter and how well the Twitter folks have communicated with us about the issues. But I’m not quite ready to give up on Twitter today.

UPDATE: Twitter responded to Mike Arrington’s questions here.

Ad-Funded Experience on the Zune

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 24 May 2008 08:40:00 GMT

Sean Alexander has a new gig - he's now Director of Product Planning for Ad-funded Experiences at Microsoft. Essentially Sean's job is to put the "fun in ad-funded entertainment experiences". At Microsoft's Advertising Leader Forum advance>>08 there was talk of advertising on the Zune - specifically on the Zune Social. Sean took a moment to highlight some examples of where advertising was used with the Xbox 360 and soon the Zune for some Ad-Funded Experiences that brought in pretty cool results as well as being fun for the consumer.

I'd like to call out a part of Sean's post about what they will be testing out with Zune users this summer:

"One concept we’re piloting this summer is the ability to connect with artists and music events as “friends” on the Social. The goal is to take what’s been so successful on Xbox with gaming and video, and extend that value exchange to music enthusiasts on Zune Social. The experience is a microsite on Zune Social, offering free music and video downloads, sponsored by brands such as Doritos in the example shown and connected to music downloads from the CMJ Music Festival."

So essentially this summer, users will be able to opt-in on the Zune Social to participate in Ad-Funded Experiences on the Zune Social with such things as connected with artists and events by adding them as a "friend" on the Zune Social (I put an emphasis on the opt-in part).

So will I opt-in?

Absolutely.

I am really excited about the potential these so-called "Ad-Funded Experiences" could have with Zune. Let me explain how I see this having potential. Let's take Weezer's coming new album "The Red Album" hitting stores first week of June. Weezer could use the Zune Social to advertise their upcoming new album by letting users add their band as a friend on the Zune Social offering exclusives for users. Those exclusives could be exclusive Weezer songs or even backgrounds for your Zune. Of course Weezer's new album hits next week - I'm just using Weezer and their new album as a example of potential in terms of advertising. I wouldn't think twice about adding Weezer as a friend on Zune Social (or say Foo Fighters for that matter!). Music is really important to me so interacting with bands and artists on the Zune Social seems exciting to me.

What I like about this is that I can choose to participate or choose not to. Nothing will be shoved in my face.

I look forward to seeing how this all plays out and if its anything like I think it will be - it should be pretty cool.

Talking about a "Open Web"

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:11:00 GMT

Lots of rumors swirling around today about Microsoft, Yahoo! and Facebook. Just read Techmeme for the gist. Robert Scoble takes a look at the effect of Microsoft buying Facebook going against any such purchase calling out some sort of "fight for the web" or "fight for the Open Web".

Essentially Facebook is what Scoble is calling a "closed" Web. Facebook blocks webcrawlers and spiders from accessing its data. Google spiders (and I assume other search engines' spiders too) cannot reach the data inside Facebook.

Scoble says this about if Microsoft buys Facebook:

"Do you see a Facebook entry there? Nope. Google is locked out of the Web that soon will be owned by Microsoft. We will never get an open Web back if these two deals happen."

My question to Scoble is would you be saying the same thing if it were Google looking to buy Facebook? What if it were Microsoft "locked out of the Web" that would soon be owned by Google? What about if it were Yahoo! instead? Are you making a big stink because it's Microsoft here?

In regards to a "open" versus "closed" Web...

I personally like Facebook being closed. I don't want Google or any search engine crawling grabbing my personal data and using it for whatever and whenever it wants without any control by me to stop this. And with Google's track record for how it deals with user data I wouldn't want Google *especially* having access to my personal data. Scoble says privacy is dead (I'd link to his tweet here but Twitter is down again) but I disagree and think respecting people's privacy (like how Facebook blocks all access to my personal data unless a user has a Facebook account and I let them see my stuff) is very important.

An "Open Web" to me isn't letting some search engine access my personal information with its webcrawlers and spiders on a social networking site. To me an "Open Web" is choice. I want to be able to choose what accesses my data. When it comes to my personal data I want choice first and foremost in what accesses that data. If I could choose to block webcrawlers and spiders in Facebook if they were to "open" up then that would be great. If I don't get any choice in the matter and Facebook opens up - I'd rather delete my Facebook account. Seriously - if Facebook were to "open" up and allow search engines to crawl my data without me being able to choose this behavior I'd delete my Facebook account immediately. Choice is very important to respecting privacy and very important to me as I want to keep my data protected.

Interoperability is important too. Being able to choice which services I want to be interoperable with is a must have too.

But for me essentially having a "Open Web" boils down to choice and in many web services today I don't have enough choice. Let me open up my information my self as I see fit. By default - things should be closed with options for the user to open things up based on their wants or needs.

Maybe others don't feel the same way and I'm in the minority here with my feelings of wanting choice and making sure my privacy is respected online with my personal data that is within many of these web services.