Updates and More
So it’s been a while with no action around here. Plenty of other things have been keeping my attention lately, but it’s high time I got back to showing this site a little love. Here’s just a few of the things I’ve been up to in the past few months.
FeedBurner Plugin Updated to 2.2
I’ve simplified a few things, added some security features, and added a little nugget of coolness. Now, WordPress will let the feed validators at the W3C and feedvalidator.org through to see your real WordPress feed, and not be forwarded to FeedBurner for debugging purposes. A few other improvements, but they should be completely transparent. If you’re using 2.1, just copy the new file over the old one (after backing up, of course), and you should be all set. The new version is available for download on the plugin page.
A visit to FeedBurner
A while back I finally made it over to Chicago to visit the good folks at FeedBurner. They’re a fun group of people, and they were kind enough to show me and the family around their workspace. Thanks again guys, it was a good time.
Mephisto
The more I use the Rails framework, the more impressed I become. In keeping with this fascination, I’m working on moving this site over to Mephisto, the excellent publishing platform written in Rails by Rick Olsen and Justin Palmer. There are still little things that need improvement, but it’s definitely headed in the right direction. Keep up the good work.
Fatherhood
Being a dad is quite possibly the coolest thing ever. Many of you know the crazy ordeal we went through when our son was born 10 weeks premature. I’m happy to report that he’s made a complete recovery, and is doing just great. He’s getting close to 14 pounds now, and gets more interactive by the day. As many new fathers might agree, this has been my primary focus for the past 3 months. When you get home to your kid, writing on your website is about the last thing on your mind.
But because of the time away, I’ve got lots of ideas for posts. Look for some new stuff in the coming week.
Post and Author Info.
Published November 16, 2006 by:
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So far there are 42 comments.
Hi, Congrats on the baby. I installed the v2.2 plug in for the first time in version 2.0.5. When I go to options and enter the feedburner URL and submit, I get the following error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_currentuserinfo() in /home/rdn/public_html/wp-content/plugins/ol_feedburner.php on line 19
Any ideas?
Thanks again.
November 16th, 2006
Ruben: I updated the files recently to take out that function. I don’t think it was neccessary the way I was using the plugin. Try downloading and reinstalling the plugin, and let me know what happens. Thanks.
November 16th, 2006
Steve – Great idea! Just installed the updated plugin for the first time on my Yahoo-hosted Wordpress 2.0.5 blog. When I run the Options / Feedburner module, enter my two feeds (previously set up in Feedburner, e.g. http://feeds.feedburner.com/KBHayes ), my IE 6.0 browser returns with a blank window and “Done” – but no error message or other acknowledgement – a dead end. Any idea if there is some issue with blogs hosted by Yahoo? Many thanks, in advance. Ken
November 16th, 2006
Steve, I upload the new file and I don’t get that error anymore, but now it gives me the following message:
“You don’t have enough access rights.”
I am the only user setup on the blog and it shows my role as administrator.
Thanks again. Ruben
November 16th, 2006
If you’re having trouble with Access Rights, try downloading the files again and reinstalling. Seems WP changed the way it handles user data in the later 2.0X versions. Let me know if you run into any more problems. Thanks.
November 16th, 2006
Ken: I’m not familiar with that issue. I know Yahoo! Hosting has had some WP issues before, but I haven’t followed the progress. Reguardless, try downloading the files again and reinstalling, I’ve made a few modifications. See if that helps at all. Thanks.
November 16th, 2006
Steve, Do you mean reinstall the plugin or WP?
I redownloaded the plug and still the same access rights issue.
Thanks. Ruben
November 16th, 2006
Steve, I found the following article: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/50566 which says that user_level is not supported in Version 2 of WP?
I got it to work by setting the return value to true in the ol_is_authorized() function and bypassing the user level check.
November 16th, 2006
Ruben: Try downloading and installing the plugin again. I’ve made some changes that should hopefully include the new WP2.0 rights/roles methods properly. I don’t currently have a 2.0 WordPress install up and running, or I would test this myself. I’m in process of moving hosts again, so I should have this up soon. I appreciate your help in debugging this. Let me know if it works or not. Thanks.
November 16th, 2006
Hi Steve,
I just downloaded version 2.2 and I’m having the same problems as Ruben. I’ll be implementing his hack for now, looking forward to an updated version :)
November 16th, 2006
Hi Steve, Installed the new file and now I get the following error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wp_get_current_user() in /home/rdn/public_html/wp-includes/capabilities.php on line 312
I do have the plugin working because I bypassed the user check, but I don’t mind troubleshooting it for you on version 2.0.5
Thanks. Ruben
November 16th, 2006
Steve – I installed your minor update (thanks for the quick response), so now instead of a blank screen, I get “You don’t have enough access rights.” Contrary to my first comment, I’m running WordPress 2.0.2, which seems to be the current version installed by Yahoo Small Business Hosting. I am an Administrator in WordPress, but obviously don’t have 100% control over the server. I’m afraid I’m a newbie at WordPress and PHP, so I’m not very helpful at debugging this. Yahoo has several hundred thousand blogs hosted, so I’m sure others would have the same issue with FeedBurner?? In any case, thanks for contributing this tool to the community; I appreciate it. Ken
November 16th, 2006
OK WP2 users, I finally got around to installing 2.05, and got the plugin working. The files have been updated in the download area, so this should be the last time you have to download and install. Sorry for all the trouble.
November 16th, 2006
Thanks for the updates Steve. So cool to hear your son is doing well!!! I’m going to be father in about 2 months, so I’m especially partial to hearing stories from the fatherhood side.
Also, keep us updated on your tracks with Mephisto. I just switched from WP to TXP and love it, but am always interested in cool publishing software.
November 16th, 2006
Joshua: Good luck on the whole fatherhood thing, you’re going to love it. I’ll definitely be posting about the Mephisto process as it happens. Should be in the next month.
November 16th, 2006
Is there a feed that contains the full contents of the posts?
November 16th, 2006
Hi Steve,
Good to see that you’re posting again. Great news about your son. I’m a new father myself so I can relate when you say that your priorities shift dramatically. My daughter was born a month early due to my wife’s high blood pressure. Even thought it was nowhere near what you had to go through, I was still a basket case for the first few weeks.
-Brad
November 16th, 2006
Steve, Works like a charm. Thanks for the great plugin.
Ruben
November 16th, 2006
Hi Steve,
Good to hear your sons doing well. Must be a busy time!
Just wondered if there’s any word on Canary and if you’re looking for beta testers ;)
November 16th, 2006
Eric: I’ve updated the feed to show the entire post. I’ve always debated in my head whether or not to include the full post or just the excerpt, so I’m going to give showing the whole thing a try. It may change back later, but we’ll see.
Brad: Congrats on your daughter. Yes, the first few months we’re pretty crazy (nearly 10 weeks spent in the hospital, 2 before Jackson was born, and 8 after), but it’s amazing how things just settle right down. It’s like Jackson’s always been here with us, it feels that comfortable.
Ruben: Glad to hear it’s working for you. Sorry for all the mess before hand.
Rich: Canary is going to be a separate post here soon. John and I are in the process of rewriting most of it, as many of the new features of edge rails are making some things much simpler. But no worries, it’s on it’s way. If we need more testers, I’ll be sure to add you to the list.
November 17th, 2006
Hey Steve, a late congrats on the baby! Becoming a father is so great, isn’t it?! I have an 8 month old and I just can’t wait to get home from work and play with her.
It is good to hear that you might be moving to Mephisto. It is a great piece of work and Liquid is pretty simple to pick-up. I’ve recently moved my site over to Mephisto from Textpattern. If you need any help or have questions, don’t hesitate to give me a shout out.
Again, congrats on the baby and his health improving! What a blessing babies are!
November 18th, 2006
Steve,
hats off to you for being able to combine being a Dad with all this blog and plug-in silliness!
And three cheers to you for the VERY nice design of the Feedburner plug-in.
Since I am somewhat anal (and am hoping to learn something new), I got a question: Why did you use the HTTP 307 redirect, not 303? I always thought that 307 is for POST transactions… There is a good article on this here: http://ppewww.physics.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/www/post-redirect.html
Do notice: I am NOT advocating the 301 Permanent Redirect – you know why ;-)
Thx! Now go get some sleep, man!
November 19th, 2006
Robert: I’ve got to talk with Rick and Justin about how to handle the AJAX request I need for my search. If you have any ideas, let me know.
Andrey: I chose 307 because it appears that 303 is dealing specifically with GET responses in correlation with forms. The W3C definition of a 307 fit much better with what I am trying to communicate with the redirection. You’re welcome to change it for your own site, though.
November 19th, 2006
I’m trying to get the feedburner plugin working on my wifes blog … I’ve configured and activated it, but I get a 404 every time I try to browse to the supplied URL.
Oddly enough, the plug-in is working fine on my own blog.
Any thoughts?
November 19th, 2006
Thx!
For tose who are curious: there are porly written RSS clients out there who not only ignore the difference between 303 and 307 redirect, but simply treat ANY redirect as 301 Permanent Redirect.
Unfortunately Firefox and Thunderbird both exibit such a behavior. What a shame! I got to submit a bug report…
November 19th, 2006
David: The only thing I can think of is you might want to check that you’re accessing the correct feed url (e.g. are permalinks inactive and you’re requesting /feed/) or is the URL you put into the FeedBurner options panel incorrect? That’s about the only two things I can think of that would cause a 404.
Andrey: Yes, bug report indeed.
November 20th, 2006
Steve: I don’t think so … the 404 is coming up when I try to access the plug-in generated URL … in this case, “http://www.blogula-rasa.com/feedburner_889059/”. Permalinks are definitely active.
November 21st, 2006
David: Ah, that’s the issue. This version doesn’t need the special /feedburner_XXXXXX/ URL as it uses user-agent detection to allow FeedBurner through. You can just use /feed/ instead.
November 21st, 2006
Hi, Steve. First want to say thanks for the FeedBurner redirect plugin—it works great.
Second, I’m glad to hear your son is doing well. My daughter was born at 29 weeks back in January and spent 8 weeks in Children’s Hospital. She is also now doing just fine and this Thanksgiving we have a lot to be thankful for.
November 23rd, 2006
The new feedburner pluginb works fine. Thanks for this excellent plugin!
November 23rd, 2006
I’m having problems with the Feeddigest reader (www.feeddigest.com) and your plugin. The reader is seeing both the original feed adresses and the feedburner ones.
November 23rd, 2006
Steve, good to see you again, both on Tuesday, as well as Thursday at Sharron and Floyd’s. Take care of yourselves, and take care of Jackson as well. Your comments reminded me of how natural it was to have you – going from 2 to 3. We couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a baby, and then when you came, we could hardly remember what it was like when it was just the two of us. You are also fortunate to have a great wife like Carrie. You guys are in our prayers every day! May God bless you all.
Love, Dad (and Mom)
November 23rd, 2006
I’ve a problem:
th original location of my feed (WP 2.0) is:
www_sdamy_com/feed/
with Internet Explorer it work fine ( it redirect to feeds.feedburner.com/sdamy) but with firefox 1.5 it doesn’t work (if I write in the browser www_sdamy_com/feed/ it doesn’t redirect to feeds.feedburner.com/sdamy)
can you help me please?
November 23rd, 2006
Scott: Thanks, and congrats to you as well.
Marco: Thanks, glad you like it.
Pepe: Not sure what could be causing that… could they be using a cached version for one of their updaters? I’m not sure how FeedDigest loads in their feed items.
Dad: Good to see you guys too!
Dam: It works in my FF.
November 24th, 2006
Steve, I think I know where’s the problem. If I activate the “Item link clicks (clickthrough tracking)� service, Feedburner updates my feed with some new tags and changes others:
1. The link tags in every item are updated with a Feedburner address ( http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/… ) 2. The guid tags don’t change. 3. A new feedburner:origLink tag is added to every item with the original permalink.
I’m assuming that the FeedDigest reader is seeing two different permalinks for every item in the feed and is reading them twice.
November 25th, 2006
Hi Steve,
the status_header( ) function that your are using in your plugin is giving problems to people running PHP as fastcgi:
http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2006/10/28/some-wordpress-205-users-reporting-server-500-error/
http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/2628
December 4th, 2006
Pepe: That’s probably the case.
Mark: Are you experiencing trouble with the plugin, or is this just a heads-up. I did thourough testing on Dreamhost, which uses PHP as fastcgi, and included code specifically for this case. Let me know if you’re still having issues, though.
December 4th, 2006
I hope you can help me Steve .. I’ve upgraded from 1.5.2 directly to 2.0.5 upgrading version 1.0 to latest 2.2
I keep getting this error message: Server returned HTTP Error 500: There was a problem retrieving the feed: com.burningdoor.rsspp.resource.impl.HttpConnectionException: Error getting URL: 404 – Not Found
My feedburner won’t let me change the access to the source feed (http://1800HART.com/blog/feed) because it seems to be in a circle recognizing the feedburner final feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/hbsmc/DoCL) as the source.
For all new installations, it works great version 2.2. Any thoughts that can help me? I just don’t understand so I can’t figure out what to do.
December 4th, 2006
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December 5th, 2006
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December 5th, 2006
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December 7th, 2006