Month: November 2007

Feed Synch Troubles: More like Craigslist hating Newsgator…

Jeromey Balderrama

Just wanted to follow-up to my original post on my troubles with Newsgator and Craiglist feeds.  Newsgator Support emailed me to let me know that they are aware of this issue, and have been working with Craigslist to get this resolved.  As it turns out, the issue lies with Craigslist blocking traffic from Newsgator’s synchronization servers, forbidding them access to their RSS feeds.  They claim Newsgator was requesting data too often.  Trying to comply, Newsgator Support turned back the threshold to once every 2 days.  With a site like Craigslist, once very two days is kissing goodbye to some potentially good deals.

What a mess!  I understand that Craigslist has their reasons, but I don’t understand why they would want to block and RSS aggregator service from being able to retrieve feeds.  If Craigslist isn’t getting data from Newsgator’s requests, they’re going to get it from my feed reader (and right now three times between my devices) . You would think more people using aggressor services like Google Reader, Bloglines and Newsgator would reduce the number of requests to Craigslist servers.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I just hope a resolution can be found soon.  The thing I enjoy about Newsgator is that it interacts with the FeedDemon clients installed on both my laptop and desktop, as well as has an attractive mobile interface that works with my Treo.

Trouble with Facebook Page editor selecting your brand?

Jeromey Balderrama

This evening I was working on adding my band, Greenfoot, into Facebook.  In my struggles, I came across a great tip to share for anyone looking to incorporate their band (or artist) using the Facebook page editor.

When I tried to add Greenfoot as a page in Facebook, I found that my page was showing up as a business.  When I tried to edit the page information, I was being asked of our hours, products we offer – questions suitable for a business.  When I looked at the page, I saw it was showing up in the "Other Business" category.  After banging my head against the desk, I realized "it’s the browser, stupid".

Using Firefox, the page-type selection page appears as follows:

FacebookStruggles01

Despite clicking the Artist, Band, Or Public Figure selection, I was still being treated as an "Other Local Business". However, it wasn’t until I (reluctantly) fired up Internet Explorer when I realized that clicking on the radio button triggered a drop-down box that was supposed to be displayed.

FacebookStruggles02

This behavior was consistent with the "Brand or Product" selection as well.  Hopefully Facebook will fix this browser-compatibility issue, but in the meantime I hope this will will help someone looking to outreach on Facebook.

Classic commentary about last night’s Heroes

Jeromey Balderrama

I just wanted to pass along a link to some great commentary about Monday’s (Nov 12) episode of Heroes from the Cracked.com blog.  Hilariously true as well, and definitely recommended reading (warning: some F-bombs are dropped).

“The most critical revelations this episode centered around what happened to Peter Petrelli, namely, how did he go from blowing up over New York to a shipping container in Ireland? The somewhat convoluted answer is that he saved his brother, was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Company, escaped with Adam Monroe, then got handcuffed by the Haitian inside the shipping container and had his memory erased. Perhaps most importantly though was his time spent with Veronica Mars, who will now forever be celebrated as the person that finally gave Peter a haircut.”

I agree with everything written in the blog, especially the part about the new characters.  There isn’t one new character on this season’s show that is all that compelling.  Adam may be the closest resemblance of being interesting.  I don’t get the Venezuelan twins, and the Veronica Mars character just annoys the hell out of me.  Now she’s tied with that Nikki character for Heroes I can’t stand.  The worst part is at the end of the episode NBC promotes “3 episodes left to save the world”.  It looks like they’re preparing for a season finale, punishing the viewers of the show for not being able to get their act together against the Writer’s Guild.  Hopefully this season doesn’t turn into a big roller coaster that made us slowly and steadily incline for 7 episodes, only to drop like 10 feet.

24 in 1994

Jeromey Balderrama

Although we have no idea what year 24 takes place in (some people surmise that it’s 2012 by this point), I’m just glad that it doesn’t take place in 1994, like this “Pilot” video shows.  (My apologies because I know the width of this video is going to hate my blog design):

Geez, did technology really suck that much back then?  I was in 8th grade back then, and while I never had a Prodigy or AOL, I was on the BBS’s.  Man those were the good old days!

Ch****mas in Fort Collins, the PC version

Jeromey Balderrama

I got a newsletter that came in my email this afternoon, highlighting that a US city creates a “Holiday Display Taskforce”.  That headline gave me a sour feeling, and sure enough as I kept reading, I saw that this newsletter from a National radio program was talking about my hometown, Fort Collins, CO.

From the Coloradoan:

“What the task force tried to accomplish was to craft holiday displays to celebrate our commonality and also to recognize the diversity of winter holidays celebrated by members of the community and to create a festive atmosphere during the winter season,” said Seth Anthony, one of the spokesmen for the task force.

Wow, what a nice PC statement to ring you into the Christm-eerrrr-winter season.  Oh and Seth Anthony is from the ACLU, glad to see them hard at work here in Fort Collins.

The article reads a little confusing, but here is the gist I got from the proposed guidelines:

  • First off, trees on the “Holiday” display at the museum can only have white lights and non-religious displays (probably can’t even put a star at the top), and there will be some display that encompasses all the religious, and even the non-religious displays – just a big PC festival.
  • City buildings can only have white lights and some “winter” symbols.
  • And if the inside of the city office wants to decorate, they should incorporate aspects from at least 3 different religions, or non-religious displays.

Give me a break!  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about tolerance but this “all inclusion” effort is pretty much the opposite of that.  To make it a point to make sure no one is offended, you’ve watered everything down so that these displays signify nothing.  The thing that confuses me most is the “white lights only” thing.  Heaven forbid that we have colored lights on our trees!  This is political correctness at it’s worst, and it’s a shame that this is the reason Fort Collins is making headlines.