AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.3.06 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 02/28/2004 02:43:59 PM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.3.06) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Fixes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.3.09 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 02/28/2004 06:29:28 PM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.3.09) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Fixes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Great Sources STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 03/02/2004 12:39:58 PM ----- BODY:

Colin asks:

One thing, your ‘Great Sources’ is this like links or places we can find new blogs or news to subscribe to?

Yes, exactly.

Does the source have to be RSS/XML feeds? It seems so, so far. Or can it be a blog directory or search engine?

The Great Sources will be a mix of all of the above. I haven't quite figured out what I want to put in there yet. There will be pages with a "bulk subscription" button, where you can subscribe to everything at one -- say "the top 10 entertainment blogs", for example.

Note that you don't (usually) have to find the RSS/XML for a blog: just drag a link -- even "entry" links -- onto the window and Jäger will figure out the rest. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Dragging and Dropping links STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 03/02/2004 06:36:59 PM ----- BODY:

Douglas asks:

I tried copying the URL of an RSS feed, thinking I could paste it in the Jaeger main window, but I was not allowed to do so. I understand that it's drag and drop, but from where am I dragging?

For example, you see an RSS link on your page (or just the URL of a blog you're interested in, or whatever):

I will add a Copy and Paste version of this in an upcoming version. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: What should I subscribe to? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 03/02/2004 07:23:31 PM ----- BODY:

Douglas asks:

Should I check both boxes it gives me, or just the top one that's checked already [on this page]?

The simple answer: go with what it gives you, unless you know a reason otherwise. Jäger goes through a step called discovery which tries to find out what you're really subscribing to.

For example, if you drag in the link "http://blog.davidjanes.com" (or even "http://blog.davidjanes.com/index.xml") it knows you are really subscribing to "http://blog.davidjanes.com/" (note the trailing slash) using the syndication feed of "http://blog.davidjanes.com/index.xml". This one you are "really" subscribing to is the one that will be checked in Jäger, the link that you actually dragged in will be unchecked, just in case you really did mean that page. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Moving a subscription list STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 03/03/2004 08:18:43 AM ----- BODY:

If you are currently using an aggregator, want to try Jäger and you it export an OPML blogroll to a web location (i.e. http://...) then you can easily move your subscription list. Just export the OPML blogroll and drag the URL link into Jäger (or do Actions > Add a weblog... and paste in the URL).

This will take several minutes to complete, as a lot of "discovery" has to take place. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.3.11 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/04/2004 09:08:27 AM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.3.11) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Fixes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger e-commerce STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 03/06/2004 12:58:53 AM ----- BODY:

The Jäger e-commerce website is almost finished. I'm not going to enable it just yet, since I'm going on vaction and I'd like to be able to deal with any problems should they occur. I'll probably be offering a limited time discount on Jäger for anyone wanting to get ahead of the crowd and use the version 0 (beta test) copies. This license will be good for the "official version" when that is released. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.3.12 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/06/2004 01:59:43 PM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.3.12) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Fixes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on Windows 95/98/ME STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features and Bugs CATEGORY: Features and Bugs DATE: 03/06/2004 02:00:24 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger does not work on Windows 95/98/ME — yet. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.3.13 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/06/2004 06:25:15 PM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.3.12) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Fixes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: It's not broken STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 03/15/2004 05:03:20 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger is not broken. Just drag the link onto Jäger to see. There's a good reason for it not being broken though: I use some of Mark's code (soon to be credited, in the pile of to-do documentation)! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.00 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/16/2004 01:18:12 AM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.4.00) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

This version has the start of a "category" system for sorting your weblogs better. There will be several more releases this week to finish this functionality. Don't let this stop you from trying it though! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Categories STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 03/16/2004 12:54:01 PM ----- BODY:

We are adding support for "Categories" in version 0.4 of Jäger. Every weblog/news source belongs to a Category — initially, the "Default Category".

Category operations

To create a new Category, simply select a weblog and press Actions > Categories > Add Category.... Then enter the new name for a Category.

To change a weblog's Category, select the weblog and press Actions > Categories > Category Name.

To edit the name of a Category, select it, wait a few second, and click on it again. You can then edit it in place.

There is no way to remove a Category, per se (because weblogs must be in a category). However, if you rename a Category to the name of an existing one, the Categories are merged.

Note

The Actions > Categories > submenu is also available by right-mouse clicking on the weblog names in the Recently Updated and All Weblogs Lists.

Display options

The way Categories affect the listing of weblogs/news sources is individually controllable for Recently Updated and All Weblogs List, via the View > Recently Updated/All Weblogs List submenu. There are three options:

  1. Don't display Categories: this is the traditional listing. Categories are not listed anywhere (though the Category of a weblog can still be adjusted as per above).
  2. Show weblogs only from Active Category: Only the weblogs in the "Active Category" will be listed. The Active Category is the Category most recently double clicked on. Only the Category name is displayed for non-Active Categories.

    This is meant to simulate the effect of "tabbed browsing", and is probably very useful if you subscribe to a lot of weblogs or are a very disciplined reader.

  3. Show weblogs only from Active Category: This will list all weblogs in all Categories.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.01 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/16/2004 09:33:18 PM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.4.01) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Fixes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Upgrading Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 03/16/2004 11:49:22 PM ----- BODY:

Make sure you stop Jäger before installing new versions. The File > Close does not do this. Look in the "Quick Lauch" area of your Windows taskbar. You will see a tiny BlogMatrix icon there: right click on it and select Exit. This will do the trick. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.02 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/17/2004 12:02:37 AM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.4.02) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here [note that these have been updated with information for upgrading].

Major Fixes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: How do I rename a Category? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 03/17/2004 11:15:16 AM ----- BODY: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.03 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/17/2004 01:10:27 PM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.4.03) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here. Make sure you uninstall the old version of Jäger before installing this version.

Major Changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Website update STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 03/19/2004 01:12:18 AM ----- BODY:

I've done a major pruning of the web pages on this site (i.e. the documentation) as stabilization of the feature set for version 1.0 approaches... ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.04 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/20/2004 02:18:18 PM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.4.04) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: New version of URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002414 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/20/2004 02:28:38 PM There's a new version of Jäger with lots of good little bug fixes.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Crash reporting STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 03/20/2004 02:25:18 PM ----- BODY:

If you have a serious problem with Jäger — like a crash or hang — you can mail me the data files for debugging:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Why is "Arrange Windows" greyed out? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 03/20/2004 05:21:26 PM ----- BODY:

Arrange Windows is only enabled when your preferences for opening links is set to "Open links in the same external browser window" or "Open in the same Internet Exporer Window". ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Can I install new versions over old versions? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 03/20/2004 08:23:46 PM ----- BODY:

Absolutely. Your weblog list and settings will be maintained. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.05 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/21/2004 09:24:36 PM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.4.05) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 0.4.05 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002423 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/21/2004 09:26:59 PM Check it out.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Why use Jäger? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 03/24/2004 11:01:50 AM ----- BODY:

David Galbraith writes:

I've seen several comments lately about the trend away from the browser and how RSS may contribute to this, it can be used in an email client etc. But the trend for Usenet was towards the browser, with eGroups and Deja. Likewise, despite lacking in features, people seem to like Bloglines, it is a browser based RSS aggregator and my money is on this model.

I spent a lot of time working on a web-based browser and I became very dissatisfied with the use model. Why? One simple word: speed. I read a lot of weblogs (the complete list is on my blogroll). The difference to me between accomplishing a task in 1 second and accomplishing it in 5 seconds is huge (let alone operations that may take 10s of seconds). Now, a web-based browser has two main advantages: you can take it anywhere and you need to install software. I can't do much about the second advantage, but I can about the first: Jäger provides synchronization between any number of copies of itself: if you read it in one location, you don't need to read it at the other.

My aggregator top ten wish list items:

  1. Search
  2. Ability to pick a selection of blogs from a limited list of categories, not too many - prob like Google news.
  3. Ability to do scoped search within these categories.
  4. 'More like this' recommendations.
  5. 'People who linked to this blog' button beneath selections.
  6. 'People this blog links to' button beneath selctions (blogroll plus contextual)
  7. Browseable list of blogs ranked alphabetically or by popularity or by rate of increase in popularity in addition to category lists above.
  8. Ability to view other users’ public lists of blogs and to clone and modify their lists to add to mine.
  9. OPML and javascript export of part or all of my list as a blogroll.
  10. Installable browser component that takes my list and makes it like a bookmark list, but with one key difference, it shows the number of new items in parentheses next to the bookmark.

There are two features of Jäger that make it easy to service the list above:

Alas, searching within a constrained list is problematic. I'm hoping that a service like Technorati will provide the ability to import an OPML blogroll and then the user can say "search within the list of blogs". It'll be trivial then on my side.

What's left to do in Jäger? Here's the top of my list.

One other miscellaneous feature worth noting: Jäger; doesn't depend on an RSS (or Atom) feed being available: it can figure out the structure of most blogspot (and similar) blogs, even if they don't provide syndication. If that doesn't work, it still can check to see if the header has changed, the page has changed, or simply present the page to you on a preset schedule. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger news URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002442 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/25/2004 12:34:58 PM There's a new version of Jäger (0.4.05) available: this one deals with non-ASCII characters much better. I've written up a short piece on the benefits of Jäger. With a little luck, the next version (0.4.06) will support other browsers... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.06 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/24/2004 11:19:36 AM ----- BODY:

A new version (0.4.06) of Jäger has been posted. The installation instructions are here.

Major Changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger news URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002442 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/25/2004 12:34:59 PM There's a new version of Jäger (0.4.05) available: this one deals with non-ASCII characters much better. I've written up a short piece on the benefits of Jäger. With a little luck, the next version (0.4.06) will support other browsers... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger and FireFox STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 03/25/2004 12:26:23 AM ----- BODY:

I have a version showing Jäger and Firefox working together as seamlessly as with IE. I need to play with it for another day or two and then we'll release (assuming there are no intractible problems!) Opera will also be an option. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Keeping up with F1 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 03/25/2004 11:04:59 PM ----- BODY:

I like F1 racing and one of my favorite sites for news is F1Racing.net. They don't have a blog and I don't think to check in every day for news, so how to keep track of it? Easy: I use Jäger.

And that's it. From this point on, whenever new links are added to the page — i.e. there is new news — it lists in Jäger just as if this website was a weblog!

This works great for almost any news site. For example, I subscribe to these news sites using a similar method:

So, in conclusion: get Jäger and save yourself tons of time (and tell your friends!). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Keeping up with F1 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002446 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/25/2004 11:08:50 PM I like F1 racing and one of my favorite sites for news is F1Racing.net. They don't have a blog and I don't think to check in every day for news, so how to keep track of it? Easy: I... ----- PING: TITLE: This guy is ready for Jäger URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_05.html#002615 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 05/05/2004 03:03:14 AM A friend sent this Dan Brown CBC article to me today saying "This guy is ready for Jäger": I need a TiVo for my computer I have recently come to the conclusion that I need a device that does... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Why does "Open in New Window" open in Internet Explorer? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 03/25/2004 11:29:36 PM ----- BODY:

This is assuming you're using Firefox or Opera, of course! The reason is the interface to those programs don't seem to support (reliably) opening pages in a new window: some times they reuse the old window. Since we know opening a new IE window always works and that you're not going to be doing this too often, it seemed a reasonable comprise.

See also:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.07 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/26/2004 12:09:18 AM ----- BODY:

A special version (0.4.07) of Jäger has been posted. If you're an Internet Explorer user, try 0.4.06: this version is for testing Firefox and Opera integration and is definitely experimental. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.08 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/26/2004 09:14:28 PM ----- BODY:

Version 0.4.07 has been replaced by version 0.4.08. It can be downloaded in the usual place this time because:

  1. I am fairly confident it works well, and
  2. It works the "old way" — with IE only — by default

Major changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 0.04.08 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002459 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/26/2004 09:35:53 PM Jäger 0.04.08 is now available (and well worth getting).... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: How do I use my normal browser with Jäger? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 03/26/2004 09:17:38 PM ----- BODY:

By default, Jäger works with a dedicate Internet Explorer window. This is done because we can control IE and learn information from it easier than with other browsers. However, it will work your default browser also:

You can also change how Jäger adjusts the browser window by changing the "Minimize Browser" and "Arrange Browser" pulldowns. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Why is "Use Browser Location of Possible" greyed out? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 03/26/2004 09:28:35 PM ----- BODY:

For mundane technical reasons, this will only work if your "Open Links" preference is set to "Open links in dedicated Internet Explorer window". ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.4.09 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/27/2004 11:09:04 AM ----- BODY:

Version 0.4.09 is now available. This version is all bug fixes

Major changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kathy K EMAIL: noway@dev.null IP: 204.215.47.100 URL: http://site-essential.com/ DATE: 03/27/2004 03:33:08 PM I note you only have Windows 2000 and XP instructions. Does it work with 98 or ME? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 03/27/2004 04:01:17 PM It's supposed to, but I don't have a testing environment yet. It's on the list: if it's possible, it will be by 1.0. I have a license for 98, so I'll see if I can get a copy of Virtual PC somewhere to do it! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 03/27/2004 04:01:50 PM BTW: just noticed what you did with the comments header. Very sweet! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Are there any blog directories? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 03/27/2004 11:18:48 PM ----- BODY:

There certainly are! Try Actions > Tools > Directories. If you know of any blog directories that I'm missing, don't hesitate to contact me! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Coming in version 0.5 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 03/28/2004 10:04:24 AM ----- BODY:

Here's a list of things I've fixed or added in Version 0.5.

A big shout out to Vicki Smith for making many of these suggestions. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 0.5.01 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002470 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/28/2004 02:07:11 PM Jäger 0.5.01 is available with a number of substantial improvements.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.5.01 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/28/2004 02:01:02 PM ----- BODY:

Jäget 0.5.01 is now available. Make sure you uninstall the old version before installing this one, as we're using a totally new installer and I'm not sure how well the two version will play together on your computer.

A list of features is available here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 0.5.01 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002470 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/28/2004 02:07:12 PM Jäger 0.5.01 is available with a number of substantial improvements.... ----- PING: TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger URL: http://blog.lordsutch.com/?entryid=1455 IP: 66.156.161.174 BLOG NAME: Signifying Nothing DATE: 03/29/2004 12:30:14 AM I finally got David Janes’ new feedreader working under Windows XP (the previous 0.4.something release just seemed to hang, but 0.5.01 works fine). It’s a pretty slick tool, although there are a few minor quibbles I’d make: It doesn&#... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Coming in version 0.5.02 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 03/30/2004 08:43:43 PM ----- BODY:

Some things to look forward to in the next release (coming probably tonight):

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Technorati now tracks 2,000,000 blogs STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 03/31/2004 07:08:46 AM ----- BODY:

A good point to mention the Tool extensions, since I don't think too many people are using them yet: Actions > Tools > Technorati Cosmos will get you which of those two million blogs are linking to what you're reading.

At 4:35AM PST today, Technorati broke the 2 Million weblogs tracked milestone. The blogosphere continues to expand at an amazing pace, with about 12,000 new weblogs being created every day. We're tracking over 150,000 weblog updates every day, and growing.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.5.02 is now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 03/31/2004 07:10:10 AM ----- BODY:

Jäget 0.5.02 is now available. Make sure you uninstall versions before 0.5.01 before installing this one, as we're using a totally new installer and I'm not sure how well the two version will play together on your computer.

A list of features is available here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 0.5.02 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_03.html#002484 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 03/31/2004 07:24:39 AM Now available here, and is well worth the trouble.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: New for version 5.03 STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: DATE: 03/31/2004 11:17:25 AM ----- BODY: - Arrange Windows now not-greyed out when "Open in the same IE Window" is selected as the Open Links preference ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: News STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 04/01/2004 10:44:15 AM ----- BODY:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger annoucement URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_04.html#002495 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 04/01/2004 11:24:06 AM Some fairly important J¨ger announcements over here.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Coming Soon STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 04/03/2004 01:39:19 PM ----- BODY:

I'll be doing another release this afternoon or early tomorrow. It's mainly small bug fixes and improvements to the Tools. After this release, we will be calling the versions "Release Candidates" as my bug list has gone down to 0.

I spent a fair portion of my morning doing screen shots for the new manual. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Kinja review STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 04/03/2004 05:28:45 PM ----- BODY:

This review of Kinja sums up quite nicely why we moved from doing a web-based blog reader to desktop one. (Via Scripting News). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chris L EMAIL: chris@chrislott.org IP: 24.237.106.103 URL: DATE: 04/03/2004 06:14:51 PM Why? Bloglines addresses practically all of the deficiencies she points out and you aren't tied to one machine (or clunky replication of cache folders and the like) to stay abreast of subscriptions... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 04/03/2004 06:23:20 PM 1. I'll stand by the review, since I done have time to type in the massive number of reasons. We had a webbased aggregator. The user experience for reading on the web simply is not good enough for almost _every_ class of application. I've gone from reading 80 blogs to easily tracking 250 and taking a fraction of the time. 2. synchronization doesn't have to be clunky -- Jaeger's isn't ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäget 0.5.03 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 04/03/2004 05:52:33 PM ----- BODY:

Jäget 0.5.03 is now available. This release consists mainly of tiny (but important) bug fixes, and improvements to the "Publish Blogroll" and "Google News Alerts" Tool extensions. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäget 0.5.03 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_04.html#002508 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 04/03/2004 08:58:33 PM Go get it.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Tool Extensions STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 04/04/2004 02:37:34 PM ----- BODY:

I've noticed that I've not been getting a lot of feed back about the Tool Extensions in Jäger. One possible reason is that you haven't got around to trying them out yet; another possible reason is that they may be broken on your system. They certainly were in Jäger 0.5.03, and that's why we're doing another release this morning!

You get to the Tool Extensions by selecting Actions > Tools > .... Some extensions work on entries/blogs you have selected, others are just always on. You can also get to them by doing a right mouse button click on the Recently Updated or All Items list.

Here's some of the things you can do with Tool Extensions:

One final note: Tool Extensions are all written in Python and released with the source code! If there's something you want to add to Jäger and it doesn't exist yet, simply add it. It's almost trivial in a lot of cases. Another cool thing: Jäger has a web server built in, running on 127.0.0.1:5335: you have full control over this too! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.us DATE: 09/18/2004 06:13:52 AM I tried Publish as OPML to the same directory that I have used to synchronize Jager. Result: An error occured AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'sendall' ----- PING: TITLE: Tool Extensions in Jäger URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_04.html#002511 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 04/04/2004 03:05:35 PM Maybe this will convince you to use Jäger: here's a description of the "Tool Extensions" available for Jäger. Convert Google Alerts to syndication feeds, publish your blogroll, translate posts to other languages, access Technorati Cosmos on ... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.5.04 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 04/04/2004 02:59:06 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger 0.5.04 is now available. This is a "whoops" release — the Tools were not always working. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger review STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 04/05/2004 10:50:07 AM ----- BODY:

Vicki had some nice comments about Jäger here:

By way of contrast, I have been using Jaeger, a new aggregator (and then some) developed by David Janes of BlogMatrix fame.

Although it is still in beta, after only a week or so of using Jaeger, it has transformed and greatly enhanced the way I read weblogs--and other parts of the web as well.

With it I can drag a link of a weblog (or a weblog entry) that I'm interested in into Jäger's window and the proggie takes care of the rest--even if the particular resource doesn't have a syndication feed.

I can edit the view and change the way the weblogs appear in the "recently updated" list and "skip" items, entire weblogs, or categories. Skipped items disappear from the recently updated list, so when I go back to read later, i don't have to wade through items I have already read or decided I didn't want to look at.

I can even get my Jaeger installation at work to sync with my Jaeger setup on my home computer.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Bug using IE STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features and Bugs CATEGORY: Features and Bugs DATE: 04/05/2004 11:02:19 AM ----- BODY:

Drat. The "Open in the Same Internet Explorer" window keeps opening new IE windows. Will have this fixed this afternoon.

Update: whoops. This seems to happen with Firefox too. Very very strange. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Opening browser windows STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 04/05/2004 11:50:56 AM ----- BODY:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.5.06 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 04/05/2004 08:54:41 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger 0.5.06 is now available.

Changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: J&aum;ger 0.5.06 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_04.html#002522 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 04/06/2004 09:48:28 AM J&aum;ger 0.5.06 is available (as of yesterday afternoon, actually). This has lots of little fixes from previous versions and is well worth upgrading to/trying out.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Using Google News Alerts with Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 04/06/2004 10:41:53 AM ----- BODY:

One of neat features of Jäger is the ability to convert Google News Alerts (delivered by e-mail) into syndication feeds. Google has recently sent "cease-and-desist" letters to sites that provide online versions of this service (read: here, here, here and here) claiming that their terms of service are being violated. This should not be an issue with Jäger:

Which mailbox?

The Google News Alerts Tool currently only works with POP3 accounts (i.e. where your mail is received), though we expect to have a version that will work with Outlook (not Outlook Express) working shortly. You have two choices:

If you choose use your existing mailbox, make sure that you set your POP3 options to leave a copy of a message on the server for a few days. In Outlook Express, this can be done by:

Setting up the Google News Alerts Tool
Creating Alerts
Subscribing to Alerts
Unsubscribing to Alerts

Note that unsubscribing to alerts does not make Google cancel the alert (i.e. stop sending you e-mails on that subject)! All this does is stop it from being shown in your blog list.

Canceling Alerts

Canceling Alerts does not unsubscribe you from the alert (though obviously no more updates will be show)! Make sure you unsubscribe also. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Using Google News Alerts with Jäger: The Easy Way STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 04/06/2004 12:42:27 PM ----- BODY:

Here's an easier way to use Google News Alerts with Jäger, if you don't mind being a little more aggressive and getting occasional junk links:

And that's it: from this point on, new links added to this page will be displayed in Jäger. It's not perfect, since Google doesn't display everything on the first page, but it's pretty good. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.us DATE: 09/18/2004 06:05:00 AM This is way cool. Thanks. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Why are so many entries showing? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 04/07/2004 03:06:15 PM ----- BODY:

If you have View > Show a Few Entries set, only the 5 most recent entries will be shown. Additionally, in the Recently Updated List, only new entries are ever eligible to be shown; in the the All Weblogs List, every entry for the last week or so is eligible to be displayed.

If there are more than 5 entries available to be displayed, the last entry will be followed by a list "+ Show More Entries". Double-click on this and all eligible entries will be displayed and the list will then be followed by "- Show Fewer Entries".

If you have Show Weblogs Only set, entries within a weblog will not be displayed. You can override this on a blog-by-blog basis by selecting Actions > Keep Entries Listed.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.5.08 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 04/09/2004 11:59:33 AM ----- BODY:

Jäger 0.5.08 is now available.

Fixes in this version:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 0.5.08 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_04.html#002535 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 04/09/2004 02:41:22 PM Jäger 0.5.08 is now available. If you're using Windows and you want to save a lot of time reading blogs, check this out.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Website updates STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 04/11/2004 01:39:43 PM ----- BODY:

All the screen shots have been updated in the manuals, redundant pages have been removed, and new text entered. We'll be making updates to this for the next several days.

It's as fun as it sounds! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.5.09 (RC1) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 04/14/2004 12:38:56 AM ----- BODY:

Jäger 0.5.09 (Release Candidate 1) is now available.

Fixes in this version:

Unless any serious bugs are found, this will become version 1.0 in a couple of days!

Whoops! That doesn't work: we're moving right along to Jäger 0.5.10 (RC2). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 0.5.09 (RC1) URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_04.html#002545 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 04/14/2004 12:45:40 AM Jäger 0.5.09 (Release Candidate 1) is now available. Unless any serious bugs are found, this will become version 1.0 in a couple of days! If you're in to reading weblogs or reading the news online, you want to give... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 0.5.10 (RC2) available, seconds later! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 04/14/2004 01:20:49 AM ----- BODY:

Jäger 0.5.10 (Release Candidate 2) is now available.

Fixes in this version:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Publish Blogroll Templates STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 04/15/2004 11:26:50 AM ----- BODY:

Here's the default templates for the Public Blogroll Tool Extension, just in case you lose the originals:

HTML Blogroll
<div class="blogroll">
#for $category in $categories
<div class="sidetitle">$category</div>
<div class="side">
#for $blog in $blogs
#if $blog.category == $category
<a href="$escape_html($blog.url)">$escape_html($blog.title)</a>
<br/>
#end if 
#end for
</div>
#end for
</div>
OPML Blogroll
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<opml version="1.0">
<head>
	<title>OPML Blogroll</title>
	<ownerName>Generated from BlogMatrix Jäger</ownerName>
</head>
<body>
 <outline title="Blogroll">
#for $category in $categories
  <outline title=$quote_attribute($category)>
#for $blog in $blogs
#if $blog.category == $category
    <outline 
      title=$quote_attribute($blog.title)
      url=$quote_attribute($blog.url)
#if $blog.syndication_url
      xmlUrl=$quote_attribute($blog.syndication_url)
#end if
    />
#end if
#end for
  </outline>
#end for
 </outline>
</body>
</opml>
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 80.132.255.80 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/17/2004 06:55:39 PM Short Question for the OPML-Export: Is there an easy way to automatically add a dateModified Field? Thanks ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.0.0 is available! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 04/19/2004 08:17:19 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix is pleased to announce the availability of out weblog and news reading tool, Jäger 1.0.0. You can download Jäger from here.

You can have Jäger up and running on your Windows PC in about 2 minutes. Why use Jäger? Read about it here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.0.0! URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_04.html#002557 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 04/19/2004 11:54:51 PM BlogMatrix Jäger 1.0.0 is available for Windows XP, NT, 2000, XP and 98. OK, you ask, what the hell is this "Jäger" he's been going on about for the last two months? Simple: it's a "one panel" blog reader... ----- PING: TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.0.0 out URL: http://blog.lordsutch.com/?entryid=1518 IP: 68.222.122.75 BLOG NAME: Signifying Nothing DATE: 04/20/2004 01:36:29 AM I still owe David Janes some feedback on his new feedreader (David: I’ll get to it in my Copious Free Time later this week!). In the meantime, download version 1.0.0 for your Windows box and take it for a spin;... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Why are my Categories disappearing? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 04/20/2004 09:02:19 PM ----- BODY:

You must have at least one blog in a Category. Once the last blog in a Category is removed (or the blog is moved to another Category), the Category will disappear. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pete EMAIL: pete@holidian.com IP: 68.62.114.241 URL: http://www.peteholiday.com DATE: 05/09/2004 05:13:28 PM ...I had a question but in the process of recreating it, I fixed my problem. The "Add Category..." is very unintuitive -- it only seems to add a category if you have a feed selected, but it lets you go through the motions otherwise. I couldn't find that in the documentation, either, but maybe I'm just blind. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Chris Lawrence on Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 04/21/2004 11:31:24 AM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.0.0 out

I still owe David Janes some feedback on his new feedreader (David: I’ll get to it in my Copious Free Time later this week!). In the meantime, download version 1.0.0 for your Windows box and take it for a spin; Jäger takes a different approach than most feed readers, letting your preferred browser handle displaying entries (instead of using an IE or Gecko component internally), but it gets the job done very well.

My theory was that users already have a browser they like and it consists of a lot more than what is inside the browser pane! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Why Jäger? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 04/22/2004 04:19:06 PM ----- BODY:

This is a recap of this page, but it's good to get the message out again. Why get Jäger?

  • Jäger saves you time: a lot of time. Because it's a desktop application, actions happen in subsecond time rather than in 5 to 10 second periods (like online readers). Multiply this by a days worth of blog reading and you could be saving up to a half-hour of time you'd be spending twidling your thumbs waiting for something to happen.
  • Jäger shows you exactly what is new and what you have already read, as it happens.
  • You can drag pretty well any link you like into Jäger - home page, RSS feed, OPML page, a link to an individual entry, a newspaper's home page, an infrequently updated web page and Jäger will do the "right thing"
  • Jäger doesn't require syndication feeds to read most weblogs (and if syndication feeds exist, it doesn't require you to identify them!)
  • You can export your blogroll as HTML or OPML (and you can import OPML blogrolls!)
  • Jäger doesn't have a browser: it uses yours. You spent most of your online time in your browser, why do you think an aggregator is going to do it better and why should you learn a new browser?
  • Jäger doesn't take up a lot of screen space. It's designed to be a small as possible so it will play well with browsers, even on a 800x600 screen. Jäger closes to the Quick Launch area to avoid taking up icon taskbar space.
  • You can read blogs at home and at work (and more than two locations, if need be!) and Jäger will painlessly synchronize what you have read between locations.
  • Jäger is a fully functional product to try-before-buying. Use it as long as you need to to get comfortable. (But buy it if you like it!)
  • Jäger is inexpensive: half to one-third the price of other weblog readers. And only $USD 10 until June 1.
  • Jäger is extensible. There are a large number of Python modules shipped with Jäger, to provide integration into Internet weblogging services such as Technorati. Adding new (or your own!) extensions is only a matter of dropping code into a Windows Folder.

I may be updating this post during the next few days to twiddle the wording. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Coming in Jäger 1.2: Priority Updated List STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 04/22/2004 10:23:29 PM ----- BODY:

This is a first in a series of postings about what will be in the next version of Jäger. From this point onwards, all odd numbered releases (1.1, 1.3, etc.) will be the beta version for the subsequent even numbered release (1.2, 1.4, and so forth).

Rationale

The Priority Updated List is designed for people (like me) who follow a lot of weblogs. While the Recently Updated List narrows the amount of information you need to see quite considerable, on a busy day reading frequently updating blogs can seem like swimming up a waterfall. The Priority Updated list is designed to solve this problem.

Use

The Priority Updated List behaves in much the same way the Recently Updated List does: it displays only recently updated weblogs (i.e. weblogs that have changed since the last time you read them). The twist is that the Priority Updated List will only display weblogs marked as "Priority".

It must be explicitly turned on via the View > Priority Updated List > Show checkbox menu item. While on, only Priority-marked blogs will be shown in this list (and only non-Priority ones in the Recently Updated List!)

Blogs can be marked (and unmarked) as Priority by the Actions > Flags > Priority checkbox menu item. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.us DATE: 09/18/2004 05:57:20 AM Does this feature still exisit, or has it been replace with the "pinned" or "favorite webpage" features? I couldn't find a "View menu" or a "Priority Updated List" anywhere. Thanks, Tim ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Four things you should know about Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 04/24/2004 12:06:08 PM ----- BODY:

  1. Subscribe to weblogs by dragging links onto Jäger. You do not need to find the RSS feed or (usually) even the home page: almost any associated link will do.
  2. After you've read a few blogs, click on the Recently Updated List button again and everything you've seen will disappear. If you're a power reader, turn on View > Recently Updated List > Skip After Reading and they'll disappear as soon as you've moved on to the next blog!
  3. You can interactively unsubscribe to an entire Category of posts by selecting Actions > Unsubscribe....
  4. Almost everything you can do in the Actions menu is available directly in the Recently Updated and All Weblogs Lists by a right mouse button click.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger and RSS 2.0 Enclosures STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 04/25/2004 12:51:08 AM ----- BODY:

This is an outline of how Jäger will deal with RSS 2.0 Enclosures. This may be available in version 1.2 or maybe 1.4 if parts prove to difficult to implement.

Here's an example of an RSS feed that uses enclosures. One could use to (for example) automatically save all these MP3 songs.

  1. We can indicate the presense of enclosures in the main list by use of an icon in the main list. Since we plan to be adding icons anyway (to indicate open and closed Categories) this will not take up significantly more screen Real Estate. We'll have to do some usability tests to make sure this doesn't look too awful or is confusing.

    Clicking the enclosure icons will pop up a dialog giving the option to save the enclosures. The icon should change after enclosures have been saved.

  2. We can automatically save enclosures. This would be an option in the Weblog Settings dialog, which would also allow (demand) the user select a directory for the enclosure to be saved in. Download enclosures will have to be given their own thread and there's actually a fair bit of clever logic that will have to be added for scheduling and dealing with broken links and what not.
  3. We may want to add an option to the Filtering to look for enclosures
  4. Atom probably has an equivalent: we'll have to find out what that is and deal with them in much the same way.
  5. We'll probably call them attachments, to be more consistent with user terminology.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chris Lawrence EMAIL: chris@lordsutch.com IP: 12.25.126.194 URL: http://blog.lordsutch.com/ DATE: 04/26/2004 06:11:29 AM I believe in Atom, you would treat any link tag that has a type that isn't browseable (e.g. not text/html, text/plain, application/xhtml+xml, etc.) as an "enclosure", since Atom's link tag is essentially an W3C XLink. But I've never fooled with anything that uses "enclosures." A while back Mark Pilgrim had a link to a document that had all the Atom link-foo in it, but I don't have a bookmark handy. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 04/26/2004 01:42:45 PM Ah, thanks! I really haven't even looked at the Atom spec, though I guess that time will come soon enough. My problem now is that I'm using a really old version of feedparser.py that has been tweaked to hell for Jaeger (because I didn't like the way it handled certain items). Bringing this up to date is going to be a major pain in the ass, since I wasn't clever enough to save the original version for diffs. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Lucas Gonze EMAIL: lucas@gonze.com IP: 65.94.229.110 URL: http://gonze.com DATE: 05/19/2004 07:13:47 PM Hey David, Sorry to say that I have taken out the enclosures from the Webjay feeds. See http://gonze.com/weblog/story/5-17-4 for the explanation. - Lucas ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 04/27/2004 01:37:52 PM ----- BODY:

Royby at a weblog about weblogs writes:

BlogMatrix Jäger is yet another Weblog and News site reader. But the difference between this reader and others is that it uses a single panel instead of the "traditional three panel layout of most other readers. It will cost you US$15 to subscribe, but if you hurry you can pay only US$10. Worth a look at perhaps as they say that this reader will tell you ONLY what has updated.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Death to aggregators? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 04/27/2004 09:18:11 PM ----- BODY:

Frank Steele writes:

Look at how you usually use the aggregator. If you're like me, your aggregator is the receptionist for your browser, helping you filter out who actually gets admitted to your browser. I typically browse headlines, leaving a trail of open tabs and windows behind the aggregator window. When I'm done with the headlines, I switch over to the browser, and gradually close the windows I've generated.

It seems like the aggregator could be reduced to a panel (like the Mozilla sidebar, or perhaps a floating palette) so that you could watch the headlines come in without leaving the browser, and your browser could better manage the resulting windows. It could use the RSS data to to open all the sites with entries on a particular link in a single, tabbed window, or to organize your history.

Way ahead of you here. Well, almost: we start trying to implement something that looked like a floating panel except:

  1. There's really a lot of application functionality that you want to have in your application, which means a menu bar; once you head down that road, you start fighting having an app. Note that Jäger can float like a palette via the View > Keep on Top.
  2. If you write for a browser, you're stuck with that browser.

He continues...

You might even be able to precache sites with headlines that matched certain criteria for faster display -- there are certain sites where I read everything posted, so why not set up a tab, or at least cache the content, so it appears instantly when I'm ready to look at it?

Not quite the same thing, but I use Jäger with Firefox and tabbed windows extensively, so can be loading new entries and reading/exporing old ones simultaneously.

(Via Gareth Simpson). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Death to aggregators, Vol. 2 URL: http://notd.blogs.com/notd/2004/04/death_to_aggreg.html IP: 66.151.149.25 BLOG NAME: Nicest of the Damned DATE: 04/27/2004 10:44:45 PM Gareth Simpson quotes an old post of mine, where I wished that aggregators could be more closely integrated into browsers, since most of the time, the aggregator serves as the browser's burly bouncer, figuring out who gets in and who's ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.0.2 coming soon STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/01/2004 10:55:56 AM ----- BODY:

This version (which I just did an "all morninger") will have two fixes — which you probably won't need if you're already running Jäger.

  • On Windows 2000 (and earlier, probably) there was a problem opening the browser. This is fixed.
  • It will now ask during setup whether you use Radio Userland or not. If so, it will use port 5336 (rather than 5335) for its internal webserver. The downside is you can then no longer click of "coffee mug" subscriptions (but you can still drag and drop the entire icon
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/01/2004 11:07:47 AM ----- BODY:

Joey over in the Tucows Developer's Hangout is demonstrating wxPython running on a Macintosh. A few notes:

  • He's not showing you the *$^&!ng ugly menu that wxPython/MacPython gives you on the Macintosh.
  • He is showing you German (Austrian German at that!) in the titles. Cool. If you're doing this at home, remember that you have to tell Python about your codeset these days: 
    #!/bin/python
# -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*-

So, why isn't Jäger running on a Macintosh?

  • wxPython randomly crashes with Jäger with the very useful "Bus Error" message. I use a lot of threads and perhaps there's some nastiness manifesting on Macintosh that doesn't happen on Windows (or Unix).
  • The Macintosh ships with half a Python implementation and it's not entirely clear how to make sure you get the latest everything on the Macintosh.
  • I don't know how to make the menubar "correct".
  • I don't know how to package a Macintosh python application as a stand-alone application.
  • I need to learn Applescript to script the browser.

After I solve all those problems, there'll be a Mac version. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Screenshot from Jäger 1.2 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/01/2004 09:33:43 PM ----- BODY:

Enjoy!

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Will aggregators ruin the Internet? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 05/01/2004 09:42:35 PM ----- BODY:

Wired Magazine has an article on blog aggregators linking to one of the blogs I like to read, Teledyn. I actually computed some numbers about this at one time but unfortunately they're on my crashed laptop. Hopefully I'll have that back Monday. My conclusions is that I don't think it's going to be a big problem, except maybe for the Alphabloggers. The number of links downloaded is not # Readers * # Bloggers, it's # Readers * ~150.

In case you're wondering, Jäger is very well behaved with regards to If-Modified-Since and ETags. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mrG EMAIL: garym@teledyn.com IP: 207.61.5.143 URL: http://www.teledyn.com/mt/ DATE: 05/01/2004 11:34:16 PM Thanks for the kind reference, but I think you math may need some adjustement -- it's #_of_blogreaders * frequency_of_polling * size_of_RSS_file so, for example, if you have some small sites collected under a banner, such as TypePad or Tripod, and if, as I find, 90% of the readers are broken such that the above equation holds, then I think we have a problem. The basic issue is really compliance to the spec, and having newsreaders actually remember the ETag or Last-Modified values between runs -- that would buy us a lot of time until the Outlook-ubiquitous reader begins to settle in. Other ways to buy time are mentioned in the article, such as if all RadioUserland customers were to fetch their RSS through a proxy, same for all AOL, all Sympatico, all MSN, and then those proxies were to correctly obay the RFC spec, the A-List sites would be cached properly regardless of the brokenness of individual tools. Of course, when we start talking about "reducing backbone bandwidth stress through local sharing of popular resources via proxy caching" ... isn't that what USENET does? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/02/2004 12:14:46 AM Sorry, I was drawing a comparison between B*R and R*150, so the number of times polling was just meant to be assumed. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Steal These Buttons STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 05/02/2004 02:41:40 PM ----- BODY:

In the spirit of Steal These Buttons, I offer the following buttons for your websites:




Here's the HTML encode to insert these on your blog: 

<a href="http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com"><img 
	border="0" 
	src="http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/images/logo_red_jaeger.gif"></a>
<a href="http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com"><img 
	border="0" 
	src="http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/images/logo_grey_jaeger.gif"></a>
<a href="http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com"><img 
	border="0" 
	src="http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/images/logo_red_blogmatrix.gif"></a>
<a href="http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com"><img 
	border="0" 
	src="http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/images/logo_grey_blogmatrix.gif"></a>
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Steal These Buttons URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_05.html#002601 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 05/02/2004 02:43:30 PM Cross posted on Jäger. In the spirit of Steal These Buttons, I offer the following buttons for your websites:... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: A proposal for reducing the amount of data transferred for syndication STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Blogging CATEGORY: Blogging DATE: 05/03/2004 02:56:41 PM ----- BODY:
Overview

We propose that syndication feeds should only deliver changed entries since the last time the feed was polled. We will demonstrate this can be done with only minimal impact server side, no impact client side, and will also deliver several other very nice fringe benefits.

Our analysis shows that this can reduce the amount of data transferred from 70-90%. If combined with Gzip compression, this savings is increased to 90-97% from the original plain text feed!

The Proposal

A new Apache module is to be written, called "mod_split". This module

  • uses the "If-Modified-Since" HTTP header to determine how much of the feed to send
  • will send a "variant" of the syndication file based on the "If-Modified-Since" value (i.e. sending only entries
  • will check to see if the syndication file has been modified, and if so will regenerate the variant files as needed

All the work of this proposal is done in mod_split. The blogger generates their syndication file in the usual way and

Implementation

Implementation can be done along the lines of mod_gzip. The module will have to have some light understanding of syndication formats (in particular, how to understand how dates impact items). This is slightly problematic as there are three major competing file formats (RSS, RDF and ATOM) but fortunately they are all XML applications.

Served files could be post-processed by mod_gzip or gzip compression could be done within this module.

The Numbers

We compare here the original feed (with originally "Entries" number of entries) cut down to only having the two latest entries. All sizes are in bytes. The "Super" column shows the difference between the original full text feed and a two-entry feed that has been gzipped.
URL Format Full Text Entries Size Size (gzipped) Super
All Partial Ratio All Partial Ratio
Instapundit RDF No 15 9540 3005 31% 2737 811 30% 9%
Teledyn RDF No 15 9300 2899 31% 2646 906 34% 10%
Adam Curry RSS Yes 25 28769 2361 8% 9143 935 10% 3%
Ranting and Roaring RSS No 15 8086 1523 19% 2620 711 27% 9%

Benefits

The amount of data transferred is reduced by 70-90% (obviously depending on how often the syndication feed is modified and how often it is polled). If the server is not already using mod_gzip, this savings could be increased by up to 97%!

This method can lightly punish aggregators that do not use If-Modified-Since by only sending back one or two entries (or whatever) if the If-Modified-Since field is not present.

Syndication feeds could keep many more entries – say up to a week – without bandwidth impact. This would be great for aggregators that only want to poll every few days, since they would not have to worry about losing entries. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: teledyn EMAIL: garym@teledyn.com IP: 207.61.5.143 URL: http://www.teledyn.com/mt/ DATE: 05/03/2004 08:56:56 PM Very interesting, and what I especially like about your approach is that you can fix the broken readers by doing their job for them, and do it before the bits leave my metered pipe. But I wonder if it could scale for a webhost like TypePad or even my own Superb.net account -- given a host with several thousand blogs (like Userland or LiveJournal) you would need to compute the RSS on the fly extracting the required new-XML from the base file on-demand as each request came in. That sounds like an escalating CPU overhead. Also, since quests are cued by the If-Modified-Since, and considering already most readers do not follow the existing RFC 2616 rules, how could we have any assurance they follow this one? And what about the readers that use ETag? It's also not an option for my situation because I am on a webhosting shared with 200 other sites; the webhost company does not, as a rule, use 3rd-party modules, and even getting a particular apache-certified module added is a long lobbying process. For example, a lot of my own problems could be alleviated (not cured) by mod_gzip, but adding the burden of supporting this is out of the question for my webhost shop. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/04/2004 12:21:54 AM My instinct is that it will scale fairly well. (1) CPU Impact Consider a blog that updates 10 times a day and the archive holds 20 articles. You only need to parse the document once per update and make a table of time-dependent components (for example, as a sequence of lseek locations + lengths). I've already done this part using Expat and it's pretty well instantaneous. We lazy create and cache the "split" documents so the load is spread over time and no unnecessary work is done. Let's say including the GZIP operation (and I'm fairly sure we want to build the GZIP into it) this takes about a half of a second total CPU time (GZIPing my "index.rdf" took 0.02 user seconds on my laptop). So that's about 5 CPU seconds per day per blog or on a system that hosts 1000 blogs, about 5000 seconds in total (assuming perfect caching and _vigorous_ use of all the blogs). That's not great but it's not bad either. How much memory? Let's say it's 1Kb of memory + 1Kb per entry = 1 + sum(1, 20) = 210Kb memory when fully rolled out. With 1000 blogs, that 210Mb. Again, not great but managable, especially with virtual memory. Over 1000 blogs, we'd probably have to talk about caching to disk. CPU definitely starts becoming an issue over 2000 blogs. (2) ETag I'm pretty sure that all blogs that use ETags must use If-Modified-Since. An assumption on my part (3) Readers and RFC 2616 Readers have to be no more compliant than they already, with the caveat that users will be punished for not If- Modified-Since usage by not necessarily getting complete updates. It's time upgade to something good (i.e. http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com)! (4) Webhosting sites adoption There's not much we can do here, except to hope that appeals to using less bandwidth appeal to them! I'm surprised that mod_gzip is not part of base Apache, to tell you the truth! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Synchronization is good, real good STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 05/05/2004 02:34:36 AM ----- BODY:

I just posted an article to Ranting and Roaring about why your aggregator needs synchronization. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: RSS and email STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 05/05/2004 02:41:16 AM ----- BODY:

John Udel writes:

A favorite example of mine is RSS. It's an inherently opt-in, spam-free channel of communication that can replace certain of email's most broken functions: broadcast newsletters, notifications. But, as NewsGator shows us, RSS can still look and feel like email to the user.

It's my dream that someday I'll make email look and feel like RSS to the user. And hopefully this is going to happen sooner than later! From a posting point of view e-mail is great: everyone has it and everyone knows how to use it. But from a reading point of view, does anyone really like the e-mail interface? How come I can skip about 2000 blog entries a day but most people are choking when they get more than 50 e-mails?

That's why Jäger is a one pane blog reader: to minimize the cruft so you can concentrate on the reading. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: 'Less is More' STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 05/05/2004 10:16:55 AM ----- BODY:

There's a nice review of Jäger by Neil Bartlett over on Digital Annealing:

For several months now I've been using BlogMatrix Jäger to read blogs. This is a record length of time for me to use any RSS or blog aggregator. I normally toss them by the end of the first month.

This one's a keeper.

Over the years, I think I've tried them all: RSS Aggregator, FeederReader et al. The problem has always been that none of them fit how I want to read blogs: they consumed a lot of screen real-estate or they made it relatively tricky to add blogs or worst of all they would pop-up and interfere with my work when I wasn't using them. Finally, here is one that is useful and doesn't get in the way. I use it everyday. It saves me a boat load of time and is very simple to use - just drag and drop to add a blog - and it doesn't consume vast screen real-estate.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Coming in Jäger 1.2: Filters STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 05/06/2004 09:44:00 PM ----- BODY:

Previous in this series of posts about the next version of Jäger (the Beta will probably be available next weekend):

Filters

Every weblog now has a "filter" associated with it. By default, this filter will keep all the entries in a weblog: i.e. effectively do nothing. The filter can be modified to (for example) automatically keep only entries that match a certain phrase, or conversely, dispose of all entries that match that phrase.

The same filter can be shared among multiple weblogs.

Rationale

There's two basic reasons that you'd want to use a filter:

  1. There's a weblog or news source you like to read, but certain posts do not interest you.
  2. There's a weblog or news source you like to read, but certain only certain posts interest you.
How to get to there
  • Select a weblog in the Main Window
  • Select Actions > Weblog Settings...
  • Select the Filters Panel.
What it looks like

There are two "rules" in this filter. Each rule is checked sequentially (from top to bottom) to see if it matches each entry being added to the blog. The default rule is always the last listed and always matches: i.e. it determines what to do if no other rules match. In this case, it says "Dispose": throw away the the entry.

The first rule says "If the word 'Iraq' appears anywhere in the entry, it matches". If it matches, "Keep" the entry.

Thus, this filter disposes of all entries in this blog unless they are about Iraq (one can easily see doing the opposite, by flipping the Keep and Dispose rules!)

The details
  • Add new rules by pressing the "Add" button; remove them with the "Remove" button. The default rule can never be removed.
  • Double-clicking on the rule allows you to edit it. You can also change the "Where", and "Action" parts by right-clicking on the items; and you can change the "Where" by slowly double-clicking on the text.
  • The "Where" defines where to check in the entry's Title, Body (contents) or in everything for matches.
  • The "How" defines how the matching is going to work. It can be "match every word", "match any word", "match the exact phrase" or one of two special rules "match using a 'glob' expression" or a "match using a regular expression".
  • The action defines whether to "Keep" or "Dispose" of the item if there's a match.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pete EMAIL: pete@holidian.com IP: 68.62.114.241 URL: http://www.peteholiday.com DATE: 05/13/2004 02:46:57 AM Not on the topic of filters (though those look neat, too): What would be neat (for me, and maybe only me) is an "Always on top" feature -- the reason I say that is because I keep my bookmarks in the sidebar of my browser, so if I want to see the app at the same time as my browser, I have to let Jager resize my browser window... which makes the window very small unless I close the bookmarks. I always just reopen them after I'm done with Jager, but if it was always on top, I could just set it to pop up over my bookmarks. PERFECT! ...but maybe that's just me. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/13/2004 10:50:16 AM View > Keep on Top? ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger reviewed by About.com STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 05/13/2004 12:33:13 AM ----- BODY:

Jäger got a very nice review (4 out 5 stars) at About.com from Heinz Tschabitscher.

If you're hunting for interesting news and opinions, a RSS feed reader that emulates an email client with three panes and pretty item rendering may an unnecessary middleman, an obstacle almost, rather than a tool to propel your efficiency. BlogMatrix Jäger concentrates on the essential task: it displays the latest headlines fast, ready to get the full story on the web. It's a lot faster than visiting the individual news sites and blogs to check for new stories manually, but for a certain class of users BlogMatrix Jäger is also faster than other RSS feed readers.

The intro has a little fact I wasn't aware of:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.0 - Hungry Hunter's Feeds
In Austria, Switzerland, Germany and parts of Italy, a (Land-)Jäger is a sausage -- a mini salami that doesn't really taste like salami at all. Some people love it, and some don't. BlogMatrix Jäger is an RSS feed reader, but maybe it is not like the RSS feed readers you know at all. Some people will love it, and some maybe won't.

Note that the upcoming 1.1/1.2 release has features will cover most of the Cons in About.com's review. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: We're working on that last star! URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_05.html#002653 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 05/13/2004 12:39:33 AM Jäger got a very nice review (4 out 5 stars) from About.com! Read more... BlogMatrix makes a terrific blog reader for Windows called Jäger. It takes less than two minutes to get started, is free to try and will... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Mailing Lists and Usenet Newsgroups STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 05/15/2004 01:45:39 PM ----- BODY:

In my few idle fleeting moments, I have to say I've been thinking about the problem of RSSifying (or Atomizing, if you prefer) Usenet newsgroup feeds and Mailing lists. Google just released a beta set of Atom feeds for Google Groups (for example, comp.lang.python), which is very neat but (I suspect) only marginally useful.

Laughing Meme has thoughts also here and here. A lot of tool support will be needed to make this really useful. Expect to hear more from us in the future about this. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: More on Mailing Lists and Usenet Newsgroups STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 05/15/2004 02:12:41 PM ----- BODY:

I can't leave it at that. Here's the problem with Usenet, from an syndication/blog reader perspective:

  • Individual posts are "firehose". They just keep coming and coming.
  • Topics (i.e. collections of related posts) are almost as bad.
  • Topics wander off topic (usually degenerating to personal insults and Godwin's law type verifiers).
  • Spam, spam, spam.
  • Only a very small percentage of posts/topics will even marginally interest you, uinless you're a real sucker for punishment.
  • Spam, spam, spam.

Generally, we can sum this up by saying this is the "needle in the haystack" problem. How much time are you, the reader, willing to spending tossing straw to find that one needle of information that might be of interest. I think this problem is crackable, but I don't think just feeds of posts or topics will solve the problem. Threading information in the post will, if the readers can take advantage of it. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pete EMAIL: pete@holidian.com IP: 68.62.114.241 URL: http://www.peteholiday.com DATE: 05/15/2004 05:14:30 PM Personally I'm more interested in listserve "feeds" -- but the other problem that came to mind with newsgroups is that, often times, simple filters probably wouldn't help much. A person could probably work up a complex set of them that would help, but from my recent forays into newsgroups it seems that the signal to noise ratio is VERY low. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/15/2004 06:46:14 PM Yes, Listserv feeds -- or more, generally speaking, conversion of POP3 mailboxes. Usenet has a lot of junk, no doubt. I think it's doable -- especially with some support on the reader side for filtering. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: What's missing from Jäger 1.1 (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/15/2004 10:02:50 PM ----- BODY:

A few little caveats in case you're thinking about trying the upcoming Jäger 1.1 (Beta).

  • "Help" is not hooked up for any of the new dialog panels. Since there's a lot of new functionality, you may have to do a little figuring of things out on your on. Feel free to mail us questions!
  • Enclosure/Attachment downloading. You can set up automated dialogs, via the download list and so forth
  • Regular Expressions and "Glob" Expressions don't work in Watch Lists and Filters. The implementation of other filters is not quite correct yet (e.g. looking for the word "the" will also match "theology"). This isn't a huge problem in most cases.
  • I did a major re-implementation of the main list (so that, for example, Watched entries are always displayed if they're new) this morning. It's working fine, but it may be a little slow. Tell me if you hate it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Preparing for Jäger 1.1 (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/15/2004 10:07:09 PM ----- BODY:

There's two important things you must know/do if your considering running the 1.1 version of Jäger:

  • Make sure you make a copy of "C:\Documents and Settings\(Your Name)\Application Data\BlogMatrix\Settings.pickle" (on Windows ME: "C:\Windows\Application Data\BlogMatrix\Settings.pickle") — just in case.
  • It's mostly a one way process — you can't go back to version 1.0 unless you restore your "Settings.pickle" you just saved. This isn't a big a problem as you might think, because you won't be wanting to go back: it's frickin' great.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on the Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/15/2004 10:16:49 PM ----- BODY:

It looks like I'm going to have a Macintosh for a few weeks, so look for version 1.2 to be on the Mac too. That is, assuming that certain problems that have so far proved to be intractable are indeed solvable. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: What's in Jäger 1.1 (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/15/2004 10:57:54 PM ----- BODY:

Here's what you can look forward to in tomorrow's (fingers crossed) release of Jäger 1.1 (Beta).

  • A new look for the main list with icons (as appropriate) and a more readable (but not bigger) font.
  • A "Favorite Weblogs" List, similar to the Recently Updated list but only including blogs which you have selected as your favorite. (More here).
  • "Watch Lists": you can monitor on a global (all blogs) or local (for a specific blog) basis blogs for "keywords". If the watch words are found, the entry is specially marked. I'm very excited about this feature as it basically gives you Google News on your desktop (too bad I can't trademark that phrase!)
    • Mousing over the mark will show you exactly why it was marked
    • Marked items will be shown on the Recently Updated and Favorite Weblog Lists past the normal limit of 5 items (I know this is not entirely clear, but it'll be obvious when you see it)
    • You can set blogs only to show marked items. This is great for newspapers where you may only be interested in a few topic.

  • Automatic filtering of feeds, to select (or reject) entries based on words, phrases or regular expressions. This is handy if you want to follow certain blogs only when they are covering a certain topic, or don't want to see entries about a certain topic. Read more here.
  • Support for attachments (a/k/a RSS 2 enclosures), including automated downloading. Read more here (this isn't quite working yet!)
  • "Hidden" weblogs -- these will not be exported in OPML or HTML blogrolls
  • Automatic translation of foreign language weblogs! This is very handy for following news in other countries, and I suspect it will be very useful for non-English speakers wanting to follow some of the top English language blogs. (You can manually do translations now by "Actions > Tools > Translate")
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.0.4 now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 05/16/2004 06:24:47 PM ----- BODY:

I've just replaced the production version of Jäger with version 1.0.4 which fixes one very nasty bug: you could not shut down your computer with previous versions without explicitly stopping Jäger. This version now detects the logoff/shutdown message from Windows and does the right thing.

Update: I wasn't very happy with this version, so I've backed off to version 1.0.3. If you really need the shutdown fix, 1.0.4 is here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Light & Dark EMAIL: lightanddark@canada.com IP: 24.244.15.79 URL: http://lightanddark.typepad.com DATE: 05/17/2004 12:33:28 AM Aha!!!! I just last night figured out that was what was causing my shutdown burp, but hadn't had time to email. Thanks for the fix. Looks like I'll be parting with my $10. Great job. Keep up the awesome development! Paul ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Darren EMAIL: darren.turpin@midas.org.uk IP: 213.55.10.101 URL: http://www.thelienonline.net DATE: 05/17/2004 08:52:16 AM Cheers David - very speedy response indeed there... :) ----- PING: TITLE: New versions of Jäger URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_05.html#002669 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 05/16/2004 08:26:49 PM A new version of the official Jäger 1.0 release is available, and for you brave types I'm pleased to introduce the Jäger 1.1 (Beta) version. BlogMatrix makes a terrific blog reader for Windows called Jäger. It takes less than... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.1.0 (Beta) now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 05/16/2004 08:18:37 PM ----- BODY:

For you adventurous souls, Jäger 1.1.0 (Beta) is now available! Quite frankly, if you're comfortable with your Windows system I'd go with this version over the 1.0 version. I use it exclusively.

Remember to read these posts first:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pete EMAIL: pete@holidian.com IP: 68.62.114.241 URL: http://www.peteholiday.com DATE: 05/17/2004 03:59:07 PM Maybe this is expected behavior, but it struck me as odd: If you have the favorite's list up, and choose to skip a category, it skips not only the "favorites" that are in that category, but also the blogs in the "Recently Updated" list in that category as well. That seems a little counter-intuitive. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/17/2004 04:34:17 PM Definitely a bug -- I'll check it out. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pete EMAIL: pete@holidian.com IP: 68.62.114.241 URL: http://www.peteholiday.com DATE: 05/18/2004 04:26:03 AM I'm not sure where to put "wishlist" type comments (although last time I posted one publicly, I was embarrassed to find that it was already in the program) so here goes -- So I have several blogs on my list run by people who don't care about syndication, and whose blogs don't really conform well to any of the methods you have for determining new content. But I had an idea... What about a custom check? For example, one particular site I read has <span class="journalTitle">TITLE HERE</span>, I could whip up a regular expression to return a list of titles from her page, if that were an option. That might allow for some more advanced checks. Hopefully that wasn't confusing. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Light & Dark EMAIL: lightanddark@canada.com IP: 24.244.15.79 URL: http://lightanddark.typepad.com DATE: 05/19/2004 01:23:52 AM David: I'd been having the 'unable to shutdown' problem, and instead of just using 1.04 I decided to try the Beta 1.1 I love the new functionality and especially appreciate the font change. Unfortunately though, I still have the 'unable to shut down' problem after upgrade. Did I miss something, or is this something that can be tweaked in the beta? If not, can I just regress to 1.05 and drop my backed-up pickle file into the new install to maintian my settings? Thanks; Paul ----- PING: TITLE: New versions of Jäger URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_05.html#002669 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 05/16/2004 08:26:50 PM A new version of the official Jäger 1.0 release is available, and for you brave types I'm pleased to introduce the Jäger 1.1 (Beta) version. BlogMatrix makes a terrific blog reader for Windows called Jäger. It takes less than... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.0.5 now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 05/18/2004 11:07:53 AM ----- BODY:

This version shuts down correctly and the Close button works correctly too. Upgrade if you're having problems logging off your computer. Get it here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.1 (Beta) Bug? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features and Bugs CATEGORY: Features and Bugs DATE: 05/18/2004 11:11:26 AM ----- BODY:

If you can't start Jäger 1.1 (Beta) and there is an error log produced in "BlogJaeger.exe.log" and this error message is: 

ManagerConfig.ConfigLoad: caught exception
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "GenericManagerConfig.pyc", line 67, in ConfigLoad
EOFError

Please:

  • Send me a copy of your "Settings.pickle" file
  • Try it again to see if it fails again
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Listed STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 05/18/2004 05:37:32 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger has finally been listed on DMOZ. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.1 (Beta) Bug! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 05/19/2004 01:05:08 PM ----- BODY:

At this point, I'd recommend not installing the Beta. I'll have a new version tonight that should fix up a few problems people have been having. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Webjay no longer uses RSS 2.0 Enclosures STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/19/2004 08:14:02 PM ----- BODY:

Lucas Gonze writes me to say that Webjay no longer supports RSS 2.0 enclosures (previously written about here).

I'll have to think some more about the implications of these points. I'll have to say that on the receiving end I was more worried about this being a conduit for viruses, running down the user's disk space, chewing up bandwidth, or being used as a method of remote attack. The plan is still for 1.1/1.2 to support RSS 2.0 enclosures. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Lucas Gonze EMAIL: lucas@gonze.com IP: 65.94.229.110 URL: http://gonze.com DATE: 05/19/2004 09:30:50 PM I think the thing to do is figure out the various things that can go wrong and find solutions. For example, the problem of slashdotting (or enclosure-dotting) hosts would be a non-issue for bittorrrents. Like I said in my blog post, I still believe in the vision, I just don't think this solution is ready for prime time. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/19/2004 10:42:54 PM Well, hopefully Jäger will bring us further down that path of experience. This is one of the main problems I find with RSS -- the "outlyer" parts of the spec are formed from thought/theory rather than practice. I'm very interested in merging in the BitTorrent stuff, though it's a future project. Too much on the plate right now for sure. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Andrew Grumet EMAIL: aegrumet@alum.mit.edu IP: 146.115.120.81 URL: http://www.grumet.net/weblog/ DATE: 05/23/2004 10:32:34 PM As a user I'd very much like to see the aggregators get smarter w/respect to disk space. I'd like to be able to tell my aggregator, "use at most 10GB for enclosure downloads, delete anything more than 7 days old, and notify me when the alotted space has filled up with content less than 7 days old". As a developer I think the aggregator is the right place to address this issue, and perhaps some of the others, as well. Is there a place, e.g. irc chatroom or email list, where you guys talk about this stuff, or is it mainly in the blogs (which I will follow now)? ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Watch Lists STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 05/19/2004 11:59:43 PM ----- BODY:

One of the latest features of 1.1 that I'm quite pleased with is the "Watch List". Watch Lists let you look for certain words or phrases (and soon, for links) in weblogs and news sources. When they are found, they get specially marked in Jäger's main window with the colour of your choice.

For example, let's say you're interested in news on the Iraq war. Besides all the blogs writing about this topic, there's also a large number of news sources: CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and so forth. As fast as Jäger is at sorting through information, it's still quite a lot to ask for you to find all the messages.

Jäger offers a solution. Simply do "Actions > Watch List > Global" and enter (for example)

Bremmer "Abu Ghraib" Tikrit "al Sadr" Iraq*

From this point on, entries having any of those words will be marked. The quoted expressions have to be matched together (i.e. "Sadr" will not match "al Sadr"). "Iraq*" means match any word that begins with "Iraq" (i.e. "Iraqi" matches too).

You don't have to do watches on all weblogs (the so-called "Global Watch List"). You can also set watches on a per-Category or even per-Weblog basis.

Normally (if you have View > Recently > Show a Few Entries set) you will only get the five most recent weblog entries listed, followed by a "Show More Entries" link. However, Jäger will _always_ keep those entries listed past the normal 5 limit. Thus, there's no worry about missing interesting articles just because too much news has arrived since the last time you checked.

If you really only want to see Watched items, simply select the weblog and do "Actions > Mark as > List only Watched Entries".

One more thing to note: Watching only applies to _new_ entries being added. Existing entries are not affected by the Watch List (sorry!) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.1.1 (Beta) Changes STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 05/20/2004 12:22:07 AM ----- BODY:

The following items are changed/fixed in the upcoming (in the next hour) version of Jäger:

  • Watch Lists now work on Categories and are accessable through the Actions menu (rather than the File menu)
  • The "How" part of the Watch Lists (and Filters) has been simplified. There is now only "Find All Words" or "Find All Expressions"
  • Watch List searching is much more powerful, as outlined here.
  • Bug fix: If a blog is marked "Show Watched Entries Only" and there are no watched entries, it will not get listed
  • Bug fix: When you "Skip" a category and the Favorites are displayed, only the blogs in the list you are looking at are actually skipped.
  • A backup copy of your "Settings.pickle" file is made every day, in case of major errors. The next version of the Beta will recover automatically when errors are detected!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.1.1 (Beta) Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 05/20/2004 12:32:23 AM ----- BODY:

Here. I'd recommend upgrading if you're using the current 1.1 beta or if you're feeling adventurous. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Michael Blowhard EMAIL: spam@nospam.com IP: 207.237.249.65 URL: http://www.2blowhards.com DATE: 05/20/2004 01:18:40 PM Hey, the referrers list at my blog is full of referrers from you. Since I don't see any links to my blog from your blog, can I take it that you're spamming people's referrers ("last 50 referrers") functions. I find it a pain. Would you take me off your list? Thanks. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/20/2004 01:33:56 PM We're not spamming anyone's referrer logs. This is people reading your blog using Jaeger. I'm following the same principle that Technorati is. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Referrer Spam STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 05/20/2004 02:09:06 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger 1.1.1 (Beta) adds the HTTP header "Referer: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com". This has p.o.-ed these fine folks and I'm interested in your opinion on this.

The reason I'm doing it is:

  1. Other companies in this "space" are: in particular, Technorati and NetNewsWire, Kinja (and others).
  2. It reflects real usage of your RSS feed. This is not "us" hitting your site, this is a user out there who is actually fetching your RSS feed.
  3. Advertising, obviously.

On the other hand, it's not really de-jure standards compliant (though it may be de-facto now). There's three things I could do:

  1. Keep it as it is (http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com)
  2. Change it to a special page explaining why this link is here (http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/users, for example).
  3. Get rid of it all together. See here, here and here.

The last option is not very appealing to me, because as I said everyone else in this space is doing it also. On the other hand, I don't want you all hating our guts. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pete EMAIL: pete@holidian.com IP: 68.62.114.241 URL: http://www.peteholiday.com DATE: 05/20/2004 04:00:50 PM My $0.02: Personally, as someone who's a little anal about stats, this is annoying. I hadn't noticed it with Jager because I don't track stats on my RSS feeds very closely. Personally, I prefer the method of adding it to the user agent as opposed to the referer field, as that's a more accurate representation of what's really going on and it's still a field that people check, though admittedly not as frequently. Maybe an option to turn this on or off would be a compromise? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/20/2004 04:12:32 PM Well, it could be turned on or off on a per-user basis, but that wouldn't really solve the probably once there's lots and lots of users! If I had more disk space and time, I'd let users publish their OPML files to a central server and then use that as a referrer. An idea for the future. The think is that I'm not spamming the user's main page; I'm downloading (and using) their RSS feed. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pete EMAIL: pete@holidian.com IP: 130.160.62.243 URL: http://www.peteholiday.com DATE: 05/20/2004 06:13:30 PM Valid point, that you're not getting main pages, just the RSS -- but the program is also not being "referred" from jager's main page... one point for, on point against, I think. Changing it to a page that is clear (based on the URL) that it's a news reader and not a followed link would be good. That way people can differentiate between you linking them on your blog/site/etc and the program picking up the stuff. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark Paschal EMAIL: markpasc@markpasc.org IP: 65.75.180.232 URL: http://markpasc.org/ DATE: 05/20/2004 07:05:34 PM I guess you know my answer already. :) To summarize the reasoning behind not putting the app's link in Referer: that's what User-Agent is for. I can aggregate hits from such clients into one "RSS aggregators" referrer group, but I already know those are aggregator hits because they're for my feeds. The Referer doesn't supply any data I didn't already have, and confuses my referrer records (especially clients like AmphetaDesk that use user-provided home page URLs). I wouldn't think polluting folks' referrer logs is good advertising. But maybe that's just me. Thanks for the link. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Vicki Smith EMAIL: NOSPAMcalgal@myway.com IP: 24.64.20.111 URL: http://calgal.motime.com DATE: 05/21/2004 02:07:41 PM I'd prefer to see it as the user agent. having it as the referrer makes my logs/stats less useful to me. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark EMAIL: comments@wickens.ca IP: 65.49.93.104 URL: http://wickens.ca DATE: 05/23/2004 01:07:00 PM Hi David. Great looking app. you have. Congrats and good luck with it. But I vote for getting rid of the referrer. Dunno the fine points of the standards, but I expect to be able to click on a referrer and see a page with a link to my site. If I don't see that, I consider it spam. It helps me in no way to see the Jäger link appear in my referrer logs every half hour. In fact, it makes life more difficult for me. It messes up stats, and real referrers scroll off my most-recent list faster. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: More on referrers STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 05/22/2004 12:23:27 PM ----- BODY:

Three things that have sealed the deal for me on whether I'm going to use the referrer field.

  1. These two posts — here and here, they key phrase being "The key lesson here is that you shouldn't be messing with the viral aspect of your product".
  2. Doc Searl's referrer logs. Note the presence of Technorati's home page, NetNewsWire and Radio Userland. Sorry, I don't have one thousandth the budget of Dave Sifry or John Robb: they define the playing field and if they're going to use it, so are the other players.

Since I've added Jäger to the referrer field, hits and downloads have had a substantial increase. If Jäger's showing up in your referrers a lot, it's because a lot of people are hitting your site with it. Note that the vast number of these hits are probably adding very little load to your server, since Jäger is very well behaved with regards to If-Modified-Since and ETags.

The referrer page will link to '/user', a page that will explain what Jäger is. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark EMAIL: comments@wickens.ca IP: 65.49.93.104 URL: http://wickens.ca/ DATE: 05/23/2004 01:21:38 PM Oh, I see I'm too late with my advice. Still have to disagree. (And I thought Marc Canter's point was the importance of NOT annoying potential paying customers.) Too bad the stats software people can't handle things better so that at least the hits which involve no real data transfer don't get logged the same as all the rest. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Marc Canter EMAIL: marc@broadbandmechanics.com IP: 67.100.91.193 URL: http://blogs.it/0100198 DATE: 05/23/2004 08:48:34 PM Well I have to admit I got here via my Technorati watchlist. Not sure what I found though. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Ringnalda EMAIL: philringnalda@gmail.com IP: 12.45.57.196 URL: http://philringnalda.com DATE: 05/23/2004 11:51:14 PM I don't think Doc's referer log was the best one to choose: how about Wes Felter's [1]? I think that better shows the company that you are choosing to keep: Radio, Manila, really old copies of NNW (Brent stopped abusing referrer in February 2003), and teen-anal-rape.internationalmastergardener.com, pissing-picture.com, and free-pantyhose-sex-pics-pantyhose-hardcore-sex-gallery.com. Do you really want spamvertising that badly? Hey, RSS 2.0 has a comments element that tells you where to find the comments for an element, and usually there's a form as well, and I've got a copy of FloodMT that does pretty effective automatic posting to Movable Type comments: how about we wire that up so that every time someone reads an item, it leaves a comment saying "Hey! I read this item in Jäger, from http://jager.blogmatrix.com - quite simply, the fastest and easiest tool available for reading weblogs and news." That's not quite enough, though, is it? Feeds have several elements where you can find email addresses: how about sending them a reminder, say once a day, just to let them know that you are reading their feed, in Jäger. BTW, I know quite a few people who have gotten so sick of referers like those above that they've started running scripts against their log files once a day, to automatically ban requests with a referer that looks like spam. Is getting your spamvertising worth the support headache, once people start asking why they get a 403 Forbidden with Jäger, but not with other readers? [1] http://wmf.editthispage.com/stats/referers ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 05/24/2004 12:35:32 AM Hmmmm. Excellent points, I have to say all. I shall ponder all deeply over night before I release the next version. The 403 argument is particularly persuasive :-0 ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.1.2 (Beta) Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 05/24/2004 11:35:04 AM ----- BODY:

It can be downloaded here:

Major changes:

  • We've removed Jäger from the Referer field. Due to popular demand.
  • Refreshing the main list is much more efficient.
  • Help is almost ready.
  • We've added a "Watch List Wizard". Here's how to try it: select a phrase in a blog you're reading and drag it over to Jäger. There's some issues if that selected phrase has a URL in it; hopefully we'll have this fixed for the next release.




  • We've add an extra step to the Add Weblog Wizard if syndication feeds cannot be discovered. Try dragging F1 Racing.net onto Jäger.

The next release will focus on getting downloading and attachments working, and maybe one or two tiny more features. If all things go well, we may get 1.2 out the door a week early. Cross your fingers. Documentation will drag a little on this version, because I want to put more effort into getting a Macintosh version working and on to marketing. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bryant EMAIL: durrell@innocence.com IP: 66.58.65.146 URL: http://popone.innocence.com/ DATE: 05/25/2004 01:26:02 PM Thanks! I appreciate the referer decision. I'll keep an eye out for the Mac version. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger found it STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 05/25/2004 12:04:55 AM ----- BODY:

There's no need to look for this if you're using Jäger. Whenever you see a website you like, just drag the link over to Jäger's window and it will do the rest — it even works with "Not my Boss" Ross' website.

More seriously: syndication feeds are something users shouldn't even need to know about. They're just a channel of metadata about what you're looking at.

Free idea for the Blogware people: a template validator, that ensures all the things that should be there actually are. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2 News STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/28/2004 01:17:26 AM ----- BODY:

I've decided to drop RSS enclosure support from the 1.2 release of Jäger since I no longer have a good reliable source for attachments now that Webjay has dropped support for it. Not to worry, we'll get it into the next release — the code is 95 written but needs extensive testing.

The good news: the next version (this weekend) will be Release Candidate 1 for 1.2. That is, if we find no more bugs we'll release this version as 1.2, a full two weeks early. I'm finding the features of 1.1/1.2 so compelling, I'd rather everyone had them now. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Coming price increase STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/28/2004 12:09:29 PM ----- BODY:

Just a reminder that the price of Jäger is going up to $15 on Tuesday. You can still get it for $10, so why don't you.

And just in case you were holding off for 1.2 — your license is good for all versions of 1.X, and we don't expect to be moving to 2.X for a long long time (if ever) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger news URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_05.html#002700 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 05/28/2004 10:17:58 PM If you haven't tried Jäger yet, give it a try. Jäger is a "one panel" weblog and news reader that sits along side your browser and assists in blog reading. Next month — i.e. Tuesday — the price is... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Does Jäger install any AdWare/SpyWare, etc.? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 05/29/2004 10:03:12 AM ----- BODY:

Absolutely not!

However, the first time it downloads the standard list of blogs, it sends your hostname (without domain) and a randomly assigned number with the URL request. This is not enough information to indentify you in any way excepting if you come back to buy Jäger in the future. We don't track your usage in anyway using this information. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Adware URL: http://www.AdwareReport.com/mt/archives/000032.html IP: 66.36.242.229 BLOG NAME: Adware Report DATE: 09/13/2004 07:35:26 PM Adware is any software application in which advertising banners are displayed while the program is running. These applications include additional code that delivers the ads, which appear on pop-up windows or floating toolbars. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Why does Jäger run a HTTP server? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 05/29/2004 10:09:29 AM ----- BODY:

It has a built in HTTP server that runs on port 5335 or 5336. This server can only be accessed from the localhost — i.e. your computer. There's a large number of "extensions" available under the Actions > Tools menu that use this server. It also makes Jaeger work with "Coffee Mug" subscriptions.

[ Original question: When activating, ZoneAlarm reports Jaeger is asking permission to operate as a Server: Why? ] ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Complete List of Jäger Features STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/30/2004 11:53:52 AM ----- BODY:

Entries with a "*" are new to 1.2. I'll probably be editing this entry somewhat over the next week.

  • Syndication formats supported – syndication allows Jäger to efficiently find out what exactly has been changed on a webpage.
    • Atom
    • RSS .9
    • RSS/RDF 1
    • RSS 2
  • Syndication alternatives – for sites that don’t have syndication feeds:
    • Find changes in links
    • Find changes in links and read the webpage at the link
    • Look for content changes:
      • By HTTP If-Modified-Since/ETag:
      • By checksum on content
    • Only show page at set time of day
  • Synchronization – run Jäger on different machines and have them all be aware of what’s already been read. Synchronization is done using an FTP server controlled by the user.
  • Three views of your weblogs, individually controllable
    • All Weblogs List – everything that you’re subscribing to
    • Recently Update Weblogs List – things that you haven’t read yet
    • *Favorite Weblogs List – a version of Recently Updated Weblogs that lists only weblogs that have been marked as favorites
  • View Control
    • Number of entries shown
      • Don’t show individual entries of a weblog
      • Show only “some” (5) entries from a weblog
      • Show all entries from a weblog (in the Recently Updated and Favorite Weblog Lists, “all entries” means entries you haven’t seen already)
    • Indicating you have finished reading weblogs:
      • Click again on the Recently Updated or Favorite Weblogs Lists will clear weblogs you have already read (Also: Actions > Skip Read Weblogs)
      • Power user mode: select View > Skip After Reading. When
    • Sorting
      • Sort weblog alphabetically
      • Sort weblogs by update time
    • Categories (see below for a description of Categories)
      • Don’t show categories
      • Only weblogs in the “active” Category – i.e. the most recently double-clicked on
      • Show weblogs in all Categories
    • *Increase or Decrease the size of the font used by Jäger
    • Keep Jäger on top of other windows
  • Categories. Every weblog/news sources belongs to a Category, which allows you to group similar websites together.
    • Change the Category of a weblog by Actions > Categories > (Category)
    • Create new Categories by Actions > Categories > Add Category…
    • Unsubscribe to weblogs in bulk by selecting the Category and doing Actions > Unsubscribe. A dialog will let you select exactly which weblogs you wish to unsubscribe to.
  • Weblog and entry control
    • Unsubscribe to an individual weblog by Actions > Unsubscribe.
    • *Mark a weblog as a “favorite” (Actions > Mark as > Favorite Weblog). Favorite weblogs are displayed
    • *Hide a weblog (Actions > Mark as > Hidden Weblog). Hidden weblogs are not exported to your Blogroll or OPML.
    • Pin a weblog or entry to the Recently Updated/Favorite Weblogs List (Actions > Mark as > Pinned to List). Pinned items stay on these lists even after they have been read.
    • Keep the entries in a weblog listed (Actions > Mark as > Keep Entries Listed). This overrides the View control that says “don’t show entries”.
    • *List only entries that have been found by a Watch List (Actions > Mark as > List only Watched Entries)
  • *Watch Lists – find entries that interest you on a per-weblog, per-category or all-weblog basis (Actions > Watch List)
    • Easy-to-use search format, like certain popular search engines
    • Entries are marked with the color of your choice
    • Creating new Watch List rules is easy with the Watch List Wizard (Actions > Watch List > Watch List Wizard), OR select text in your browser and drag to Jäger
  • *Filters – Remove keyword selected posts, OR only keep keyword selected posts. Actions > Weblog Settings … > Filters
  • OPML
    • Import by dragging OPML link onto Jäger or using Actions > Subscribe…
    • Export by using Actions > Tools > Export Blogroll and OPML
  • Drag and Drop features
    • Subscribe to new weblogs by dragging these types of links onto Jäger.
      • Weblog home page links
      • Syndication feeds – note that Jäger is generally smart enough to figure out where the syndication feed for a weblog is on its own.
      • Individual entry links – Jäger can generally figure out what the home page is from an individual entry link
      • Links of non-weblog pages
    • *Set up a Watch List by dragging text onto Jäger (for example, “Vienna, Austria”, “BlogMatrix Jäger”. Jäger will start a “Watch List Wizard” making it very to create a new Watch List item.
  • Tools
    • Foreign Language Translation
    • Technorati Cosmos
    • Waypath Post Analysis
    • Blogroll and OPML exporting
  • Foreign Language Features
    • Translate pages into another language using Google, AltaVista or Systran
    • *Automatically translate foreign weblogs when viewing
  • Misc.
    • Change titles of weblogs and Categories directly in the list
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on Mac STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/30/2004 12:01:51 PM ----- BODY:

I now have a Mac G4 with 10.3 sitting on the floor of my office. I'm getting a monitor for it tomorrow. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger price increase STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 05/31/2004 11:21:56 AM ----- BODY:

Just a reminder that the price of Jäger is going up to $15 tomorrow, so if you're considering purchasing it, now's a good time to do it. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.1.3 (Beta) Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/01/2004 12:49:54 AM ----- BODY:

A few final bug fixes and feature additions (from here):

  • If you are not using Jäger, it won't pop-up annoyware messages.
  • You can now adjust the size of the font in the main lists from the View menu. Our #1 complaint.
  • Backup files are deleted properly.
  • A small fix was made to the watch list code regular expression compiler that was making partial words match improperly.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.0 for Windows now available! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/03/2004 08:05:30 PM ----- BODY:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Jäger 1.2 for Windows is now available. A complete list of features can be found here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 1.2.0 for Windows now available! URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_06.html#002721 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 06/04/2004 12:38:17 AM We've just released version 1.2 of BlogMatrix Jäger for Windows. If you're already using Jäger, I suggest you upgrade (for free!) at the earliest opportunity; if you haven't tried it yet, well, it only takes two minutes to get... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: DATE: 06/04/2004 01:25:11 AM ----- BODY: 

	import encodings.aliases
	if wxPlatform == '__WXMAC__' :
		encodings.aliases.aliases['native_8'] = 'mac_roman'
	else:
		encodings.aliases.aliases['native_8'] = 'latin_1'
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Programmer's Corner STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/04/2004 09:43:50 PM ----- BODY:

In the spirit of Tucow's The Farm, I'm adding a new section here called the "Programmer's Corner" which will focus on issues related to Python, wxWindows and other technologies used in Jäger. For the next few weeks, I suspect this will mainly be a list of gripes, complaints and work-arounds that I've been compiling porting Jäger to the Macintosh platform. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: wxListCheckBox. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/04/2004 09:57:34 PM ----- BODY:

The method wxListCheckBox.InsertItems() is broken on the Mac. It crashes wxWindows with a Bus Error. I'm working around this with Clear() and Append().

This was the #1 problem getting Jäger to work on OS X version 3. Since I've fixed this it's been relatively clear sailing. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dennis Benzinger EMAIL: Dennis.Benzinger@gmx.net IP: 62.2.194.68 URL: DATE: 09/01/2004 05:43:08 PM My wxPython has no wxListCheckBox, only a wxCheckListBox. Are you talking about that or is my installation missing something? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 70.24.195.35 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 09/01/2004 06:28:58 PM That's what I meant. Sorry. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Default Button Blues STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/04/2004 10:43:08 PM ----- BODY:

I'm trying to get the Button for the active List to be blue on the Macintosh, like the scroll bars on other Mac applications. Here's what I've learned so far about doing this:

  • Don't use "naked" wxFrames: put a wxPanel inside the Frame so that peer components are aware of each other. In particular, wxButton.SetDefault() will un-default the previous default wxButton when they're all inside wxPanels.
  • There doesn't seem to be a way to make a button a "solid" (i.e. translucent) blue, besides making it the default. Unfortunately, this doesn't make it solid/translucent, it makes it a pulsing throbbing entity. Not quite what I'm looking for. Any ideas out there? My suspicion is that wxPython/wxWidgets will have to be extend for this particular case, which opens a whole other case of worms.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Can I turn off the icons? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 06/04/2004 11:19:40 PM ----- BODY:

The little file folder icons are cute, and even mildly useful, but the take up valuable horizontal space. I'd like the option to turn them off.

We'll implement this very soon in a 1.2.X release. We're concentrating on the 1.2 for Macintosh at this second, so it may be up to two weeks before this gets done. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.us DATE: 09/18/2004 05:30:45 AM Did this ever get done? I'd like it. Thanks, ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Control over fonts, colours, etc. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 06/04/2004 11:53:16 PM ----- BODY:

I like being able to choose the text size, and I like the change in fonts. Now I want it *all* ability to control font, size, color, etc., for each of the three (?) (category, site name, topic) menu items.

Right now I'm sticking to the 90% rule, not try to over-option the application (I'm worried that I'm way past this point already!). Chime in folks.... A future version will probably have a deeper configuration settings panel, but I'm not rushing on this. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ***Dave EMAIL: dave@hill-kleerup.org IP: 24.9.235.213 URL: http://www.hill-kleerup.org/blog/ DATE: 06/05/2004 05:14:51 PM As the person who requested it, I'd say it's far from top priority. If there's some good, cruncy "functionality" on tap, this "form" tweak can definitely be secondary. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.us DATE: 09/18/2004 05:44:49 AM I definetely want this, but I admit it is a geek feature (alhough a lot of people like skins) -- but you could just use a CSS stylesheet and let people find it and mod it. I've already done it with the style.css file in www/css/ ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on Mac OS X STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 06/05/2004 02:10:15 PM ----- BODY:

Click on the image. The Mac port is going very well, obviously.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.2 for Macintosh available for testing STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/06/2004 12:32:02 PM ----- BODY:

Well, I've got it working as a standalone application. If you're interested in trying it, send me an email or leave a comment here. There are a few caveats:

  • The Python "bundlebuilder" doesn't deal very well with the internationalized character set, so the application appears as "Jaeger" rather than "Jäger" in some places.
  • I've turned off synchronization on the Mac, for now. The problem is that synchronization passes around "Latin-1" strings, while the Macintosh uses it's own encoding system which is compatible enough just to be dangerous. The solution is fairly obvious, go Unicode, but it'll take a little while to test and debug.
  • I've only built or tried this is on OS 10.3, so I'm not sure how well this will work on 10.2. If you can test this, let me know.
  • It's kinda big: an 8Mb install, which expands to 24Mb

Other than that, it looks great and works. Just open the DMG file and drag Jäger out to wherever you keep your applications (we'll write a better installer later). I've checked out the number brand in this Mac space and I have to say I like Jäger a lot more already. But I'm biased. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Turning wxPython programs into Macintosh applications STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/06/2004 12:35:51 PM ----- BODY:

***UPDATED***: I discovered a raft a problems with this particular approach, so I now have a version that dynamically discovers the libraries and recreates required symbolic links.

On Windows, we used an application called "py2exe" to convert Jäger into a Windows application. On the Macintosh, there's an equivalent program called "bundlebuilder" that ships with wxPython that will do the trick (i.e. make a standalone application that doesn't require the user to install other packages first).

Unfortunately, it's only half-documented and searching around on the Internet only gave vague hints of information. Taking the best script I could find, I played with it till I came up with this: an example of a bundlebuilder script for wxPython on the Macintosh: 

import sys

sys.path.append("../generic")

import bundlebuilder, os

# I set this to make adding subfolders into the package easier
packageroot = "."

# Create the AppBuilder
myapp = bundlebuilder.AppBuilder(verbosity=1)

# Tell it where to find the main script - the one that loads on startup
myapp.mainprogram = os.path.join(packageroot, "BlogJaeger.py")

myapp.standalone = 1
myapp.strip = 1
myapp.verbose = 1
myapp.name = "Jaeger"

# includePackages forces certain packages to be added to the app bundle
myapp.includePackages.append("encodings")

import os
import os.path

wxlib = "/usr/lib/wxPython-2.5.1.5/lib"

#
#	Capture all the library _files_ in wxlib directory
#
used_libs = []
for file in os.listdir(wxlib):
	fullfile = os.path.join(wxlib, file)
	if os.path.isfile(fullfile):
		used_libs.append(fullfile)
		myapp.libs.append(fullfile)
	
# Here we build the app!
myapp.setup()
myapp.build()

#
#	Restore all symbolic links in the packaged Jaeger.app directory
#
destdir = "build/%s.app/Contents/Frameworks" % myapp.name

for file in os.listdir(wxlib):
	fullfile = os.path.join(wxlib, file)
	if os.path.islink(fullfile):
		realpath = os.path.realpath(fullfile)
		if realpath not in used_libs:
			continue

		realhead, realbase = os.path.split(realpath)

		link_src = realbase
		link_dst = os.path.join(destdir, file)

		try: os.remove(link_dst)
		except: pass

		print "SYMBOLIC LINK in '%s': '%s' -> '%s'" % ( destdir, file, realbase )
		os.symlink(link_src, link_dst)

When this is all finished, you end up with a program called "Jaeger.app" in a folder called "build". You can double-click on this from the Finder to launch Jaeger. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John Speno EMAIL: spamfilter@macspeno.com IP: 68.44.150.19 URL: http://pycs.net/users/0000231 DATE: 06/09/2004 03:03:53 AM Nice bundlebuilder script. I'm glad you found the one I did for the MacPython FAQ useful. Take care. ----- PING: TITLE: Notes on wxPython Development for the Mac URL: http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2004/6/8/85087.html IP: 207.178.248.9 BLOG NAME: The Farm: The Tucows Developers' Hangout DATE: 06/09/2004 01:37:36 AM David Janes is developing a pretty nice RSS aggregator called Jäger using Python and wxPython. His initial versions were develop... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Creating Macintosh DMG files STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/06/2004 01:01:48 PM ----- BODY:

Macintosh programs like to be shipped around in a file called "DMG", which I understand to be like a little simulated disk drive. There's an application called "Disk Utilities" in (Applications > Utilities) that will do this for you and it's well described here.

Here's my summary of how to do this:

  • Start Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility from the Finder. I've added mine to the Dock.
  • Press "New Image"
  • Save as "Jaeger" on the Desktop (or whatever), making the size appropriate for your application.
  • Open the volume "Jaeger" on the Desktop
  • Drag "Jaeger.app" into the Finder window
  • Go back to the Disk Utility and select "Jaeger"
  • Select menu item Images > Convert...
  • Save as "Jaeger-###.DMG" on the Desktop with "Image Format" set to "compressed"
  • You're done.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: RSS Comments STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 06/06/2004 08:16:40 PM ----- BODY:

Interesting. Robert Scoble is also using RSS Bandit because it supports comment threading. Comment threading is also supported by SharpReader, which I just installed to see how it works. I have to say I've been thinking about comment threading also, because it makes sense. Here's the system these newsreaders are using.

There's a namespace defined by some group of folks called the Well Formed Web named "xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/". This defines two elements, "comment" and "commentRSS", the later which we're more interested in. The commentRSS element points to another feed URI which contains comments against a particular blog posting.

For example, here's an entry from Microsoft's Channel 9: 

<item>
	<title>Antique Computers</title> 
	<pubDate>Sat, 05 Jun 2004 21:21:07 GMT</pubDate> 
	<link>http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583#9583</link> 
	<dc:creator>jamie</dc:creator> 
	<guid isPermaLink="true">http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583#9583</guid> 
	<description>I just got this Vic20 today at a yard sale for 3 bucks ;)<BR><BR><IMG src="http://www.gnuarts.com/vic.jpg"><BR><BR>to go with my old old Mac:<BR><IMG src="http://www.gnuarts.com/mac.jpg"><BR><BR>Anyone at MS collect old machines?<BR><BR>* Im wondering if i should leave them old and dirty, or clean them all up..<BR></description> 
	<slash:comments>3</slash:comments> 
	<comments>http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583</comments> 
	<wfw:comment>http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583</wfw:comment> 
	<wfw:commentRss>http://channel9.msdn.com/rss.aspx?threadID=9583</wfw:commentRss> 
</item>

The bolded element "http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583" defines an RSS feed for the comments.

Here's the issues I see:

  • This could add a massive number of new feeds to check.
  • We have to add another level of hierarchy to display the elements.
  • Once we've read an item, do we really want to keep redisplaying it every time someone updates the comments
  • How widely supported is this namespace?

One possible solution is just use the "commentRss" feed to detect whether the comments have changed, but don't actually track the individual comments. When there are new comments add an icon that can be clicked on to display the comments page (defined in the "comments" elemenet). Entries will not be redisplayed, but "Pin to List" will keep the comment checking fresh... ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason EMAIL: jasonj@paperlessbusiness.com IP: 206.124.132.18 URL: DATE: 06/15/2004 01:26:27 AM I like this approach. I approve of the idea of comment threading in aggregators, but I really dis-like having a change/addition in the comments of a post cause the post to appear updated/unread. Having an indicator that shows an update to the comments in a post while leaving the post marked read would be ideal in my opinion. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.163.44 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 06/18/2004 04:58:37 AM It looks like you're thinking about having Jäger track every comment on every post; I wonder if you could just make it track comments on posts that the user specifies. That could take care of your first point. On your third point: YES, on certain posts where I'm trying to have conversation, but certainly not on every post. Can't help on the 2nd and 4th. Here's something really weird: I tried to add an individual post to the bloglist in a separate category (Comments), with the URL http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/007794.html and it worked, while on another Movable Type weblog, http://www.jessicaswell.com/MT/archives/001458.html it doesn't work. Really, the ideal thing for me would be if Jager could track individual posts the same way that it tracks weblogs. Like this --> http://www.blogjones.com/Images/Jager.jpg ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Wilson EMAIL: phil@philwilson.org IP: 81.131.166.152 URL: http://philwilson.org/blog DATE: 07/04/2004 06:15:31 PM "The bolded element "http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9583" defines an RSS feed for the comments." er, no it doesn't? It defines an endpoint for the CommentAPI doesn't it? http://channel9.msdn.com/rss.aspx?threadID=9583 defines an RSS feed for the comments on that item. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Blog reader reviews STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 06/06/2004 08:30:58 PM ----- BODY:

Dave Winer is collecting reviews of blog aggregators. If any of you folks love Jäger, I'd appreciate it if you sent in a review! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Should Jäger support cookies? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 06/06/2004 08:36:42 PM ----- BODY:

A VC believes that aggregators need to support cookies so that corporations know who is visiting their feeds. Does anyone have any strong feelings on this either way? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kevin EMAIL: kcmarshall@NOSPAMyahoo.com IP: 65.126.88.225 URL: DATE: 06/07/2004 03:17:34 PM As a user, I don't see what's in it for me. As a developer, I can see the value of built-in authentication for secured feeds but cookies don't seem useful. The state maintenance features of cookies tend to already be built into Jaeger (and most other aggregators) -- things like tracking last-visited, etc. Sounds to me like a VC spewing half-comprehended buzzwords. Kevin ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 06/07/2004 07:58:28 PM I can see the use for it on the feed generator side, though obviously it would be more useful if the cookie was shared with the browser. No matter. It would be an inducement to media outlets to generate feeds, as they could more reasonably understand the size of their audience. That's not to say I plan to do it! :-) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: peter EMAIL: peterwagnerde@gmail.com IP: 200.91.86.33 URL: http://www.topfootballnews.com DATE: 06/08/2004 06:43:01 PM My 2 cents: It would be very helpfull for the "BLOGGING-Industrie" to get more acceptance with things like cookies etc. I don't believe that they are important for the "private diary blog", but to have a connect to the rest of (commercial) world it would. And why not? If you can decide to have "cookie yes/no" - button or like that, there is no reason to say no. Or? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Peter Herndon EMAIL: tpherndon@mindspring.com IP: 140.163.254.129 URL: http://www.phoukka.org DATE: 06/09/2004 04:29:25 PM I don't get it. Cookies are used to maintain state. If corporations want to know who is reading their feeds, all they need do is look at their web server logs. I'm with Kevin, I don't see a valid use for cookies in a newsreader. And for authentication, well, HTTP already has a few different mechanisms for handling that. Cookies don't add anything to that. So far there aren't any news-feed based applications that need state information, Atom gets around that explicitly. I'm having a hard time even imagining a use for cookies in a newsreader. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 06/09/2004 04:39:08 PM Cookies could be used to uniquely identify users in a way that IP addresses cannot. There's really little benefit to the user for cookies except to promote acceptance of syndication on the delivery side. I think "A VC"'s thought is that there'll be ads pumped in the RSS feed. My personal view is syndication is merely a channel for delivering metadata about updates to a website. Your milage may vary. If I was to implement it, it would definitely be possible for the user to turn it off, either permamently or clear the data between sessions. Another thought: how if someone provided password protected channels? If we didn't have cookies, that would be very annoying. On the other hand, I'd have to implement the login protocol too (in the same way HTML pages are protected, I imagine). This is all talking out loud on my part; I've got a lot of fish to fry before I'd consider doing it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matthew EMAIL: obviously@rogers.com IP: 65.49.46.70 URL: DATE: 06/13/2004 03:20:48 AM Sure, but also give me the choice as to disable the cookies when required. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Knowledge Update STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/07/2004 07:59:57 PM ----- BODY:

I've updated Turning wxPython programs into Macintosh applications with recent information I've learned from user installations of Jäger for Macintosh, which is now at version 1.2.2.3. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: wxPython on Macintosh bugs STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/07/2004 08:10:08 PM ----- BODY:

  1. wxListCtrl doesn't always completely refresh. In particular, if it has enough items to display a scroll bar, then the list is cleared and it is repopulated with not enough items to display a scroll bar, it won't refresh above where the selection was. Yeck. Here's the workaround (I'm not sure if the Refresh and Updates are necessary; the EnsureVisible(0) is the trick): 

    self.Freeze()
try:
	if wxPlatform == '__WXMAC__':
		try:
			self.EnsureVisible(0)
			self.Refresh()
			self.Update()
			self.DeleteAllItems()
		except:
			pass
	else:
		self.DeleteAllItems()
		
	# repopulate...
finally:
	self.Thaw()
  2. wxTextCtrl.Clear() doesn't seem to work. This is a place where I'm very fortunate, as I've made a library that takes care of setting and getting values from all the controls, so one change fixed everything. The workaround is: 

    textField.Clear()
if wxPlatform == '__WXMAC__':
	textField.SetValue("")
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: More wxPython bugs on the Mac STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/09/2004 04:32:12 PM ----- BODY:

I'm doing an exceptionally long build here at work, so while I have a few free secs I'll see if I can remember a few of the bugs and problems I've found at home:

  1. wxToggleButton doesn't implement SetValue/GetValue. I looked through the source code and saw that the code is there but they forgot to hook in the Python method calls. They've fixed it for the next version, I understand.
  2. Popup menus makes the EVT_MENU_OPEN event trigger all the way to the top window. I'm not sure if this is a bug, but it doesn't happen on Windows. The net result is that my main menu validator is called when I'm doing a popup, which is undesirable due to the dynamic nature of our menus.
  3. It seems that you can't Check menu items in the "&Help" menu. Nasty nasty nasty.

The last point requires a little explaining. To make your menus compatible with what the Macintosh is expecting, you need to do the following:

  • Name your Help menu "&Help" (I'm not sure how this affects foreign translations)
  • Your preferences menu item should be given wxID_PREFERENCES
  • Your about menu item should be given wxID_ABOUT
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: David Janes' Python Adventures URL: http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2004/6/10/85915.html IP: 207.178.248.9 BLOG NAME: The Farm: The Tucows Developers' Hangout DATE: 06/10/2004 04:01:51 PM

David Janes is driving himself crazy so you don't have to: in the process of building a Mac version of his Python/wxPython-based news aggregator, Jäger, he's managed to bump into a number of annoyan...

----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Encoding and Decoding Python Strings STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/09/2004 07:09:50 PM ----- BODY:

This a repost of this and this from my day blog. I'm just setting up the stage here for a longer post about internationalized characters in Python.

Here's how the encode and decode functions work against (octet/normal) strings and Unicode strings in Python:

  • string.encode(x) converts an octet string, assumed to be in 7-bit ASCII, to another octet string, that can be interpreted as codeset 'x'. This is the weirdo operation: it doesn't really do much except raise exceptions if it has high-bit data.
  • string.decode(x) converts an octet string, assumed to be codeset 'x', to a unicode string.
  • unicode.encode(x) converts a unicode string (which is the universal solvent) into an octet string, that can be interpreted as codeset 'x'.
  • unicode.decode(x) doesn't exist

So: encode(x) always produces octets that can can be interpreted as codeset 'x'; decode(x) reverses the process and converts octets (that are assumed to be in codeset 'x') into a unicode string.

In reality, this is what you'll be doing in your Python programs:

  • When you have octet strings, use "decode" to get the Unicode string.
  • When you have a unicode string, use "encode" to get the octet string.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bob Ippolito EMAIL: bob@redivi.com IP: 64.81.197.34 URL: http://bob.pycs.net/ DATE: 06/09/2004 08:34:52 PM string.encode(x) is assumed to be in whatever codec sys.getdefaultencoding() returns. In practice, this should nearly always be 'ascii', but it's possible by hook and crook to make it something else (though that's not at all recommended, so it's hard to do). I wouldn't necessarily call them octet strings.. just data. In other programming languages, the equivalent of str is called data.. but doesn't give you the "hey, this is text!" conveniences. Someday I hope that unicode becomes the default so people don't f*ck this up so often. I'm sure things are as they are because Python pre-1.6 (IIRC, might not be correct) didn't have unicode support at all. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 06/09/2004 08:40:08 PM Octet's a good telecom word. It's not overloaed with meaning/connotations such as bytes, byte array, data, byte string, etc.. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: 8th bit in Python considered dangerous STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/09/2004 07:20:58 PM ----- BODY:

Python supports two types of strings: "normal" strings, which I'll called "octet strings" from hereon and Unicode strings.

Octets strings are basically arrays of bytes. The meaning of these bytes – how they're displayed in the user's application – is entirely dependent on the "character set" these bytes are encoded in. The character set is not encoded or stored anywhere as metadata: the programmer has to know what it is.

For example, on a Windows machine the character set encoding inside a Python program is assumed to be "latin-1": 

>>> x = "Jäger"
>>> print list(x)
['J', '\xe4', 'g', 'e', 'r']

But a Cygwin shell (running on exactly the same computer) assumes a different character set is in use: 

>>> print x
JΣger

Horrible! But it even gets worse: if we move this same sample to the Macintosh, which uses the character set "mac_roman", we get: 

>>> x = "Jäger"
>>> print list(x)
['J', '\x8a', 'g', 'e', 'r']

I'm going to review that code block at home. It depends on how that file is declared to be encoded and whether a mac_roman editor was used, I think.

I don't use a UTF-8 editor on Windows, which may be the problem. But then if the file is declared UTF-8, how are you guarenteed that the octetization of the string is correct?

It does print correctly on the Mac though, lacking the underlying schizoid nature of Cygwin running on Windows. 

>>> print x
Jäger

Do notice that the ASCII characters – the ones not using the 8th bit all print correctly, independent of the situation.

Unicode strings are different than Octet strings: the meaning of each particular character is fixed. On Windows 

>>> x = u"J\xE4ger"
>>> print list(x)
[u'J', u'\xe4', u'g', u'e', u'r'] 
>>> print x
Jäger

And on the Mac: 

>>> x = u"J\xE4ger"
>>> print list(x)
[u'J', u'\xe4', u'g', u'e', u'r'] 
>>> print x
Jäger

Note leading 'u's on Unicode strings and characters. No points for guessing what they mean.

Here's the hard lesson learned for porting Jaeger from Windows to the Mac: if you need to use non-ASCII characters in Python source code, encode them using Unicode strings without any 8 bit characters. If you need 8-bit representations of the strings, as you often do with wxPython, "encode" them on the spot: 

>>> x = u"J\xE4ger"
>>> lx = x.encode('latin-1')
>>> print list(lx)
['J', '\xe4', 'g', 'e', 'r']
>>> mx = x.encode('mac_roman')
>>> print list(mx)
['J', '\x8a', 'g', 'e', 'r']

In the next posting I'll show you a way to simplify this.

If you don't do this, well it's quite simple: your strings will not port between the Mac and Windows. And this stuff at the top of the file ... 

#!/bin/python
# -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*-

... helps the parsing process (if the encoding was "utf-8", the file would be parsed differently as single characters may be encoded in multiple bytes), but Python (on the Mac at least) doesn't seem to be using it to interpret what strings really means. I.e. it's basically useless.

Update: Bob Ippolito says in the comments that Unicode strings will be parsed correctly according to the file encoding. In this case, we will have a file portability with the 8th bit set if the encoding is set at the top of the python file. Not that if you're using wxPython in 8 bit mode, you still have to encode this down to iso-8859-1 on Windows.

So, in Unicode strings, the 8th bit isn't dangerous if the file encoding is set correctly. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bob Ippolito EMAIL: bob@redivi.com IP: 64.81.197.34 URL: http://bob.pycs.net/ DATE: 06/09/2004 08:42:55 PM Uh.. that's just wrong (this is on a mac): [crack:~/Desktop] bob% python utf8code.py Jägermeister [crack:~/Desktop] bob% python -c "print repr(file('utf8code.py').read())" "#!/bin/python\n# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-\nimport sys, codecs\nsys.stdout = codecs.getwriter('utf8')(sys.stdout)\nsomestring = u'J\xc3\xa4germeister'\nprint somestring" ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 06/09/2004 08:57:14 PM I think this issue is because I brought the code over from Windows, the file read like: #!/bin/python # -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*- .... x = "Jäger" where that string is in "iso-8859-1". Then it changed the "ä" to some other charset. Note that if you don't put UTF-8 at the top of the file, the Mac compiler should get it wrong (I don't have a Mac here to confirm) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bob Ippolito EMAIL: bob@redivi.com IP: 64.81.197.34 URL: http://bob.pycs.net/ DATE: 06/09/2004 09:14:41 PM Uh, no.. that works too. To use your example, I left it as a regular str (in my original, you should notice that it is a unicode string in the source file). In order to pump a regular old str out of sys.stdout you still need to make sure it goes out as utf-8 (because that's the encoding of the terminal in OSX ). Nothing gets "converted" to "some other charset". "x" should contain exactly 'J\xe4germeister', because that is what was declared in the source file. If it was a unicode string, like my first example, it would "do what you mean". [crack:~/Desktop] bob% python latin1code.py Jägermeister [crack:~/Desktop] bob% python -c "print repr(file('latin1code.py').read())" "#!/bin/python\n# -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*-\nimport sys, codecs\nsys.stdout = codecs.getwriter('utf8')(sys.stdout)\nsomestring = 'J\xe4germeister'\nprint somestring.decode('iso-8859-1')\n" ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 06/10/2004 01:01:48 AM But you're doing a decode, which is turning the string explicitly knowning it's charset. I'm not denying that \xe4 is in the string on both platforms, but rather than despite the fact the file is declared as 'iso-8859-1', that string in the file is being interpretted as some other charset on the Mac! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bob Ippolito EMAIL: bob@redivi.com IP: 64.81.197.34 URL: http://bob.pycs.net/ DATE: 06/10/2004 08:20:18 AM You are so confused. A string in quotes without a preceding u is just *raw data*. Nothing happens to it. It's not annotated or modified in any way nomatter how you read in the source code (although it can definitely raise warnings if the file has no declared encoding, it will still parse). When you print something, it goes to stdout, which accepts arbitrary binary data (stdout.write) or text of some encoding (print). The terminal on Mac OS X is a UTF-8 terminal, so anything that goes in or out is should be considered to be UTF-8 encoded, or unexpected things will happen. However, sys.getdefaultencoding() typically returns 'ascii', which means that print will never let you print characters that fit in that codec, and unicode can only be coerced to str if it fits in that codec. Because of this, you need to wrap sys.stdout with a writer that understands that codec of the terminal (sys.stdout = codecs.getwriter('utf8')(sys.stdout)). Since the second example is printing *raw binary data of some other encoding* I needed to decode it. You should *never* use print on a regular str if it's not ascii, you should pretty much always be printing unicode (because it's going to essentially do outstring.decode(sys.getdefaultencoding()) anyway, to verify that your string is not bogus). If it was preceded by a u in the source text, the right thing would've happened, and no decode would be necessary. Unicode strings in source text are decoded as whatever codec the source file is read in as, as I said and demonstrated in the utf-8 example. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: How to do it STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/09/2004 07:36:40 PM ----- BODY:

Here's some code from a Python module I have called "GenericPlatform.py". I'm not proud of this code – it's something of a hack – but it made porting Jäger to the Mac very easy for me without a lot of rewriting.

wxPython expects strings to be in the "native" 8 bit character set. Since I didn't want to make checks for what this character set is all over my code, I just defined my own character set called "native_8": 

called = False
if not called:
	called = True

	import encodings.aliases
	if wxPlatform == '__WXMAC__' :
		encodings.aliases.aliases['native_8'] = 'mac_roman'
	else:
		encodings.aliases.aliases['native_8'] = 'latin_1'

Encoding characters is slightly ugly so I defined a number of helper functions to do this for me: 

from GenericPlatform import _N, _L, _P

When I need a string in the native format: 

	button = wxButton(self, -1, _N(u'J\xE4ger'))

I have a large amount of my data in my database that's in Latin-1 format. If you're storing 8-bit data, try to stick to one character set; if you need more than one, use Unicode. Hell, if I was to do it again I'd just use Unicode strings, so keep that in mind if you're starting a new project.

Anyhoo, here's the rest of my helper code from GenericPlatform. This is great for Windows code going to the Mac. If you're going to Mac to Windows you'll probably want to tweak for what you consider the default string character encoding is: 

#
#	Turn into the native representation
#	- this assumes strings are in Latin-1 and is really for code
#	  level compatibility
#
def _N(s):
	if not s:
		return	""
	elif type(s) == types.UnicodeType:
		return	s.encode('native_8', 'replace')
	else:
		return	s.decode('iso-8859-1').encode('native_8', 'replace')

#
#	Turn into the unicode representation
#	- this assumes strings are in Native-8
#
def _U(u):
	if not u:
		return	u""
	elif type(u) == types.UnicodeType:
		return	u
	else:
		return	u.decode('native_8')

#
#	Turn into the latin-1 representation
#	- this assumes strings are in Native-8
#
def _L(s):
	if not s:
		return	""
	elif type(s) == types.UnicodeType:
		return	s.encode('latin-1', 'replace')
	else:
		return	s.decode('native-8').encode('latin-1', 'replace')
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.3 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/10/2004 01:16:44 AM ----- BODY:

I've released a version 1.2.3 that adds one little extra feature: it greys out items after you've read them. This was implemented in the Macintosh version and was so compelling I decided to immediately back port it to Windows. Enjoy. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Annoying Old Guy EMAIL: aog@thought-mesh.net IP: 12.221.79.231 URL: http://blog.thought-mesh.net DATE: 06/15/2004 01:15:31 PM This feature seems to have been lost in the 1.2.4 version. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 06/15/2004 01:41:27 PM Are you sure? I'm using 1.2.4 right now and it's there. Hmmm. Will check more after work. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Annoying Old Guy EMAIL: aog@thought-mesh.net IP: 64.102.241.5 URL: http://blog.thought-mesh.net DATE: 06/15/2004 06:27:52 PM No, I found the problem. I followed the link from your post on 1.2.4, which takes you to CNet downloads. I didn't notice that the version there was last updated 31 May and (from the About box) appears to be version 1.0. A bit of a nasty trap to leave for your readers... If anyone wants a 1.2 version, click on the "Get it" link at the bottom of the home page. (I'd give you the links but your sanitize spec clears them out) ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Bars and Cars 2004 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 06/10/2004 06:33:13 PM ----- BODY:

I'm off to Montreal to watch the Grand Prix. I'm bringing the laptop with me, but as they say, posting will be light. If possible I will be checking my e-mail but there won't be much support until Monday night at the earliest. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.2.5 for Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/12/2004 03:06:23 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger 1.2.2.5 for Macintosh 10.3 (Beta). Give it a try and tell me what you think. I can't answer anyone's e-mails this weekend but I can read them! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Upgrades to Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/15/2004 12:19:53 AM ----- BODY:

Jäger 1.2.4 for Windows is now available and supports:

Feed redirection is a way of syndication feed providers (i.e. bloggers) of telling you that they've moved their feeds somewhere else – or turned it off altogether. It's useful if a blogger has no control over their server environment.

410 status handling ensures that if HTTP returns a 410 status retrieving a syndication feed, no further checks for updates will be made. The feed is dead. A future version will mark this better.

RSS 2 enclosures allow big files, such as MP3s, videos or BitTorrents to be delivered with syndication feeds, for those that are interested. If you see a little paperclip next a weblog entry, that's a RSS enclosure. You can download or view the attachment by doing either "Actions > Open Attachments" or right-click in the list and select "Open Attachment". ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Annoying Old Guy EMAIL: aog@thought-mesh.net IP: 128.107.253.37 URL: http://blog.thought-mesh.net DATE: 06/15/2004 01:41:55 AM Is there any way to set the update time to a particular value (other than 30 minutes) for all subscribed weblogs? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Randy Charles Morin EMAIL: randy@kbcafe.com IP: 24.43.182.164 URL: http://www.kbcafe.com DATE: 06/15/2004 01:19:29 PM Cool! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dethe Elza EMAIL: delza@blastradius.com IP: 216.13.219.34 URL: http://livingcode.ca/ DATE: 06/16/2004 09:09:04 PM I'm interested in seeing how good a wxWidgets app can look on OS X. I haven't been very impressed with wx in my own tests. When I download the dmg it loads OK, but as I try to copy the application to my Applications folder I get the following error: The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "libwx_base_carbond-2.5.1.0.0.dylib" could not be read or written. (Error code -36). Any ideas why this might be? ----- PING: TITLE: blogmatrix jŠger URL: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001014/2004/06/15.html#a5840 IP: 213.118.44.8 BLOG NAME: Adam Curry's Weblog DATE: 06/15/2004 01:44:31 PM I was surprised to find that a new aggregator Dave pointed to is also available for the mac, albeit in beta and lacking some of the cool features just announced in the latest windows update. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Using Jäger with BitTorrent STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 06/15/2004 12:22:47 AM ----- BODY:

BitTorrent is a technology that speeds up file downloading by sharing the network load across all the users. With its RSS 2 enclosure support, Jäger now works quite nicely with this software. Here's how you do it:

  • download and install a copy of the BitTorrent client.
  • subscribe to an weblog that provides BitTorrent information as RSS enclosures. For example, drag this link over to your copy of Jäger.

When new "torrents" become available, they'll be listed with a little paperclip in the main window.

  • To download, do either "Actions > Open Attachments" or right-click in the list and select "Open Attachment".
  • Jäger will then ask your browser to open the attachment, which will in turn call the BitTorrent client to do the work (this is less clumsy than it sounds).
  • Enjoy your downloaded file

Don't forget to leave a small donation over at the BitTorrent site when you get the chance. Once you've done this you can turn off the annoyware component of BitTorrent by creating a file called "C:\Program Files\BitTorrent\donated".

We don't have an automated downloading function yet, though a fair portion of this code is written. Do you want this? Send us a note or leave a comment. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: sulleleven EMAIL: jackass@bestweb.net IP: 24.161.125.151 URL: DATE: 09/25/2004 07:41:54 AM hi, i am just about to try jager. thanks. i think download management of some sort will be wise. I am researching this whole bit torrent with rss enclosure concept (thats how I found jager). sull ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Using Watch Lists to find BitTorrents STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 06/15/2004 12:34:06 AM ----- BODY:

Here's a quick guide to using Watch Lists to find BitTorrents you are interested in. Watch Lists are a feature that makes Jäger check newly arrived entries for certain keywords. If the keywords are found, the entries are given a color marker to alert you. For example, let's say you're interested in "Jon Stewart, Wilco shows, Larry David". Just:

  • Select the BitTorrent blog in Jäger
  • Select "Actions > Watch List > Watch List Wizard"
  • Enter "Jon Stewart" Wilco "Larry David" (with the quotes)
  • Select "Watch for any words in this phrase". The quotes will do exactly what you think they should, but our language could be a little clearer here
  • Press Next and so on

And that's that. When any of these names show up in a new BitTorrent, you'll see the marker. There's one little problem here: the attachment paperclip will be covered by the Watch List asterisk, but you know it's there.

If you're only interest in seeing items from your Watch List, select the blog and then "Actions > Mark as > List Only Watched Entries" and items that didn't match any of your keywords won't be displayed. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Problems? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 06/15/2004 07:41:31 PM ----- BODY:

When people download Jäger, do they see anything else besides version 1.2.4 being installed? Let me know! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Annoying Old Guy EMAIL: aog@thought-mesh.net IP: 128.107.253.37 URL: http://blog.thought-mesh.net DATE: 06/17/2004 03:13:43 PM It looks like it's the secure download from CNet that's broken. That copy is pulled from the CNet disk, not your website. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mike Weisbrot EMAIL: mike@jwsuretybonds.com IP: 151.197.65.76 URL: http://www.jwsuretybonds.com/blog DATE: 07/16/2004 03:00:07 PM I have not tried this product, YET...but I am very hapy with Blogger. It's free and I used it to create my Blog on Surety Bonding ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Surety Bond EMAIL: mike@jwsuretybonds.com IP: 151.197.65.76 URL: http://www.jwsuretybonds.com/blog DATE: 07/16/2004 03:01:37 PM Now that I have tried posting on your blog platform, I do have one complaint. Why no HTML editing in the posts? ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Download.com reviews Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 06/15/2004 07:44:56 PM ----- BODY:

Here's the review of Jäger from download.com. Not bad, but we'll have to work on getting 5/5 (instead of 4/5).

This newsreader focuses primarily on blogs but can be a useful RSS reader, as well as a way to track changes on static sites. BlogMatrix Jager launches a window on the left side of your screen and automatically resizes your browser to fit snugly to the right. Upon launch, the program asks what included feeds you would like to display. We suggest you add them all so you won't have to create categories for your personal feeds later. From there, you can browse from a huge list of Weblogs and news items, read brief summaries, and go to the Web site if something interests you. We like the ease of browsing news sites, as well as the ability to set the time interval when checking for updates. Displaying the titles of the last five entries for our favorite Weblogs is a great perk, but our favorite feature is this app's ability to automatically add a new link to the list. Quickly dragging and dropping a link to the window makes BlogMatrix Jager find every URL (including RSS feeds) and lets you decide which ones to keep by checking the appropriate boxes. The only drawback we noticed was the absence of a dedicated viewing window. This app's comprehensive list of included feeds and automation capabilities makes it easy to recommend it to anyone looking for a convenient way to view headlines and Weblogs.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.5 available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/15/2004 11:42:09 PM ----- BODY:

A quicky update with a few bug fixes. Nothing to worry about, unless you're in the mood for a new version. It can be downloaded starting here.

Fixes:

  • A number of problems with reporting the correct version number are fixed.
  • Bug Report #345: It doesn't need to find "C:\Program Files\BlogMatrix" anymore.
  • Bug Report #344: More than one item can be pinned to the list now.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Louis EMAIL: fgserv7747@fastmail.com.au IP: 211.30.92.142 URL: DATE: 06/16/2004 01:18:15 AM Dave, so far every download has showed version 1.2 in the about section. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: peter EMAIL: peterwagnerde@gmail.com IP: 200.91.86.33 URL: http://www.topfootballnews.com DATE: 06/17/2004 09:40:48 PM Works great. the new version. Thanks for the help (sent by email). Go on doing! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jeff EMAIL: maxnobknee@hotmail.com IP: 63.240.15.100 URL: DATE: 06/28/2004 03:56:40 PM Don't know if you have run into this...but I inadvertantly powered down my PC this a.m. (okay, okay, I step on the power strip!!!) After rebooting clean, Jager won't run....not from startup, not from C:/Programs, etc. I am assuming that something got corrupt when it closed less than greatfully. Any help would be appreciated....I love this program so much (bought and paid for it) and the thought of not having it for even a day is bumming me out. Keep up the good work. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jeff EMAIL: maxnobknee@hotmail.com IP: 63.240.15.100 URL: DATE: 06/28/2004 04:05:28 PM This was in the log: Hope it helps: ManagerConfig.ConfigLoad: caught exception Traceback (most recent call last): File "GenericManagerConfig.pyc", line 73, in ConfigLoad EOFError ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Adam Curry on Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 06/16/2004 12:40:27 AM ----- BODY:

Adam Curry reviews BlogMatrix Jäger (which I hope he won't mind me reproducing here):

I was surprised to find that a new aggregator Dave pointed to is also available for the mac, albeit in beta and lacking some of the cool features just announced in the latest windows update.

It's concept is simple and efficient. A single-pane aggregator that displays the information in an outline.

It feels reasonably responsive and easy to navigate, it has some keyboard support for users like me, who reach for the mouse as little as possible.

The interface forces you to create collections of weblogs and other RSS sources, so each node (represented by a folder icon) can contain any number of feeds. Upon first use, the program asks if you want it to auto configure several feeds. Each folder keeps track of the number of updated feeds within and displays that number.

It would be nice to have new feeds hoisted to the top of the outline, bumping the previous #1 story down a notch, just like weblog posts.

You can do this "View > List by Update Date" date. Note that by pressing the "Recenty Updated" or "Favorite Weblogs" button a second time, you'll clear everything that's already read.

I couldn't find a way to import my OPML subscription file, but the subscription wizard does autodiscovery and offers several options for detecting new content.

Just drag the OPML link onto Jäger! Unfortunately, it only works with URLs right now, not with items on the filesystem but this will change soon.

Watch Lists allow for filtering new items based on keywords. Nifty!

Great trick: select the blog, do "Actions > Mark as > List only Marked Entries" and only marked entries will be displayed. You can also subscribe to the same blog multiple times. Put them together to generate custom feeds.

The mac version recognizes enclosures, which is great, but there's now download button. ofcourse I'd really like the program to download these in the backgound, preferrably overnight. Would be nice in combination with a Watch List.

Yes, they would work great together. And it'll be there very soon, probably the weekend. Update: and automatic downloading will be there by the end of the summer.

This may look like a review, but it isn't, it's an excited user's request list :)

Bring it on, Mac users. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: jason EMAIL: jasonj@paperlessbusiness.com IP: 206.124.132.18 URL: DATE: 06/16/2004 01:55:06 AM Glad you caught that. I was just about to post a link to his review. Adam's comments were exactly the same as mine, I was going to post something here last night that said almost exactly the same things as his review, I just closed my browser window accidentally before I posted and lost it. Then I figured I would come back later and type it in again. Instead Adam did it. Amazing how similar the comments on a great piece of software will be sometimes. :) I guess, when it works so well those of us who notice anything to request will notice the same things. heh. ----- PING: TITLE: jager replies URL: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001014/2004/06/16.html#a5842 IP: 195.18.123.122 BLOG NAME: Adam Curry's Weblog DATE: 06/16/2004 04:56:42 AM It worked! My post on j ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Waypath STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 06/16/2004 01:04:36 AM ----- BODY:

You can access Waypath Post Analysis by selecting a blog or posting and doing Actions > Tools > Waypath Post Analysis. If anyone has ideas for closer integration, let me. There is an API and examples, you know. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Firefox 0.9 breaks Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 06/16/2004 07:09:31 PM ----- BODY:

Details tonight — don't upgrade if you can help it. I'm 99% percent sure the problem is not in Jäger itself, though it may either be in Firefox or in the Python libraries.

Update: Firefox 0.9 always wants to open external pages in a new window and there's no obvious way to to change this. As far as I can tell, this is a bug. Here's your options:

  • Install the "Single Window 1.0" extension and the pages will at least open in a new tab. You still have to close all the windows though. In Firefox, go to Tools > Extensions; press "Get More Extensions"; select "Tabbed Browsing" and get the "Single Window" extension by Aaron Spuler. This seems to work fine for me now using this.
  • Downgrade to Firefox 0.8. Read this posting by Don Park: Firefox 0.9: A Stinker.
  • Change Jäger's browser option to "Open in same IE window".

I'm going to contact the Firefox people to see if anyone has a fix or workaround. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Andy EMAIL: andy@nospam.ecdsystems.com IP: 24.62.102.70 URL: DATE: 06/17/2004 05:59:40 PM You can also get the "TabBrowser Extensions" extension and use it's preferences to prevent new windows from being opened. At least, it works for me in Firefox 0.9RC. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Vicki Smith EMAIL: calgal@myway.com IP: 24.64.20.111 URL: http://calgal.motime.com DATE: 06/18/2004 01:22:47 AM Yup, that is how one controls tab/new window behaviour in FF .8 and.9, only the default has changed I think. In all fairness, people who follow the install instructions on .9 seems to be doing all right, though the new default skin is pretty icky. I'm waiting a bit, but I am notably conservative ;) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Light & Dark EMAIL: lightanddark@canada.com IP: 24.244.36.190 URL: http://lightanddark.typepad.com DATE: 06/18/2004 06:25:26 AM Actually, I had a pisser of a time with Jager and FF 0.8. But I was also having other anomalous problems with FF, so figured I had a hooped install and could never troubleshoot it. Eventually, i just quit trying, knowing 0.9 was near. I now have Jager and FireFox cooperating just the way I had envisioned when I first discovered Jaeger and I freaking love it. I'm using Tabbrowser Preferences 0.5.4 extension to specify links open in new tabs. Working flawlessly. (And i'm running RC2 but I don't think anything was changed in the final 0.9?) Unfortunately, too many people didn't read the specific upgrade instructions (do not install into the same folder as 0.8!) and messed up their old data. My upgrade was fine, and I was even prompted for which of my 2 old profiles to import. Obviously, everybody's experience will be different with different hardware/software combinations, but David, just wanted to let you know that Jaeger and FireFox 0.9 are working beautifully together for me. Paul ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: wxMutexInternal bug? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/18/2004 11:29:59 AM ----- BODY:

In the Mac version of Jäger, I'm randomly getting crashes from deep within the wxPython code. The application run for several days without a crash, but crash it will eventually.

This is what I think the problem is but I'd like your feedback: 

src/mac/thread.cpp

class wxMutexInternal
{
public:
    ...
    wxArrayLong m_waiters ;
    ...
};

wxMutexError wxMutexInternal::Lock()
{
    wxMacStCritical critical ;
    if ( UMASystemIsInitialized() )
    {
        OSErr err ;
        ThreadID current = kNoThreadID;
        err = ::MacGetCurrentThread(&current);
        // if we are not the owner, add this thread to the list of waiting threads, stop this thread
        // and invoke the scheduler to continue executing the owner's thread
        while ( m_owner != kNoThreadID && m_owner != current)
        {
            m_waiters.Add(current);
            err = ::SetThreadStateEndCritical(kCurrentThreadID, kStoppedThreadState, m_owner);
            err = ::ThreadBeginCritical();
        }
        m_owner = current;
    }
    m_locked++;

    return wxMUTEX_NO_ERROR;
}

You'll notice that the first time through, m_waiters is modified outside the critical section. This same variable is modified in the Unlock code within a critical section, indicating to me that this is the problem. Thoughts?

This is really a dealbreaker for shipping a super reliable version (i.e. non-Beta) version of Jäger. I had another idea of restarting Jäger whenever this happens, but there seems to be no way of trapping the EXC_BAD_ACCESS thrown by the Mach kernel like a normal UNIX bus error. Or is there? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Welcome page STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 06/19/2004 12:33:25 PM ----- BODY:

You will be able to turn off the Welcome page in the next minor version of Jäger. It'll be available on Sunday or Monday. Just had a long night trying to stop the Mac version from crashing. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.2.6 for Macintosh (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/19/2004 09:00:28 PM ----- BODY:

A new version of Jäger 1.2.2.6 for Macintosh (Beta) is now available. This version is a fairly significant upgrade and has:

  • better (but not perfect) support for Internationalized characters
  • attachment/RSS 2 enclosure support, including a hack to directly launch BitTorrents. Download the BitTorrent client here .
  • XML and HTTP 410 redirection
  • Jäger is returned control much quicker after launching the browser
  • support for non-Safari browsers. You will have to tweak your browser so it doesn't keep opening new windows (let us know how you did this)
  • focus is not returned to Jäger after drag and drop, but the subscribe dialog is made more visible
  • the application Icon is now BlogMatrix's. Unfortunately, it's not alpha-corrected properly. Next version will fix this and the icons in the list will be more Mac-like.
  • the "password" field in Synchronization works better than it did before, but it's in visible/plain text

Things that aren't fixed:

  • if you're having trouble emptying the trash, tell me
  • list refreshing is slow and a little painful. I can't do anything about it at this point.
  • I'm not sure if it's more or less stable with regards to crashes; please let me know if it happens and how annoying it is for you.
  • The application settings/datastore are in the "wrong place". The next version will fix this.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.2.7 for Macintosh (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/20/2004 03:03:50 PM ----- BODY:

Yet another version of Jäger 1.2.2.7 for Macintosh (Beta) is now available. This is my last for the weekend and only contains one tiny little change: when it opens a blog or an entry, it changes the cursor briefly to an Earth icon. This is to let you know you've actually done it. On my slow Mac, I was never sure - now I am. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.7 for Macintosh Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/25/2004 01:15:34 AM ----- BODY:

This is it folks — the official release of Jäger 1.2.7 for Macintosh OS 10.3. Get it here while it's hot.

This version is not as perfect as we'd like, so here's the deal: if you see a major bug in the Mac version, send us the details and we'll send you a license for free. That's right free. Offer valid until we recind it, so act now :-) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 1.2.7 for Macintosh Available URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_06.html#002785 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 06/25/2004 01:18:51 AM BlogMatrix has made our official release of Jäger for Macintosh — and we're offering free copies. Check out the details here.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.7.1 for Macintosh Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 06/26/2004 12:50:35 PM ----- BODY:

Hey, wadda know? I found one of the serious bugs myself. To fix it I had to turn off the built in Console, but since you probably will never use that, no great loss. Here's the latest version. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Patching wxMutexInternal STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 06/28/2004 07:29:05 PM ----- BODY:

Last week I was having a pretty serious problem with wxPython on the Macintosh. The following block of code in wxPython is just plain wrong and after a few hours of operations the m_waiters array would be corrupted because of multiple threads contending for the memory.

If you're running wxPython 2.5.1.5, seriously considering patching your library as per these instructions. 

while ( m_owner != kNoThreadID && m_owner != current)
{
	m_waiters.Add(current);
	::SetThreadStateEndCritical(kCurrentThreadID, kStoppedThreadState, m_owner);
	::ThreadBeginCritical();
}

It should read (as far as I can tell) 

while ( m_owner != kNoThreadID && m_owner != current)
{
	::SetThreadStateEndCritical(kCurrentThreadID, kStoppedThreadState, m_owner);
	m_waiters.Add(current);
	::ThreadBeginCritical();
}

I knew that rebuilding wxPython libraries from scratch could end up being more trouble than it's worth, so I decided to take a different approach. Last Friday night I did an extending hacking session on wxPython's libraries. I downloaded Apple's Xcode developer tools and disassembled (using objdump) the broken module. Looking at the PowerPC opcodes, I figured one little tweak would do the trick. I needed to change this: 

675f8:   38 a0 00 01     li      r5,1
675fc:   4b fb 17 39     bl      [wxBaseArrayLong::Add]

67600:   38 60 00 01     li      r3,1
67604:   38 80 00 01     li      r4,1
67608:   80 be 00 00     lwz     r5,0(r30)
6760c:   48 01 30 69     bl      [::SetThreadStateEndCritical]

67610:   48 01 30 a5     bl      [::ThreadBeginCritical]
to this: 
67610:   48 01 30 a5     bl      [::ThreadBeginCritical]

675f8:   38 a0 00 01     li      r5,1
675fc:   4b fb 17 39     bl      [wxBaseArrayLong::Add]

67600:   38 60 00 01     li      r3,1
67604:   38 80 00 01     li      r4,1
67608:   80 be 00 00     lwz     r5,0(r30)
6760c:   48 01 30 69     bl      [::SetThreadStateEndCritical]

Note that I had to figure out those symbolic names — the objdump program didn't do that for me. Here's a Python program to make the fix: 

old_data = [
	0x38, 0xa0, 0x00, 0x01,	
	0x4b, 0xfb, 0x17, 0x39,		# wxArrayLong::Add
	0x38, 0x60, 0x00, 0x01,
	0x38, 0x80, 0x00, 0x01,
	0x80, 0xbe, 0x00, 0x00,
	0x48, 0x01, 0x30, 0x69,		# ::SetThreadStateEndCritical
	0x48, 0x01, 0x30, 0xa5,		# ::ThreadBeginCritical
]

new_data = [
	0x48, 0x01, 0x30, 0xa5,		# ::ThreadBeginCritical
	0x38, 0xa0, 0x00, 0x01,	
	0x4b, 0xfb, 0x17, 0x39,		# wxArrayLong::Add
	0x38, 0x60, 0x00, 0x01,
	0x38, 0x80, 0x00, 0x01,
	0x80, 0xbe, 0x00, 0x00,
	0x48, 0x01, 0x30, 0x69,		# ::SetThreadStateEndCritical
]

fio = open('build/Jaeger.app/Contents/Frameworks/libwx_base_carbond-2.5.1.0.0.dylib', 'rb+')
fio.seek(start)

f_in = fio.read(len(old_data))

for i in xrange(len(old_data)):
	if old_data[i] != ord(f_in[i]):
		print >> sys.stderr, "data did not match"
		print >> sys.stderr, "%d: %02x %02x" % ( i, old_data[i], ord(f_in[i]) )
		sys.exit(1)

fio.seek(start)

for i in xrange(len(new_data)):
	fio.write(chr(new_data[i]))
	
fio.close()

There was one other piece of code causing a crash in Jäger. My advice — never never ever try to modify wxPython objects from outside their thread: it ain't ever going to work. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Apple, Safari and RSS STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 06/28/2004 11:21:41 PM ----- BODY: Well, well, well. Apple got into the RSS business today at the WWDC:

What are people saying?

  • Brent Simmons, author of NetNewsWire says "So... even with Safari’s RSS reader, there is still a need for newsreaders that do more. (Much more.) ... What I like about this announcement is that it popularizes syndication."
  • Slashdot
  • Dave Winer says "And thus begins the developer dance, how this is good for the market, etc. I expect we'll be hearing a lot of this, first among Mac developers, and then inevitably, among Windows developers. I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe the few cross-platform aggregators or centralized aggregators will be what's left standing". He also says "It's not three-pane, it's one panel, with the items displayed, from all your feeds, in reverse chronologic order. This is the most efficient way to read for the user." You're damn right it is: that's why Jäger is written that way.

I agree with Brent's comments to some degree, though I remember from the dot-com era that "the market has been validated" is usually code words for "we're fecking doomed". I hope not. Safari is good RSS starter package: Jäger is steps beyond. Safari has much better searching though — but we'll have that fixed in less than 5 weeks time.

More importantly, we're going to add some really cool features in the next release which are going to lead to a rebranding of the product. This story is developing ... stay tuned.

Update: Danny and Andy Orlowski aren't so impressed. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: dan EMAIL: dan@eriv.net IP: 216.157.197.10 URL: DATE: 07/08/2004 05:08:25 PM is there a version that works for Safari 10.2? The new version isn't compatable with my Mac. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BitTorrent STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 07/05/2004 08:39:32 AM ----- BODY:

A BitTorrent FAQ (via Geek News Central). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Markup Barbie STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 07/07/2004 11:00:22 AM ----- BODY:

"XML is Tough". ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Weather as XML STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 07/08/2004 07:50:33 PM ----- BODY:

Laughing Meme notes that the National Weather Service is going to start making weather observations available as XML data. I wonder if (a) it can be converted to RSS feeds and (b) if they're going to make forecasts available also?

It's also noted that Accuweather is trying to have this service shut down, as it eats into their lunch. Fortunately for Americans, the US government has the strange attitude that if citizens are paying for it, it's there. Sadly for Canadians, that's not true here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: MSC EMAIL: Better.Safe.Than.Sorry@rogers.com IP: 65.49.46.70 URL: http://members.rogers.com/better.safe.than.sorry/bugger.html DATE: 07/09/2004 05:17:53 AM I asked the Meteorological Service of Canada, Environment Canada about an RSS feed for Canadian weather. They are considering it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 07/09/2004 11:34:59 AM That would be pretty sweet, I have to say. Hmmm ... this gives me an idea... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: MSC EMAIL: Better.Safe.Than.Sorry@rogers.com IP: 65.49.46.70 URL: DATE: 07/10/2004 02:01:21 AM Uh-oh . . . RUN ! Dave has another idea . . .! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3 for Windows coming soon STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 07/10/2004 10:30:39 AM ----- BODY:

With a little luck, I'll be releasing version 1.3 of Jäger for Windows this weekend. Version 1.3 is the beta for version 1.4. That means that the application runs pretty good, but there's bugs. If you try 1.3 please tell me any problems you find. That way I can fix them!

The core of Version 1.3/1.4 is a new back-end database system. This doesn't seem very exciting from a user's perspective, I know, but it gives us key capabilities:

  1. the ability to store a lot more data (such as the contents of postings);
  2. saving data is much faster and much less disk intensive.

From the user's perspective, here's what you'll find in 1.3/1.4. We'll explain each of these features in a separate posting.

  • Offline browsing: many weblogs make their content available through their syndication feeds. We used this information for Watch Lists before: now we can serve it locally. This is much cooler than it sounds.
  • Offline preview: We can give you a popup window next to the mouse giving a preview of what's in the article.
  • The Library: This is a really really cool feature, modeled around the Steve Den Beste's Essential Library. Just drag links onto Jäger and select to add them to the Library. Instead of being added as monitored feeds, they're stored on your local drive. They're like bookmarks that never go stale.
  • Full-text searching: This may or may not make the cut for 1.4 and if it does it may only apply to things added to the Library. We'll let you know.

Terminology-wise, we use the phrase "webpage" rather than "weblog" in most places now, as this is really a tool for monitoring anything on the Internet.

Thank you to everyone for their feature requests and bug reports. Keep them coming. Many of them aren't in 1.3 yet since I've been focusing on new functionality but they'll be added some point before the 1.4 release. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.163.13 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 07/10/2004 06:21:53 PM Feature Request: Is there a way to make Jager monitor comments on blog posts? I've tried to use it on a couple of systems, with mixed success. (For example, posts on http://www.deanesmay.com work fine, but posts on http://www.jessicaswell.com/ don't, even though they both use Movable Type.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.163.13 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 07/10/2004 06:23:55 PM (But for today, I think that a way to permanently save blog posts is a great idea.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 69.197.222.32 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 07/11/2004 01:27:16 PM Unfortunately, w're kind of hamstrung by what the blog itself provides. Some provide comment feeds, other's don't. Some that do provide very good feeds, others ... not so good. This is high on my wish list too though. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: New in Jäger 1.3/1.4: Online and Offline Viewing STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 07/10/2004 08:16:43 PM ----- BODY:

One of the key new features of Jäger 1.3/1.4 is "Offline Viewing". Online viewing is what you've been doing up to this point: reading articles directly from their source on the Internet. Offline viewing allows you to read articles locally on your own computer, without directly connecting to the Internet.

How does it do this? Many websites that provide syndication feeds – including this one now – send the full text of their articles along with the title, link (and so on) information. Jäger now stores this information in its database and lets you view that instead of the online version. The advantage of this is that it's faster and more concise: you don't have to view the user's blogroll, old postings and whatnot.

When you install Jäger 1.3/1.4, it is already set up for Offline Viewing. It may, however, take a little time (a day at most) for it to kick in, as the articles currently stored in the database don't have the additional required information.

By default:

  • When you double click on a blog, Jäger is set up to "Do the best thing"
  • When you double click on a blog entry, Jäger is set up to "Read the entry online"

You can adjust these settings by doing "View > Preferences" and selecting the "Online/Offline" panel.

Now, what's "Do the best thing" mean? If you are in the "All Weblogs" list, the best thing is always to open online. If you are in the "Library", the best thing to do is to open offline. If you are in the "Favorites" or "Recently Updated" List, things get a little more interesting. If there is offline text to be displayed, the best thing is to view offline; if there isn't, it's online.

Simple.

You can override this on a blog-by-blog basis by selecting the blog, and doing "Actions > Online/Offline > Prefer Online (or Offline) Reading".

A few extra notes:

  • if you like BlogMatrix exactly the way it is, just change your preferences to "Read online" and that is that
  • you can explicitly choose to read online or offline by doing "Actions > Open Online" or "Actions > Open Offline"

Finally, here's a very important and handy trick. If a blog or entry opens offline, double click on it again and it will open online. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Searching STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 07/11/2004 01:34:58 PM ----- BODY:

Via Doc, I found this comment by Kevin Marks:

Last week I watched Steve Jobs explain Technorati's advantage over Google - he was talking about Safari's RSS search, but Technorati searches millions of blogs for you within minutes of them updating, not just the RSS feeds you have already subscribed to.

However, sometimes you just want to search the blogs that you're subscribed to, not every blog in the world. I.e. the "I saw this posting about X once and now I'd like to see it again". Bridging this gap would be killer. I assume the way to do it would be to allow uploading of blogrolls or restriction lists using OPML or something. And once you've gone that far, it's not a big leap to imagine Technorati getting into the Bloglines business.

Some full-text searching is coming in Jäger 1.3/1.4, though I may initially just restrict it to the Library till I understand the implications and technology better. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kevin Marks EMAIL: kmarks@technorati.com IP: 68.164.83.50 URL: http://epeus.blogspot.com DATE: 07/12/2004 03:16:35 AM We have been thinking along those lines - see the attention.xml proposal on the Technorati Developers wiki. This is something we intend to work on with the community of blogging tool and aggregator developers to share a common format, so any comments and suggestions are very welcome. Initial discussion here: http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/attentionxml look for more soon. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: New in Jäger 1.3/1.4: The Library STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 07/11/2004 08:56:10 PM ----- BODY:

One of the features I'm most excited about in Jäger 1.3/1.4 is the "Library". What is the Library? Think of it as a truly persistent bookmarks system. Instead of merely recording the location of a page on the web it makes a local copy which you can always reference. When you want to find something in the library, you can look it up by title and category, by date or do a "full-text" (i.e. Google-like) search for keywords.

The library is really useful because pages on the web rarely have a lifespan of more than a year or two and in the worst case (such as newspapers) they may only last for a couple of days. The idea with the Library is that whenever you see a page that you find interesting, you just drag it to Jäger and keep a copy for later reference. No more "I wish I remember where this page is" – you've got it.

You add pages to the Library the same way you add weblogs to Jäger: drag the link from the browser and drop it onto Jäger. In the first page of the "Add Weblog Wizard" you get a choice whether to add it as an "actively monitored" website or whether you want to add it to the Library. In the second step of adding to the Library, you can drag additional pages links to Jäger. This is for when an article has multiple pages.

The implementation of the Library is a little rough right now. This will improve over the next few weeks. Here's the main problems:

  • You can't add graphics to the Library.
  • You can't search the Library yet. This will be coming very very soon and will be very powerful.
  • Categories need to be separated into "Weblogs only", "Library only" and "both" groups.
  • Websites such as the New York Times that require registration don't get their web pages added correctly. The obvious solution is to dig up the proper cookie from the browser and send it along with the page fetch request. Easier said than done!

I'm looking for your suggestions on improvements to the Library. Feel free to send them in! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.us DATE: 09/18/2004 05:37:42 AM I'm going through the docs trying to learn more about Jäger and posting comments and questions as I do -- hope it is ok, you ask for feedback -- don't feel obliged to respond to all my comments. That said, I would love if instead of having to drag a url over, there was a Firefox extension that put two buttons on the Firefox toolbar {send page to Jager library} and {add feed to Jaeger}. Might help with adoption by the digerati. I'd use it. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Now Available: Jäger 1.3.0 for Windows (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 07/11/2004 09:02:21 PM ----- BODY:

Update: hmmm. Lots of problems. A new version coming tomorrow, hold off until then.

You can download Jäger 1.3 from here. Shutdown your existing copy of Jäger (by right-clicking on the BlogMatrix icon in the Quick Launch area) before installing. Jäger 1.3.0 is fairly stable, though some of the new features need more work. If you decide to revert, just reinstall the standard version of Jäger: all your changes from the 1.3.0 installation will be lost (since it's a different database) but otherwise things will be OK.

I need your feedback: if you find a problem with Jäger 1.3.0 or love it or hate it or whatever, please let us know. I want to make this a great product and your feedback has been essential to making this happen. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.183.169 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 07/12/2004 03:33:31 AM Well... I installed it, and now it won't open. Logfile entry says: BlogManager.ConfigLoad: loading traditional DB I'm gonna revert to 1.2 for now. ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger news URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_07.html#002826 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 07/21/2004 11:55:48 AM The beta version of the next Jäger for Windows is available if you want to try it out. It includes: Offline reading (very very fast) Read all the entries in a category at once (great for sorting through media... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: RSS/Atom book STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 07/11/2004 09:23:34 PM ----- BODY:

Danny Ayers has announced he's co-authoring a RSS/Atom book with Andrew Watt. Good luck, Danny.

Syndication today is at where web pages were in early 1994 — if you talk about it now it's "huh?"; in 18 months almost every website will have one. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3.1 for Windows (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 07/12/2004 11:45:48 PM ----- BODY:

Once more, with feeling. Jäger 1.3.1 for Windows is available here. See additional comments here.

I've tested this version on other systems so you should be OK. If you've already tried the 1.3.0 version, go to "C:/Documents and Settings/USER/Application Data/BlogMatrix" and delete the file exactly named "Settings.btdb". ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.162.45 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 07/13/2004 12:44:37 AM This is beautiful. Seriously. You deserve a hug. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 07/13/2004 01:11:26 PM It's pretty awesome, isn't it. More coming... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 217.81.14.238 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/16/2004 03:58:34 PM Hi David, great Release. :) I am especially happy about the Offline-Reading-Capabilities. The "library" is not yet functional, I assume - right? Here are my suggestions: - Global Online-Offline-Switch How would you like a global Online-Offline-Switch like many Webbrowsers and E-Mail-Clients already have today. Depending on that switch, you could decide "do the best thing" for Online/Offline Viewing of Subscriptions. The global Online-Offline-Switch would IMHO also render the Action -> Start/Stop checking for updates obsolete. - Offline-Template It would be nice if the Offline-template when viewing weblogs/feeds would show the Name of the weblog for each entry, e.g. where the Date is. On long pages I sometimes loose Track of which Feed I was reading, since the design is always the same. (Although personally I _don't_ need customizable Templates for offline viewing as in Feedemon.) Also maybe you could put the breadcrumb (e.g. Offline > Weblogname" in the title-Tag of the page, instead of the generic "Blogmatrix Jäger". I hope this nitpicking doesn't sound like I am unhappy, because I really like the new version! Just adding some suggestions, as requested. :) Greetings Sencer ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 07/16/2004 04:10:08 PM You can change the global online/offline settings using View > Preferences. However, I will make the main Start/Stop checking for updates make it override everything and work offline. I'll think more about this over the weeked. Good idea about the Blog Name. I'll do that. The Library works, but I'm planning to remove it from the 1.4 release. I'm not happy about its ease of use and I really want to get online/offline browsing .... and at least one other feature yet to be announced ... out there. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 80.132.254.186 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/16/2004 08:06:22 PM Thanks, good to know. Ah, I saw the library options once I added a new site. I was looking in the "wrong part" - the settings of legacy Subscriptions. :) Another question (I also noticed this with the 1.2.9 release): Is it possible that "Open Link in _new_ external browser window" is broken at the moment? With 1.2.5 and Firefox0.9 I knew that "open in same external window" was kind of broken and needed the work-around with the single-window extension. However I got so used to that, that I want to replicate this behaviour now, but I can't. "Open Link in _new_ external browser window" opens links in the same external browser window. I have Firefox 0.9.2 installed and the Single Window Extension (with the setting "Open external Links in new tab"). But even if I disable the FF-Extension completely every link still opens in the same window. It's not a biggie though, using manual CTRL+T right now. :) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.173.220 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 07/17/2004 05:07:12 AM Big Problem: Whenever I shutdown the program or my computer, BlogMatrix erases all the blog data--all the RSS feeds, the saved files, all of it. ::retreats to 1.2.9:: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jeff EMAIL: maxnobknee@hotmail.com IP: 63.240.15.100 URL: DATE: 07/20/2004 01:34:45 PM Got the same issue as the previous commenter....I rebooted and everything went bye, bye. I reinstalled 1.29 and then 1.31.....it came back, but is a little cumbersome :-) Vowing not to reboot until the next beta release!!! :-) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com DATE: 07/20/2004 01:45:45 PM Can you guys tell me what OS you are using? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jeff EMAIL: maxnobknee@hotmail.com IP: 63.240.15.100 URL: DATE: 07/20/2004 07:43:02 PM I am using Windows XP Pro...... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.2.9 for Windows available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 07/13/2004 12:49:08 AM ----- BODY:

This is the real deal, an official release.

  • it has all the bug fixes that went into the last Mac release
  • you can now turn off showing the Welcome Page when Jäger starts up (View > Preferences)
  • By default for new users, it starts in the power user mode, automatically skipping blogs after you've read them.
  • The version number is correctly reported when making Bug Reports or Feature Requests.

Get it starting here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The next beta version STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 07/20/2004 12:20:51 AM ----- BODY:

The next 1.3 beta version, coming tomorrow (hopefully), has a few important changes:

  • The Library is gone: I think it's a great idea, but the usability is not there yet so I'm going to retool it and re-release it at a later date.
  • The "All Weblogs" List is now the "Search All" List. Why? Because I'm adding full-text searching of your weblog database to Jäger! The one downside: there will be a period of CPU-chewing when you first install the next version as everything gets indexed.
  • The templates for displaying offline content are evolving. If you think I'm missing something, please tell me!

I had a number of new features that I was going to add for this release but I've decided to hold them off. The offline and searching capabilities are just too important to hold up the release. I'll incrementally add these changes in refresh releases after 1.4 comes out (probably at the end of the first week of October). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3.2 for Windows (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 07/21/2004 01:18:08 AM ----- BODY:

Jäger 1.3.2 for Windows (Beta) is now available. This is very close to what you're going to see in the official (1.4) release, except for a little cleaning up of the visuals related to searching, a lot of deferred bug fixing and making the new features more solid.

Please give the searching feature a try: it's quite neat and I'm interested in any improvements you may suggest. For those folks with problems with the last beta, give this one a spin and see if it breaks the same way (by shuting down and restarting normally). I'm using yet another DB technology and I think this will work correctly. Plus I've tested it on my machines and it worked!

Once 1.4 is out and everyone is happy, I'm going to be rolling out incremental improvements towards the end of August and on to the end of the summer which will amaze and thrill you :)

Important Update: if you had problems with version 1.3.1, delete the file "C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\BlogMatrix\Settings.btdb" first! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jeff EMAIL: maxnobknee@hotmail.com IP: 63.240.15.100 URL: DATE: 07/21/2004 01:36:41 PM Still the same issue....when I ugraded to 1.3.2 it lost my feeds, everything. If I reinstall 1.29 everything is cool. I can even upgrade to 1.3.1 and everything is there. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 80.132.251.92 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/21/2004 02:42:47 PM Thank you. Search is working fine for me (It's a good and welcome feature). I didn't have Problems upgrading. >I'm going to be rolling out incremental improvements > towards the end of August and on to the end of > the summer which will amaze and thrill you :) Now this sounds very interesting. :) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.184.70 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 07/21/2004 08:07:55 PM Well, it loaded up all the old data when I first upgraded, but when I exited Jager and started it again, most of the data was gone. Email me if you want the settings file or any of that. ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger news URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_07.html#002826 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 07/21/2004 11:55:52 AM The beta version of the next Jäger for Windows is available if you want to try it out. It includes: Offline reading (very very fast) Read all the entries in a category at once (great for sorting through media... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The next version of the beta STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 07/23/2004 11:50:33 PM ----- BODY:

The beta version of Jäger is really shaping up. I've made a number of changes that speed up the application quite a bit, plus I've added substantial support for reading entire categories all at once. This works really well with Firefox, where I can force entries to be opened in new tabs when something of interest is found. The net effect: it probably takes me about 20% of the time it used to to get through my entire blogroll. It's a stunning improvement in the use model.

I'm also working on simplifying the menus as much as possible, to simplify usability.

On the minus side, I still haven't sorted out the DB problem that some of you are experiencing. Soon. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3.3 available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 07/24/2004 11:41:56 PM ----- BODY:

Get it here. There's lots of incremental improvements.

Note to folks with DB problems: check the "All Search" list and tell me how many are left there. Are you sure you just haven't read everything, and thus the Recently Updated List is empty? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: 4th times the charm: Jäger 1.3.4 (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 07/25/2004 09:37:06 PM ----- BODY:

I've totally rewritten the DB code and tossed out everything that folks were having problems with. Here's the latest Beta version: let me know how it works.

N.B. This upgrades from your 1.2.X database. If you have a working 1.3.X version, your most recent changes will be discarded. Sorry. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.163.244 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 07/26/2004 12:59:23 AM This links to the 1.3.3 beta, not the 1.3.4. :-) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 217.227.247.133 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/26/2004 04:34:39 PM > your most recent changes will be discarded. Can you clarify this a bit. Does that mean that new sites I added will be gone? Will the Synchronise-Feature be able to get around this (synch upload -> update software -> synch)? Otherwise the new features sound great. Can't wait to try it out. :) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com DATE: 07/26/2004 04:48:19 PM It's 1.3.4 now! Alas, your changes are gone, since 1.3.4 isn't capable of reading the 1.3.0 - 1.3.3 databases. Was there very many sites? There are a few tricks we can do if there was. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 217.227.247.133 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/26/2004 06:49:09 PM Thanks for offering your help. I think it will be faster to just re-add them. Since I have an OPML-Export, I can probably compare/add the new sites faster than trying to experiment doing it programmatically. :) I'll report my experiences with the new beta, once I get around to it. Regards ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 65.4.163.244 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 07/27/2004 03:22:23 AM I followed the advice of your email and deleted my Settings and Applications/Application Data/Blogmatrix/Settings folder on the 1.3.3 beta and it seemed to work fine. The 1.3.4 beta also works fine so far. Thanks for all your effort! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jeff EMAIL: maxnobknee@hotmail.com IP: 63.240.15.100 URL: DATE: 07/27/2004 12:59:45 PM Ouch!! Is there any way to export my subscriptions....I just re entered all of them after moving from 1.2 to 1.3. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 84.135.65.231 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/27/2004 03:14:07 PM You can pulish them as an OPML-file (Actions -> Tools -> Publish Blogroll) to an FTP location. After the install of 1.3 you should call the OPML-File in your browser and drag the icon from your adressbar into Jäger. (IIRC in earlier versions and possibly still today, this only works from a website, not from your local computer). However Jäger will do Auto-Discovery on the feeds again, which may take same time, depending on your connection and number of feeds. I did this once, and it worked. But maybe David has a better idea. Dunno :) ----- I have installed 1.3.4-Beta now, and I am pleased. Didn't find any errors. I like the Offline-Browsing-Support - it works very well now, gets lots of Details right. Great Job. When can we start making Feature Requests en masse for the next version. *g* ;) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 84.135.65.231 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/27/2004 03:15:15 PM Oh, one more thing: When you do the OPML-Export-Import thing, you loose your categories and have to reassign them, which may or may not be bad depending on how much you use them... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com DATE: 07/27/2004 03:21:54 PM (1) I'll make sure OPML export keeps the Categories somehow. (2) The 1.4 release will have a way of importing and export OPML to a file, which will be handy! (3) Big big refresh coming tomorrow, with a much better/simplified menu layout. After that, good mad making requests. I'll try to post a list tonight of what exactly will be in the 1.4 release. If there's something you're dying to have, let me know. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Online Advertising STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 07/27/2004 08:01:54 PM ----- BODY:

Things that make you go hmmm:

WSJ (sub required) quotes a Jupiter report stating the obvious: Online advertising will eclipse magazine dollars by 2008.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Fundamental financial tenets STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Creating a Business CATEGORY: Creating a Business DATE: 07/27/2004 08:10:19 PM ----- BODY:

Fundamental financial tenets that all early-stage entrepreneurs should be aware of, understand, and heed:

While creating a growth business can be exhilarating, many entrepreneurs – especially those starting a company for the first time – don’t pay enough attention to some core issues surrounding the financial management of their businesses.

Often, founders don’t have formal training in finance – they’re “techies” launching the next Apple Computer or Netscape, professionals putting together advertising, management consulting, or human resources agencies, or super-salesmen types who’ve figured out how to sell a pizza or deliver a package faster, better and cheaper. Always, they’re intimately involved with their core product or service. Often, they are too busy to burrow into the details of some of the company’s functions, of which finance is the most critical.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Financial Fitness for Entrepreneurs URL: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/archives/2004/07/27/5909.php IP: 69.36.183.222 BLOG NAME: Business Opportunities Weblog DATE: 07/28/2004 12:25:21 AM Brad Feld:What follows are some fundamental financial tenets that all early-stage entrepreneurs should be aware of, understand, and heed.Cash is king: No matter what, don't run out of money. Nothing else in this article matters if you run out of... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Coming in 1.3.5 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 07/27/2004 09:21:10 PM ----- BODY:

Here's what's coming in the next beta release:

  • Massively reoganized menus: View is replaced with Settings and now contains everything related to, well, Settings. Actions is simplified quite a bit too, since many things have moved over to Settings. The File Menu has a "Shutdown" action and "Work Offline" button, to be more consistent with how web browsers work.
  • Many underused menu items were deleted or movied into the Preferences dialog.
  • The Help > About... dialog will display the correct version.
  • The Popup Preview is now settable on a per-List basis, using Settings > List Settings > ... > * Entry Preview.
  • Some bugs in the weblog discovery process were fixed.
  • Offline reading has gotten incrementally improved. Everything in your current Category will be listed when you double click on a Category, even webpages that don't have entry (this wasn't the case before). You can override this behaviour by Settings > Mark as > Exclude from offline Category Page.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3.5 for Windows (Beta) now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 07/27/2004 10:17:39 PM ----- BODY:

Get it here — it should be a seamless upgrade from 1.3.4. The changes are listed in the previous entry. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sencer EMAIL: alisencer@gmail.com IP: 217.227.247.213 URL: http://www.sencer.de DATE: 07/28/2004 12:39:33 AM Update went smooth. I agree that the Interface is clearer now, than it was before. :) I miss "Skip back" - I liked and regularly used this. Minor error (?) or maybe just not done, yet: On the "Search All"-Tab offline-viewing Categories shows empty pages with only the category-title. Even after a search. I would expect to show it like it does on the "Recently Updated Panel"-Offline-Viewing. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com DATE: 07/28/2004 10:47:42 AM Alright, Skip Back will be back in the next version. I'll have to work more on the search results in offline viewing! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3.6 for Windows (Beta) now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 07/28/2004 10:04:50 PM ----- BODY:

Get it here. This only has a few minors changes from version 1.3.5:

  • You can search for blogs with a certain name using 'name:text' or containing a certain URL using 'url:fragment'.
  • 'Skip Backwards' is back, now named 'Rewind Skip'.
  • New blogs are created with a 'Default' updating period. The 'Default' period can be adjusted from the Preferences. The next version will upgrade all your existing blogs with a 30 minute update period to the Default period.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Better OPML support STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 07/31/2004 02:02:15 PM ----- BODY:

The next version of Jäger will be able to open OPML files from your computer via the "File > Open OPML File or URL..." command.

If you need to export OPML, you can do this from Actions > Tools > Publish Blogroll. We'll be making improvements to Blogroll publishing in an upcoming version, though it probably won't arrive for version 1.4.0. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Building Apache under Cygwin STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 08/02/2004 10:51:21 AM ----- BODY:

Download Apache Source

  • http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe
  • get to your favorite server, then select "Web > Apache" and click in the "New" column till you get "Source"

The source will be downloaded into /usr/src/apache-1.3.29-2 (or whatever). 

$ cd /usr/src/apache-1.3.29-2
$ ./configure --help > .configure
$ vi .configure

Add the following lines to the top of '.configure' (we do this to keep our configure options persistent) 

./configure \
    --prefix=/usr/local/apache
exit 0

then 

$ sh ./.configure
$ make

This should work OK and compile fairly quickly at that. Then do: 

$ make install

Which will start yielding errors: 

<=== [mktree]
===> [programs: Installing Apache httpd program and shared objects]
./src/helpers/install.sh -c -m 755 -s ./src/httpd /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
cp: `./src/httpd' and `/usr/local/apache/bin/inst.16836' are the same file
strip: '/usr/local/apache/bin/inst.16836': No such file
chmod: getting attributes of `/usr/local/apache/bin/inst.16836': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `/usr/local/apache/bin/inst.16836': No such file or directory
./src/helpers/install.sh -c -m 644 ./src/support/httpd.8 /usr/local/apache/man/man8/httpd.8
...

There's something strange going on with "install.sh". It's some sort of strange Cygwin bug. To fix: 

$ vi ./src/helpers/install.sh

Change: 

if [ -f "$src.exe" ] && [ ! -f "$src." ]; then

to 

if [ -f "$src.exe" ]; then

(If you find out why this is happening, please feel free to leave a comment). Now try again 

$ make install

This should work OK and with the following message. 

make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/apache-1.3.29-2'
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| You now have successfully built and installed the      |
| Apache 1.3 HTTP server. To verify that Apache actually |
| works correctly you now should first check the         |
| (initially created or preserved) configuration files   |
|                                                        |
|   /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf
|                                                        |
| and then you should be able to immediately fire up     |
| Apache the first time by running:                      |
|                                                        |
|   /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start
|                                                        |
| Thanks for using Apache.       The Apache Group        |
|                                http://www.apache.org/  |
+--------------------------------------------------------+

You do have to edit "/usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf" 

$ vi /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf

Change "Port 8080" to "Port 80" and comment out the two lines "User" and "Group".

Now you can start Apache: 

$ /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start
[Mon Aug  2 05:47:38 2004] [alert] httpd: Could not determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 192.168.1.101 for ServerName
/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start: httpd started

And test by going to "http://localhost" in your browser. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: [Apache] David Janes' Helpful Apache Tips URL: http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2004/8/3/117889.html IP: 207.178.248.9 BLOG NAME: The Farm: The Tucows Developers' Hangout DATE: 08/03/2004 09:31:22 PM David Janes, who's sitting right beside me at a conference, has two handy hints for Apache:

----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Adding a new module to Apache STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 08/02/2004 11:54:31 AM ----- BODY:

Here's how you add a new module to be compiled by Apache: 

./configure \
        --add-module=[somepath]/mod_bis.c \
        --prefix=/usr/local/apache

I.e. give a path to the ".c" file containing the module. The [somepath] doesn't/shouldn't be in the Apache source directories. Apache's configure program will copy "mod_bis.c" to the "src/modules/extras" directory. In "mod_bis.c" make sure the module is named correctly!: 

module MODULE_VAR_EXPORT bis_module;
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: [Apache] David Janes' Helpful Apache Tips URL: http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2004/8/3/117889.html IP: 207.178.248.9 BLOG NAME: The Farm: The Tucows Developers' Hangout DATE: 08/03/2004 09:31:21 PM David Janes, who's sitting right beside me at a conference, has two handy hints for Apache:
----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3.7 for Windows (Beta) now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 08/04/2004 09:52:59 PM ----- BODY:

Get it here. Actually, it's been there since Tuesday night but I forgot to post a notice here.

The major change in the version is that all the weblog data downloaded by Jäger is now stored on disk for later retrieval (rather than keeping it all in memory). It also expires entries after 5 days rather than 10, but I'm not 100% sure I'm going to keep it that way. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Automatic Translation STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 08/04/2004 10:03:12 PM ----- BODY:

I came across this entry at LaughingMeme and I thought it would be good to reproduce it and my answer here:

It would be great if someone would write a service that allowed you to subscribe to a machine translated (aka Babelfish'ed) version of an RSS feed. You give the original language, and the desired output language, and moderately mangled, but largely intelligible (if unintentionally obscured) items arrive in your aggregator.

Our response (slightly edited):

BlogMatrix Jäger doesn't translate the RSS feed, but you can set it to automatically translate a page to the language of your choice when you view it. I use this often for Austrian newspapers that I'm interested in following.

It does this by transforming the page or entry's URL with the Tool of your choice. Jäger ships with a large number of Tools for translation, or you can drop in your own with a small piece of Python code.

If you want to try this out:

  • Select a Webpage
  • Do "Settings > Webpage Settings..."
  • Press "Translate"
  • Select the translation you want

Now whenever you view that page — online — it will be translated as per your instructions. If you click on the page's link a second time, the non-translated version will be shown.

I'm considering translating in an offline fashion, but that's a little ... aggressive ... I think. Please let me know if this has any importance to you. I know it's a niche feature! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: How do I open a Category without opening if offline? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: FAQ CATEGORY: FAQ DATE: 08/04/2004 10:06:49 PM ----- BODY:

When you double-click on the title of a Category (i.e. "Blogs - Misc"), the Category will be opened in Jäger and offline (i.e. all the entries will be listed in your browser).

If you just want to open up the Category in Jäger, just double-click on the folder icon. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pete EMAIL: cheerful.cynic@gmail.com IP: 68.62.114.241 URL: http://www.peteholiday.com DATE: 08/04/2004 10:48:13 PM Oh, now that's a good tip. I hadn't noticed that before. Thanks! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Changes for 1.3.8 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 08/06/2004 03:13:34 PM ----- BODY:

Here's what's going to be in the next beta version of Jäger:

  • All your weblogs currently having the default 30 minute check period will be one-time changed to the "Default" period. The Default period can then be changed for every weblog in your preferences.
  • The index for searching will be rebuilt every second week. It will only commence rebuilding if Jäger has been idle for at least a half-hour. This will ensure searches remain nice and speedy.
  • Update: Actions > Tools > Publish Blogroll or OPML now has a link that will display only the OPML (or blogroll). You can right-click on this to save the information to disk. A better OPML exporter will be coming in the future.

The only remaining changes to be made before the 1.4 release are related to how Jäger is licensed and porting to the Macintosh. If you have bug reports, get them in now! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Good News STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 08/10/2004 10:14:41 PM ----- BODY:

Version 1.4 is just about ready to go out the door for Windows and Macintosh simultaneously. I think Thursday night will be the night.

The manuals will lag behind somewhat and will be done in a different format. I'm going to more of a FAQ format, to save me the trouble of rewriting the manual every time there's a major release -- about every 10 weeks or so at the current pace. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3.8 for Windows (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 08/11/2004 12:20:48 AM ----- BODY:

Oh, what the heck: here's Jäger 1.3.8 for Windows (Beta). Unless something major comes up, the only change you're likely to see for 1.4 is the version number. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.3.8 for Macintosh (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 08/11/2004 01:31:37 AM ----- BODY:

And here's 1.3.8 for Macintosh (Beta). This should be especially sweat for you Mac guys, as there's lots of fixes and changes from the last version you've seen. If you're upgrading, please give it a little (lot?) of time to start as it has to do a pile of conversions to get started as a one-time operation. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Random idea for blogging software STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Blogging CATEGORY: Blogging DATE: 08/11/2004 06:10:25 PM ----- BODY:

Alan is talking about the Pop Shoppe over at his blog and I just commented on it at my day blog. Wouldn't it be cool if I could make my comments link on that entry redirect to Alan's site rather than collecting comments at mine? Even better, wouldn't it be cool if they somehow mirrored each other so it didn't matter? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Annoying Old Guy EMAIL: aog@thought-mesh.net IP: 64.102.241.5 URL: http://blog.thought-mesh.net DATE: 08/12/2004 06:50:51 PM The redirect thing would work, but I suspect it be used more to avoid bans than anything else. If you ban me from commenting because I am a troll (which I've been expecting for a while :-)) then I can get around it by setting up a weblog and mirroring your posts that I want to troll. It might work if you could send a request to Alan and he would have to approve it before mirroring, although Alan would still have the problem of trolls he's banned but you haven't. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The next version STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 08/13/2004 12:22:02 AM ----- BODY:

I'm not going to release 1.4 until the weekend because there's just a little more polishing I'd like to do. These include:

  • "self-healing" from database failures
  • a few minor tweaks to the offline templates
  • an improve OPML importer, to create groups from nesting structure
  • fixes for a CSS problem on the Mac
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Welcome to Jäger 1.4 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 08/16/2004 11:47:19 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger 1.4.0 for Windows and for Macintosh is now available. Download it starting here (Download.com is listing the wrong version number; this will be fixed soon).

Jäger 1.4.0 is a substantial upgrade from the 1.2 version of Jäger and features:

  • A much simplified user interface.
  • Full-text searching of all the blogs you are reading.
  • A proper Windows XP look-and-feel (on Windows XP!)
  • A cleaner and much improved Mac OS interface.
  • Extensive offline reading features, including the ability to read whole categories of blogs simultaneously.
  • Improved OPML import and export.
  • Technorati integration in the offline views.
  • A "self-healing" database which can deal with disk saving errors much more cleanly.
  • A new pricing model: $0, though we're still asking for contributions. Do you like that better?

If you're upgrading from a 1.2 version, there will be about a 1 minute delay at startup as your old database is converted to the new format used internally. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.thebishop.net DATE: 08/18/2004 07:54:10 AM Downloaded it yesterday based on John Battelle's link. So far I like it a lot, and may promote it to my #1 RSS reader. Two questions: You say it is free, but I get nagged about a license everytime I start up. Anyway to make this go away other than purchasing a license? I can't seem to get it to "fit nicely" with FireFox 0.93. Are there any tricks to doing so? Other than those nits, I am enjoying Jäeger a lot. Thanks for writing it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark Eichin EMAIL: eichin@thok.org IP: 66.92.95.189 URL: http://www.thok.org/bloggery/ DATE: 08/18/2004 08:04:09 PM Since Jaeger got released free-to-try, I gave it a try on OSX (on my 12" PowerBook, where I use NNW Lite, and have tried PulpFiction.) Started, as usual, with my OPML file from NNW Lite. First problem: it immediately loaded each one, serially. With 343 feeds, this takes intolerably long - roughly 20 minutes - it can fetch them later, I shouldn't be waiting for it. Perhaps a prescan that says "more than 5 feeds, skip discovery?" would make sense, instead of the "don't choose this" buttons. Next problem: actually subscribing, after the info phase, is taking more than an hour, with no feedback at all (just the spinny-rainbow-beach-ball and no redisplay of windows after alt-tab app-switching. Also 200M of memory footprint...) Periodic pokes with lsof find it listening on port 5335 (which I don't see documentation for, and is unacceptable, especially as it isn't bound to the loopback interface...) It's finally finished after around 5 hours of wallclock time - it seems like it was compute bound, not server-response bound, even though it talks to only one server at a time... lsof: python 8989 eichin 12u IPv4 0x02105500 0t0 TCP *:5335 (LISTEN) ps: eichin 8989 34.6 5.1 190220 33564 ?? S 11:38PM 146:08.93 /Applications/Jaeger.app/Contents/MacOS/Jaeger /Applications/Jaeger.app/Contents/Resources/BlogJaeger.py --version 1.4.0 -psn_... Then, once it got to the point of showing the one pane, it didn't turn out to do anything other than show the outline of unread subject lines. I do expect to see more than a subject line, before deciding to open something in the browser, but that doesn't appear to be an option. Also, pressing "recently updated webpages" twice doesn't actually seem to mark everything as read... though it does show me different things (maybe it's marking the visible screenful as read? That'll take forever...) In general, I think this interface just isn't going to scale to the kind of usage I have - you might want to document that, or something. (Note that I *don't* actually have an insane number of messages/day - many of these blogs are low-turnover - just a moderate number of places to *look*. ISTR Scoble follows something like 4 or 5 times this number of feeds :-) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 70.24.195.35 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 08/18/2004 08:27:43 PM I've been testing on the Mac with 300+ feeds. I think the problem is my initial loading sets up the maximal worst case scenario and it should stabilize after that. That said, I'll make this a #1 priority for the first fix. The best way to preview the content is to double click on a blog or a category. The purpose of port 5335 should be fairly obvious then. If you want blogs to disappear off the Favorites/Recently Updated list, with do Actions > Skip or actually read them (i.e. by double clicking); then press on the Recently Updated button. Thanks for the feedback. I've been getting lots of Mac downloads but not many comments. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark Eichin EMAIL: eichin@thok.org IP: 4.36.43.88 URL: http://www.thok.org/bloggery/ DATE: 08/20/2004 12:16:50 AM port 5335 should still be bound to only the loopback interface, not exposed off-machine; passing socket.INADDR_LOOPBACK to socket.bind instead of socket.INADDR_ANY should suffice. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 65.93.6.239 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 08/20/2004 12:22:59 PM I shall do that too! For the record though, it actually checks at connection time and rejects all socket addrs != 127.0.0.1 ----- PING: TITLE: A New Jager URL: http://battellemedia.com/archives/000808.php IP: 64.142.56.28 BLOG NAME: John Battelle's Searchblog DATE: 08/17/2004 06:35:53 AM I gotta check this out - full text search in an aggregator.... Jäger 1.4.0 for Windows and for Macintosh.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Source code STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 08/16/2004 11:56:44 PM ----- BODY:

I'm considering making the source code for Jäger available for non-commercial use, something along the lines of MySQL or Sleepycat. Anyone interested, have ideas, suggestions they'd like to share? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bob Ippolito EMAIL: bob@redivi.com IP: 64.81.197.11 URL: http://bob.pycs.net/ DATE: 08/17/2004 01:23:42 AM Source is good. I'm sure people could learn from what you're doing, especially on the Mac OS side of things (wxPython bundling scripts, workarounds, etc.). ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: None EMAIL: none@example.com IP: 195.29.99.160 URL: DATE: 08/17/2004 07:37:27 PM Source sounds gooood! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Shawn EMAIL: swheatley22@yahoo.com IP: 132.250.54.52 URL: DATE: 08/18/2004 08:05:18 PM I agree... source is good. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: JW EMAIL: a@b.com IP: 65.96.135.172 URL: DATE: 08/20/2004 02:24:32 PM right on.. I'd love to hack on it, and learn from your code. I'm curious what kind of datastore is on the backend. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: RSSCalendar STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 08/17/2004 05:35:08 PM ----- BODY:

I just gave RSSCalendar a quick spin. RSSCalendar is, strangely enough, an online calendar service. You can enter events, appointments and whatnot on your Calendar and you can log back into RSSCalendar to view them at a later date. The twist is that RSSCalendar also publishes your Calendar as three different RSS feeds: daily, weekly and monthly ones. You – or someone else – can subscribe to these feeds and be notified of what's happening. If you're the someone else, you can load the event into your calendar program, such as Outlook, or even into your own RSSCalendar account. Alternatively, you can also just mail the URL of the calendar event to someone else so they add it to their Calendar. Neat.

There's a few UI glitches that I've encountered so far, which I shall mention here in the hopes that the RSSCalendar folks will fix them:

  • The "Add Event" page requires a Description. I don't always want to do this.
  • It should be possible to have multi-day all day events. For example, "Mom visits; Sept 3 – 9".
  • The "Start Date" should display the day of week.
  • The popup Calendar selector is ugly as hell. How about a single button from with a graphic displaying a calendar? That'd be much slicker.
  • If you press any of the "Recurrence" buttons, it's not possible to turn them off.
  • It should be possible to hide my e-mail address in the public feeds. I entered one of my "real" private e-mail addresses into my account information (as opposed to one of my "expect spam" public e-mail address).
  • After you log in for the first time it says "Welcome Back". This is a very minor nit I know.
  • BlogMatrix Jäger is not mentioned as one of the readers :-)

There's one feature I'd like to see added. In fact, I think this is kinda critical: there should be a fourth "notification" feed that will republish events several times before they happen, say at 3 hours, 1 hour, 30, 15 and 5 minutes before the actual event. These entries should have all the same links but different GUIDs so they will be seen a distinct events by aggregators. Private events should be published in this feed. This will act as a notification channel for me when I'm using the calendar from Jäger.

Minor editing changes made 2004.07.20 ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John Pacchetti EMAIL: john@rsscalendar.com IP: 68.115.95.146 URL: http://www.rsscalendar.com DATE: 08/20/2004 05:36:01 AM avid, I made a few changes per your request. 1) Start day now displays day of the week 2) You can hide your email address from public view - this feature exists under the RSS Feeds tab - look for "RSS Options" 3) Got rid of Welcome Back! 4) Added BlogMatrix to the list 5) Working on others Thanks! R/ John Pacchetti ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Big OPML Files STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 08/19/2004 11:19:04 AM ----- BODY:

Jäger is a little, OK, a lot slow importing large OPML files. I thought this was an avoidable consequence of certain program decisions, but then I thought some more and realized it could be a lot better. There'll be a new release (1.4.1) this afternoon with super-fast OPML importing, if that's important to you. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Don't fear the reaper STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 08/19/2004 12:36:25 PM ----- BODY:

Chris Pirillo writes:

The umlaut is what gives it an jump on the competition; few other news aggregators are bold enough to use funny little dots above their lowercase letters.

You bet it does/you bet they aren't! I was entirely inspired by turn of the 80's rockers Blue Öyster Cult and Mötley Crüe and Bloom County's Deathtöunge.

FYI: occasionally, you will see Jäger written as Jaeger. This is a concession to environments that don't reliably support non-ASCII charater sets. It's exactly the same word though. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chris Pirillo EMAIL: chris@pirillo.com IP: 24.199.48.86 URL: http://chris.pirillo.com/ DATE: 08/20/2004 03:28:16 AM Yeah, and did you see? http://www.rssauction.com/ ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chris Hansen EMAIL: chris@tchansen.org IP: 166.70.27.50 URL: http://www.tchansen.org DATE: 08/21/2004 06:27:14 AM DeathTongue! Yeah! Heh. I still have all of my Bloom County anthologies and read them at least once a year. Billy and the Boingers! I'm looking forward to trying out Jaeger this evening... I'm currently using SharpReader. Bye for now. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 65.93.6.239 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 08/22/2004 02:07:10 PM Good luck with Jaeger! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 65.93.6.239 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 08/22/2004 02:08:45 PM RSSAuction? Cool idea -- but I don't think eBay's going to care for it. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: About the name STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 08/19/2004 12:47:30 PM ----- BODY:

Robert Scoble writes:

Everytime I talk with David Janes about his news aggregator named "Jäger" I think of Jager Meister (the alcoholic drink).

For the record, the name is a hat tip to the year I spent living in Vienna. It's the German word for "hunter", it's pronounced like the American test pilot Chuck Yager's name, and I choose it because (a) it's a tireless hunter for information on the web :-) and (b) it looks cool. I tried Jägermeister for the first time about three weeks ago and, hey, it's pretty good stuff too. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.4.1 available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 08/19/2004 07:32:49 PM ----- BODY:

For both Windows and the Mac. This massively speeds up loading OPML files, if that's what you need to do. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Clint Schnekloth EMAIL: perichoresis2002@mac.com IP: 4.29.103.27 URL: http://lutheranconfessions.blogspot.com DATE: 08/20/2004 02:54:10 PM I've downloaded the new Jager for Macintosh, I'm running Mac OS 10.2.8, and when I copy Jager to my desktop and then double click to run it, the Jaeger icon appears and flashes briefly on my dock, and then goes away, and the program never opens. Any solutions? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 65.93.6.239 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 08/20/2004 03:54:39 PM Alas, it only works on Mac OS 10.3. Sorry. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Coming in version 1.4.2 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 08/22/2004 02:03:33 PM ----- BODY:

There'll be a version 1.4.2 released later either later today or tomorrow some time.

The main change is that Category offline views are broken into multiple subpages when their are massive numbers of entries to display. The actual number is set in Settings > Jäger Preferences...: Online/Offline: Entries per offline page; the default number is 50.

This became a problem because some Jäger users have OPML files with category structure, thus ending up with everything in 1 category. When viewing offline, well, it's a little too long to be useful!

The minor change is that the internal webserver is bound to the Loopback interface rather than the Internet interface. Functionally, this makes no difference as Jäger rejects all connection attempts from outside your computer anyway. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.4.2 available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 08/24/2004 12:35:27 AM ----- BODY:

Jäger 1.4.2 is now available for both Windows and Macintosh and is a recommended upgrade for everyone.

What's changed?

  • If an attempt to view a Category page would result in a huge HTML page being displayed, the Category is broken into sub-pages. This is described here.
  • A number of problems in the Category display of search results is fixed. The net result? Text will show up correctly now.
  • An attempt has been made to make the internal webserver bind with the Loopback interface. I'm not sure if this works or not, but it doesn't break anything
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.us DATE: 09/04/2004 05:38:43 AM David, When I downloaded the version of Jaeger you pointed to on Download com, Download says it is version 1.2. When I run jaeger.exe, the setup program says is it for Jaeger 1.4.1. I'm looking for 1.4.2, because I wanted to try it before filing a feature request. Do I have it? P.S. The feature request was to ask if the post titles could wrap in the Jaeger window. That would allow me to have a smaller Jaeger window, and a larger browser window, on my screen limited laptop. Thanks, ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 70.24.195.35 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 09/04/2004 12:44:54 PM It's a problem with Download.com, or rather, the fact that it used to cost me $75 to change the version number there; this will be fixed very shortly. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: RSS Calendar, take 2 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 08/27/2004 12:56:23 PM ----- BODY:

I just posted this idea as a comment to Marc Canter's weblog. RSSCalendar should consider making the "ICAL" object an RSS 2 Enclosure so it can then be "picked off" automatically by tools interested in this data (without scraping the internal HTML object).

The ICAL object contains data that looks like this (original link): 

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
PRODID:-//RSSCalendar.com - 1.0//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:d6128a5c44f82653361a48a60cbc47c2
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20040820
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20040821
DTSTAMP:20040415T140000Z
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
SUMMARY:Conference
DESCRIPTION:RSSCalendar is an exciting ... uses, including:
LOCATION:
PRIORITY:3
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

It's not XML but it does have its own RFC. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John Pacchetti EMAIL: john@rsscalendar.com IP: 68.115.95.146 URL: http://www.rsscalendar.com DATE: 09/05/2004 05:37:40 PM I just added an tag to the RSS 2.0 feed - it includes a link to the .ics (ICal) dynamic file that is generated for import. Thanks for the great suggestion! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger: State of the Union STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 08/27/2004 02:36:38 PM ----- BODY:

This is my "state of the union" address, letting you all know what's up with Jäger.

Jäger 1.4

The Jäger 1.4 launch was very successful, with several hundred downloads happening the first few days. On the negative side, I've got a lot more "hate mail" :-) than previous releases meaning either the quality of my code has gotten worse or you're doing a lot more with it. Keep your comments coming, they're very useful to me. I can differentiate between "there's a problem with your product" and "you suck", so don't spare me your comments. If something looks broken, it probably is and I'm fully committed to fixing it.

Source Code

The source code is coming, very soon, as soon as I get eight hours together to figure out what the particulars are going to be. My feeling is that the way I'm going to make enough money out of Jäger is through a higher level of exploitation (i.e. bundling it with something else), so I'm not too worried about the source getting out there. That said, the license will be something like MySQL, where I'm going to reserve the rights for commercial exploitation. If you have any suggestions here or you know of something that you think would make a good model let me know.

I'm also not sure where or how I should host the code. Sourceforge? My own server? CVS? Subversion? "tar.gz". Let me know.

Templates

Jäger uses a Python library called Cheetah to generate the "offline content". An upcoming version (very soon) will make all these available as text files that you can edit, independently of whether you have the source code.

UNIX

Jäger is built on top of wxPython and wxPython runs under UNIX. I actually made a version that worked with Netscape under Redhat 8, but I didn't distribute it because there's a lot of different UNIX flavors and a lot of different browsers in each of this flavors. Because Jäger needs to control a browser, there's a significant amount of poking around at X Windows structures needed to make this work – and it's all done, it just needs to be expanded.

There's no reason Jäger wouldn't work under Mac OS 10.2 too, if someone wants to take the time.

GMail Integration

I will be releasing a version of Jäger in the next six weeks with GMail integration, courtesy of the "libgmail" library. What will this do for you? When you get new mail in GMail, it will be listed in Jäger. When you double click on the link, you browser will be brought to the appropriate GMail page.

You may say "no big deal", I can just check the GMail page regularly. What I'm working on is making Jäger a generalized interface for checking all the events happening in your environment. More on this below.

Outlook and NNTP

I've got a significant amount of code written that demonstrates integration of Outlook and NNTP. The trick with this is that we're dealing with a lot of data and in some instances, most of it useless. In both the Outlook and NNTP code, I've attempted to group multiple entries together into a single long post: i.e. an entire thread in NNTP will be a single entry in the blog that either gets updated or replaced. The mechanics of how this will work in practice is quite difficult, which is why you haven't seen this yet.

Searching

The really next big thing coming to Jäger is improved searching. I've got a version I run with Amazon and Technorati integration built right in. I want to be able to extend this to any type of search: Google, medical libraries, your file system, and so forth. Jäger has an excellent scraping system that has never been exploited, so we're not even dependent on the search systems having an API.

I'm going to write a lot more about this in the near future. Jäger has a built in web server running on port 5335 than can be extended simply by dropping in a Python module. The logical interface for search results is RSS. This is very doable.

What is Jäger?

I think Jäger is much bigger than an RSS aggregator. That's part of the reason why I've moved from calling pages "weblogs" to "webpages" in 1.4. In general, I'm viewing Jäger as a "browser companion". Since Jäger has a built in Python engine, I'm viewing this an extensible desktop tool that should be viewed as top-tier application on your desktop as much as your browser is.

More on this soon too. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Wilson EMAIL: phil@philwilson.org IP: 217.205.98.162 URL: http://philwilson.org/blog/ DATE: 08/27/2004 04:10:20 PM I think repositioning Jäger like this is a very wise move. I didn't really take to it much it as just a feed aggregator (although it did the job), but it could be of much more use (and much more acceptable) as a companion. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 209.171.52.2 URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com DATE: 08/27/2004 04:41:35 PM My mind has been going overtime since I posted this. Jaeger is both a UI and a Webserver. There's a Tool API (which I'm going to improve) that lets you drop new code into Jaeger. Now, consider Jaeger as just a place where people can just drop little pieces of code into place to provide desktop services. For example, a little P2P search could be dropped in, with Jaeger providing the UI to the results. More on this after the weekend. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Wilson EMAIL: phil@philwilson.org IP: 195.137.73.109 URL: http://philwilson.org/blog/ DATE: 08/28/2004 03:18:42 PM Sounds great David, keep it up! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: geodog@cyberdude.com IP: 24.7.89.96 URL: http://www.geodog.us DATE: 09/04/2004 05:42:28 AM Ditto. Sounds cool. At the moment I save interesting webpages using slogger extension of Firefox, and search through them using SWISH-E. Would nextGen Jaeger replace and augment this? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 70.24.195.35 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 09/04/2004 12:43:46 PM Tim: Yes. More on this to come! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Slashdot thread STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 08/27/2004 04:45:23 PM ----- BODY:

"How Can Companies Profit While Giving Code Away?". I guess we'll find out. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Open Source License for Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 08/31/2004 02:07:52 PM ----- BODY:

Dave Winer writes with regards to licensing Frontier.

1. No breakage. I want old scripts continue to run in new environments. A lot has been invested in code that runs in the Frontier environment, one of the reasons to release the kernel as source is so that those apps will run better, in more operating systems. I want to limit incentives for people to fork based on compatibility. I don't want to create a dozen semi-clones of Frontier, rather I want to incentivize people to add to the culture, add new features, fix user interface bugs, but not to break apps.

2. I want it to be possible to create a commercial business from the code base. However, I want the general rule to be that if you make an improvement to the code, you must share it on equal terms.

I think these two goals clearly imply a base license that's GPL-like, with an option for a more liberal license, for either a cash fee, or an agreement to remain compatible, or a combination of fee and agreement. This is a derivative of the MySQL license system.

This are pretty well exactly the same terms under which I want to release Jäger. I was looking at the MySQL license and it doesn't look like that great a base to start with so I may just try to throw something together very simple myself based on one of the Python licenses and then run it past a friendly lawyer. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: rteller EMAIL: rteller@hotmail.com IP: 211.72.233.21 URL: DATE: 09/16/2004 04:50:44 PM I installed BlogMatrix Jager, tried it, and then decided to uninstall it using Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs. It left about 18 files, (the .exe file, .dll files and .pyd files) which could not be deleted. I tried manually deleting these files, and get an error....cannot delete/access denied. How do I delete these files? Any suggestions/ideas? rteller ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.4.3 available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 09/04/2004 12:38:34 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger 1.4.3 is now available for Windows and Macintosh OS 10.3.

There are only a couple of changes in the version but they're all pretty important so I'd recommend upgrading:

  • There was a bug in the "Default Update Time" code that lets you set a default checking period for all blogs. This bug hit hardest people who were using the 1.3 beta but it does affect everyone.
  • The scraping is much improved, now that we've upgraded to the latest version of the feedparser.
  • Under certain very strange circumstances, webpages that weren't blogs were being recognized as such during discovery. This is fixed.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Light & Dark EMAIL: lightanddark@canada.com IP: 24.64.209.126 URL: http://lightanddark.typepad.com DATE: 09/04/2004 10:54:19 PM Unfortunately, the download site is still serving 1.4.1 I haven't upgraded since 1.2, so if I'm going to do it, I'd prefer to get as current as possible. Any idea when 1.4.3 might be available for download? Also, have you had any problems with upgrading from 1.2? (I noticed the note about the delay as the database converts) Really looking forward to seeing what you've added/improved! Paul ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Updates STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 09/05/2004 12:13:02 AM ----- BODY:

  • I'm not routing my downloads through Download.com until our listing gets updated. The installation page now points to here for downloading.
  • There was a slight problem with version numbers this morning. This is now fixed.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.4.4 available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 09/06/2004 09:05:56 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger 1.4.4 is now available for Windows (Macintosh users need not upgrade).

The version fixes the bug where the entry text was not being displayed in the Preview. If you do not use Previews, there's no need to upgrade to this version. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Light & Dark EMAIL: lightanddark@canada.com IP: 24.64.209.126 URL: http://lightanddark.typepad.com DATE: 09/06/2004 09:12:13 PM That's got it, David. Thanks for the fast solution. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Annoying Old Guy EMAIL: aog@thought-mesh.net IP: 12.221.71.251 URL: http://blog.thought-mesh.net DATE: 09/09/2004 03:15:29 AM Here's an odd feature request: If I have my own weblog and I have a blogroll on it, then clicking through to other people's weblogs generates referral data back to my weblog. That doesn't happen if I use BlogMatrix. Is there anyway to simulate that? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 70.24.195.35 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 09/15/2004 07:28:32 PM Alas, not in a practical way. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Saving RSS Bandwidth STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Blogging CATEGORY: Blogging DATE: 09/10/2004 12:36:21 PM ----- BODY:

Danny writes:

Interesting ideas cropped up in the hoo-haa about MSDN’s kilofeed aggregate:

1) Only send full content if the requesting client supports compression. (Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate)
2) Only send full content if a client sends If-Modified-Since or If-None-Match headers. The first time a user loads a feed they will only get headlines, but if the aggregator is well-behaved they will be “rewarded” with full content on their first refresh.

I proposed something similar here a couple of months ago. The beauty of the suggestion Dan is making is that it's a lot easier to implement. I'll probably start sizing this next week, because I'm going to start having a lot of time on my hands and I've got some practical experience writing Apache modules.

Of course, this won't help Microsoft too much since I doubt they're heavily dependent on Apache! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The Universal Search Interface STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 09/11/2004 01:00:24 AM ----- BODY:

About two months ago, I added the ability to search blog postings within Jäger. You first saw this in 1.3 beta releases. As I thought about this more and more, I released there was something much more general purpose here: why not search anything with Jäger? I quickly implemented an Amazon interface using the pyamazon module and was quite pleased with the results. Each Amazon category – books, dvd, video, and so forth – was treated as a blog and each entry was a particular search result. I decided not to put this in the official Jäger 1.4 release because I though I had the beginning of something much more powerful here that needed to be done correctly.

Note that I'm talking about something orthogonal to what JWZ is mentioning here. I'm not talking about using RSS to return changing results from persistent search, though I think that's a great idea and can be easily implement with the libraries I'm releasing to you. I'm talking about using RSS to return search results – i.e. something entirely ephemeral in nature; you look at the results, then discard them.

To do this, I created something I'm calling the Universal Search Interface. It's a Python library for searching ... anything. It's built on top a very powerful and easy to use scraping library called "Drücken" which lets me scrape ... well, almost anything with regular output. It doesn't have to use scrapers: it uses the pyamazon and pytechnorati libraries for accessing Amazon and Technorati.

But enough babbling from me. Here's the basic code (from a user's perspective) to do a search (each result is a single search element): 

import Search
for result in Search.seach(text = 'something'):
	pprint.pprint(result)
Here's a few example search strings:
  • search:Amazon buffy the vampire slayer type:dvd
  • search:Google type:images "dan rather"
  • J Janes search:Canda411 state:NL city:"St. John's" pages:2
  • Dan Smith search:Whitepages state:NY city:"New York" pages:all

The only constant element here is the 'search:'. Every element with a colon in it is a 'restriction'. The restrictions that the USI directly recognizes are 'search:', 'type:' and 'pages:'. 'search:' allows the USI locate the searching class; 'type:' narrows the search to a particular sub-service of a search engine; and 'pages:' tells the maximum number of pages of search results that can be retrieved from the particular search service. The default is '1'; obviously the meaning of a page is highly dependent on the search engine being used. There may be other restrictions added called 'language:' and 'template:'.

Note also that the search interface is implemented as an iterator (using generators, actually). Thus search results must be retrieved starting at the very first result! Also note that searches like 'search:Google dog' may potentially retrieve hundreds of thousands of results which is very nasty. However, results are returned as soon as they're available, which is not only handy, but essential.

Here's some example output from the USI (for the Canada 411 search): 

{'Address': u'39 Goldeneye Pl',
 'City': u"St John's",
 'Country': 'CA',
 'FirstName': u'J',
 'LastName': u'Janes',
 'Name': u'J Janes',
 'Phone': u'(709) 747-0979',
 'PhoneURI': u'tel:+1-709-747-0979',
 'State': u'NL',
 '_link': u'http://findaperson.canada411.ca/more_info/...',
 '_title': u'Janes, J'}
{'Address': u'8 Lynch Pl',
 'City': u"St. John's",
 'Country': 'CA',
 'FirstName': u'J',
 'LastName': u'Janes',
 'Name': u'J Janes',
 'Phone': u'(709) 722-8327',
 'PhoneURI': u'tel:+1-709-722-8327',
 'PostalCode': u'A1B 4L8',
 'State': u'NL',
 '_link': u'http://findaperson.canada411.ca/more_info/...',
 '_title': u'Janes, J'}
...

The rules for the output format are quite simple:

  • the only valid values in a result are Unicode strings, integers, floats, lists and dictionaries, with the later two being discouraged but not prohibited. Non-Unicode strings and classes or "bags" are not allowed
  • names start with a underscore are reserved. The reserved names currently in use are '_title', '_link', '_html' and '_text'

The source code for this (and Jäger's "generic" library, which this depends on) will be released next week under standard Python source code license. The rest of Jäger will be released the week after under a different license, the details of which I'm still working on.

So, what does this have to do with RSS search results?

Well, there's another layer coming called the "Pylot interface". Pylots are little Python webservices that you can plug into a Pylot Engine. Jäger will be one of these, though there's no reason these can't be a different freestanding application. The idea I have is that there'll always a Python environment running on your desktop (which is what Jäger is) that you can access as a local webserver (maybe using twisted), a database such as MySQL if it's available, full access to the wxPython library and so forth. You want to do something? Just drop a piece of Pylot code in the correct directory and it's executing like a Windows application!

One possible idea for a Pylot is a front end to the Universal Search Engine that can return HTML, RSS 2 or even RDF results. Because it's on your own desktop and serving only 127.0.0.1, there's no worries about various terms of use that a public webserver would have. If the Pylot environment has MySQL, it's easy to implement JWZ's search engine result interface.

On the subject of RDF, perhaps one of you folks have some suggestions about how I could best return RDF results? It seems to me that this would be great for you semantic web types and could bootstrap your projects quite a bit. Does each USI class need to return a dictionary of what the terms mean, or can I just make up vocabularies ad-hoc?

Anyway, I'm way ahead of myself now. You'll see the USI on Wednesday. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger: the support source code STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 09/15/2004 07:07:43 PM ----- BODY:

The support source code for Jäger is now available (licensed under the LGPL), http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/source/. This encompasses three libraries, each in their own directory:

  • generic: general helper classes and functions
  • druecken: the Drücken HTML downloading and scraping libraries
  • search: the Universal Search Parser

We will describe the files in "generic" and "druecken" at a later date. Some of this code is very useful, some less so.

The Universal Search Parser (USP) is an attempt to provide a consistent extensible method to utilize online search resources within a Python program (and in the future, as RSS or RDF results). It's quite easy to use; for example, here's how you can get all the listings for TRS-80s available on EBay: 

import Search
for result in Search.search('search:ebay TRS-80 pages:all'):
	pprint.pprint(result)

Yielding: 

{'Bidders': 0,
 'BuyItNow': u'$15.00',
 'Price': u'$10.00',
 '_link': 'http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/...1247&item=5122154379&rd=1',
 '_title': u'Sol 20, Exidy, TRS-80, NorthStar, BASIC, Assembler, etc'}
{'Bidders': 4,
 'Price': u'$15.50',
 '_link': 'http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/...=74947&item=5123221664&rd=1',
 '_title': u'RADIO SHACK TRS-80 POCKET COMPUTER MODEL PC-4 W/CASE'}
{'Bidders': 0,
 'Price': u'$0.99',
 '_link': 'http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/...=74947&item=5123225351&rd=1',
 '_title': u'Downland for TRS 80 Color Computer'}
...

What else can we search? Right now, we have the following modules implemented (there are example searches within each file):

  • SearchAmazon.py (requires pyamazon)
  • SearchBBC.py
  • SearchCBC.py
  • SearchCNN.py
  • SearchCanada411.py
  • SearchEbay.py
  • SearchGoogle.py
  • SearchIMDB.py
  • SearchSourceforge.py
  • SearchTechnorati.py (requires pytechnorati)
  • SearchWhitepages.py
  • SearchYahoo.py

To install the USP (and all the other libraries), do the following:

  • download the latest copy of "jaeger-support-*.tar.gz" file
  • unpack it
  • "cd search"
  • try "python Search.py 'some query'"

The main source code for Jäger will be along later this week or by Monday at the latest. The USP will be integrated into Jäger for both "immediate" and "persistent" searching in the very near future.

If you give this code a try and you like it (or hate it), please send along an e-mail (or even send a donation): I'd love to hear from you in any case. If there's any other Search modules you'd like implemented, send me a note and I'll see what I can do, or if you're so inclined try it yourself – it's not too difficult. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Hans EMAIL: hans@zephyrfalcon.org IP: 151.213.164.102 URL: http://zephyrfalcon.org DATE: 09/16/2004 10:34:37 PM Hi, The example doesn't work for me: >>> import Search >>> r = search.Search("search:ebay TRS-80 pages:all") gives me: Traceback (most recent call last):   File "", line 1, in ?   File "Search.py", line 179, in search     search_engine = request.GetRestriction('search') AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'GetRestriction' ----- PING: TITLE: My retirement URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_09.html#002959 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 09/16/2004 11:39:51 AM What I've done so far, in no particular order: Got all my speakers hooked up to my 5.1 audiovisual centre Configured my amplifier; put it into THX mode for a laugh Tried to figure out how to acoustically isolate... ----- PING: TITLE: [Python] Interesting Stuff from Jäger's Support Code URL: http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2004/9/16/142504.html IP: 207.178.248.9 BLOG NAME: The Farm: The Tucows Developers' Hangout DATE: 09/16/2004 10:01:03 PM

David Janes, developer of the rather nifty weblog newsreader  Jäger (written in Python and wxPython),

----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Oops STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 09/17/2004 11:04:31 AM ----- BODY:

There's a slight problem in my examples. You should use for now: 

import Search
for result in Search.search(text = 'search:ebay TRS-80 pages:all'):
	pprint.pprint(result)

The next version will handle the argument to search correctly (it's possible to pass in a highly structured object that exactly describes the search).

Update: fixed. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Universal Search Parser - 0.1.1 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 09/17/2004 01:30:41 PM ----- BODY:

I've made some small updates to the USP:

  • The example no longer needs the 'text = ' parameter to search. It knows the right thing to do.
  • I've added an ESPN seacher: 'search:espn type:news buffalo bills flutie chargers pages:all'
  • I fixed a bug in the scraper that was doing entity decoding within attribute values.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger Source Code License STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 09/17/2004 02:30:55 PM ----- BODY:

The following is most likely going to be the Jäger source code license. Your comments would be appreciated. This is a minor variant on the Sleepycat license; we're going to insist that the pop-up contribute license stick around and that the initial "bootstrap" blogroll come from BlogMatrix.

Copyright (c) 2004 David P. Janes. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  • Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  • Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
  • Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for the DB software and any accompanying software that uses the DB software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and must be freely redistributable under reasonable conditions. For an executable file, complete source code means the source code for all modules it contains. It does not include source code for modules or files that typically accompany the major components of the operating system on which the executable file runs.
  • Redistributions in any form must not delete, modify or otherwise alter the code in "BlogWelcome.py" and/or "BlogManagerMixinSources.py"
  • Redistributions in any form must not disable or otherwise circumvent calls to code in "BlogWelcome.py" and/or "BlogManagerMixinSources.py"

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL SLEEPYCAT SOFTWARE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The next major version of Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 09/20/2004 10:35:26 PM ----- BODY:

This is my current thinking of what's going to be in the next major update of Jäger, version 1.6. Not every change mentioned here will make the cut, but here's hoping.

Simplified UI
There will be a small arrow button next to each of the major buttons (i.e. Favorite Weblogs, Recently Updated, and Search All) that controls the settings specific to that particular list.

There will be a "weblogs panel" that allow weblog specific settings to be modified across many weblogs at once. This will include whether a weblog is a "favorite", is "hidden", what Category the weblog belongs to and so forth.

Information relating to the offline view will be adjustable on the HTML page rather than within the UI itself.

Better OPML and blogrolling support
Our site "blogmatrix.com" will provide a central clearing house for your blogroll information. What does this mean in practice? It means you can maintain your blogroll in Jäger and it will be automatically updated on blogmatrix.com AND you can include this directly on your blog. No more editing your blogroll or having a blogroll out of date. An OPML copy of your blogroll will also be kept.

Note that Jäger already does many of these things but it's fairly difficult to maintain. The intention is that should be almost trivial to use. It's also optional, of course: you don't have to export your blogroll (and if you do, you can select certain blogs to be "hidden").

The interface to do this will be XML/RPC, so if you want to move the hosting elsewhere, you're free to do that.

Better Synchronization
If you're running multiple copies of Jäger, we'll provide centralized synchronization through blogmatrix.com also, in much the same way we'll do the blogrolls.

Improved Searching

We're going to integrate the Universal Search Parser into Jäger. This means that when you type a search phrase, you'll not only be searching the database but also Technorati, Amazon, CNN, BBC and so forth. Furthermore, you'll be able to turn all these external searches into "persistent searches": that is, you can continually check, say CNN, for a particular phrase and you'll be notified when it appears.

If you don't care for Jäger's interface and prefer to use a different aggregator, you can still uses Jäger to set up persistent searches to feed your favorite interface.

Searching the Jäger database for blogs by name or by URL (currently done by placing "name:" or "url:" in front of the search string) will be done automatically.

GMail Integration
We're going to attempt to integrate Jäger with your GMail account. That is, if you get new mail in GMail you'll be notified in Jäger. This is still fairly experimental so we'll have to wait and see how this works out. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger Source Code STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 09/21/2004 12:08:46 AM ----- BODY:

The Jäger Source Code is now available (and described) here. Have fun and if you have any questions, modifications you'd like to include, bug fixes or whatever - send me a note or leave a comment here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: has EMAIL: xxxx@xxxx.xxx IP: 81.103.146.174 URL: http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/ DATE: 09/22/2004 10:15:36 AM Download link's broken. Should be: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/source/ HTH ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 70.24.195.35 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 09/22/2004 11:17:44 AM Thanks! Fixed. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The New Look STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 09/23/2004 01:54:57 PM ----- BODY:

Here's a screen shot of the next version of Jäger (so far):

You'll notice a few changes already:

  • Menu items that were previously in the Settings menu are now in a menu that pops up to the left of the particular major button.
  • The lists are renamed slightly
  • The icons on the main list are getting cleaned up
  • The Search area is now at the top of the all the lists

I'm also working on deleting lots of obsolete code and functions that are too infrequently used to be worth keeping. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.5.1 for Windows (Beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 09/24/2004 01:08:21 AM ----- BODY:

I'm so pleased with the progress I've made so far with the next version of Jäger, I'm going to release the first beta tomorrow. It will show off a lot of the new integrated searching I'm working on include. For example, if you search for 'star wars' you will see in the search results special links for 'Search: Amazon', 'Search: BBC' all the way through 'Search: Yahoo'. If you double click on the (red) folder arrow, a search for 'star wars' will be executed.

There's lots of little usability factors to be worked out here but I think you'll be quite impressed. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Not until next week STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 09/24/2004 12:38:01 PM ----- BODY:

I can't create an executable version of Jäger due to some mismatch between py2exe and wxPython 2.5.2.8 (it worked with the previous version of wxPython). If anyone has a clue, please let me know: 

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "BlogJaeger.py", line 61, in ?
  File "wxPython\__init__.pyc", line 10, in ?
  File "wxPython\_wx.pyc", line 3, in ?
  File "wxPython\_core.pyc", line 15, in ?
  File "wxPython\wx.pyc", line 2, in ?
  File "wxPython\wxc.pyc", line 9, in ?
  File "wxPython\wxc.pyc", line 7, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.

If this can't be sorted out, I'm going to "downgrade" my version of wxPython and continue from there. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Ephemeral Searches STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 09/24/2004 01:07:36 PM ----- BODY:

Here's a an example of using Jäger doing an "ephemeral" search (i.e. a short lived) for "star wars".

First, I do a search the normal way. Note the results from all the weblogs I subscribe to that mention "star wars":

All the "red arrows" are ephemeral ready to go — but not yet executing. Next I double click on "BBC" to see what they're saying about it. After a few seconds:

Cool. Next I try Amazon:

There's quite a few different sections of results from Amazon.

Notes:

  • You'll be able to convert ephemeral searches into "persistent searches". That is, you can continually check (for example) EBay for new items about "star wars". This is very cool. Another example might be to set up a persistent search on CBC for "Paul Martin" or CNN for "John Kerry".

    You'll be able to use these persistent searches to feed another Aggregator if there's something else you prefer to use.

  • By double clicking on the "Search: Amazon" (or whatever) link, you'll get a decent summary of all the search results including images, text or whatever Amazon supplied (it also tries make "Amazon.ca" versions of the links). If you double click on it again, it will show the original Amazon search.
  • You'll be able to configure what exactly is being searched. I.e. you could turn of ESPN or Amazon VHS searches, for example.
  • There may be an auto-update feature for the Search code, in case the scrapers need to be updated because of a change on the target search engines.
  • You'll be able to do phone number searches (right now, in Canada and in the US) and get VCARD results so you can add information directly into your Address Book.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: News URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_09.html#002973 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 09/24/2004 01:20:48 PM I've been very busy working on the next version of my news aggregator BlogMatrix Jäger, which hasn't left me a lot of time for making blog postings or responding to emails, etc.. Don't tune out yet, there's a few... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogLines API STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 09/28/2004 03:35:38 PM ----- BODY:

This could be very interesting. BlogLines is providing an API (press release; weblog link) that will allow desktop clients – i.e. programs like Jäger – to synchronize multiple copies on different machines; to provide notifications that a blog has been updated; and to provide truncated RSS 2 feeds that only contain new items.

I'm going to size this up this afternoon and decide whether this is worth implementing. I'm noticing a few shortcomings in the API, though some of these comments may be of nitpicking nature:

  • There should be a way of marking items as read without re-downloading the feeds
  • There should be a way of marking a range of items (possibly just by using two time points) as read – i.e. just because the aggregator has download some items doesn't mean the user has read them on the aggregator.
  • Why isn't there a "download everything new" call? The current API requires that each subscription be downloaded as a separate HTTP call; why not have an aggregate function that returns everything in a single call?
  • Why isn't there an "upload blogroll" or "subscribe to" API (preferably the later) call? This is really required if desktop aggregators are going to synchronize with each other.
  • Why aren't Bloglines' OPML extensions added as a separate XML namespace – i.e. use Bloglines:SubId="3714388" rather that BloglinesSubId="3714388"?

Update: it should also be possible to get the OPML feed with only updated items too. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Updates STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 09/29/2004 11:14:15 AM ----- BODY:

I still haven't been able to build a new Windows executable, despite the fact that I've downgraded wxPython to 2.5.1.5. Very depressing. I'm going to put a lot more effort into that today.

There's an issue with my home computer where certain sites cannot be reached by HTTP: I need to go through a proxy server. I discovered this literally in the last half-hour. Solution: the next Beta version of Jäger will support Proxies.

I'm definitely going to support some of the BlogLines APIs (read more here). The first cut will:

  • Allow you to enter your Bloglines account information
  • Synchronize your Bloglines account to Jäger
  • Optionally allow you to download new entries in blogs via Bloglines rather than directly through the Internet.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Configuring Jäger for using a Proxy STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 09/29/2004 12:26:04 PM ----- BODY:

You can configure Jäger to use a Proxy server by Settings > Jäger Preferences... and selecting the Network panel. If you have problems reaching certain sites, you may need to use this feature. You'll have to get the HTTP Proxy information from your System Adminstrator or from your ISP.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.1 for Windows (Beta) is now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 09/30/2004 05:18:23 PM ----- BODY:

We've been blogging about this for the last two weeks, so I won't bore you with all the details. You can get a copy here. Here's what 1.5.1 contains:

  • partial reworking of the UI for usability and clarity
  • "universal searching" – try typing "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in the search area, pressing the Search Button (the "Magnifying Glass" icon) and then double clicking on the red arrows under various search engines
  • a roughed-in version of the BlogLines interface. Try File > Synchronization > Settings… to see what we're doing

Here's what's missing, broken or needs further work:

  • the search text field doesn't deal with quotes, dots and what have you very well
  • the search button should glow red when a search is taking place
  • the search history button (between the text and the search button) doesn't work
  • searches cannot be converted to "persistent" – yet. This will be done by right-clicking on a search. This is part of our project to make "The Inevitability of Search Results as RSS" a reality.
  • the BlogLines interface and code needs a lot more work. You'll be seeing this in the next release.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Refactoring Synchronization STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 10/02/2004 06:26:56 PM ----- BODY:

I've been doing a substantial amount of upgrading to the Synchronization code in Jäger over the last couple of days. The impetus for this is our upcoming Bloglines integration (coming in the next 3 days), but in fact the code was a squirrelly mess and needed some refactoring anyway. I've made the UI a little easier to understand also, I hope.

Synchronization is now to a couple of modules in the source tree. A number of modules that were only partially or not at all used have been removed. Here's what's left:

Modules that describe the settings, handle communications, and so forth:

  • BlogSync.py
  • BlogSyncBloglines.py
  • BlogSyncFTP.py

Modules that invoke synchronization:

  • BlogSyncDialog.py (File > Synchronization > Synchronize Now...)
  • BlogManagerMixinSync.py

Modules that let the user set up synchronization (File > Synchronization > Settings...):

  • BlogSyncPreferences.py
  • BlogSyncPreferencesBloglines.py
  • BlogSyncPreferencesFTP.py

I won't spend any time describing the code itself here. I've added a lot of documentation internally and the object-oriented nature of the code should make it pretty easy to follow. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Synchronization Preferences STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/02/2004 07:25:02 PM ----- BODY:

Here's a couple of screenshots from the next Beta version of Jäger. First, the new and improved FTP synchronization settings (any number of copies of Jäger can synchronize through a common FTP server):

Next, the new Bloglines synchronization settings:

The wording on the bottom checkbox is going to change. This is asking whether you want Jäger to contact Bloglines to download weblog updates. Right now I think Blogline's API is rather weak in this regards, but we'll see if they smarten up a little. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: More on the Bloglines API STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Blogging CATEGORY: Blogging DATE: 10/02/2004 07:39:22 PM ----- BODY:

Here's some other articles and blog postings on the Bloglines API, in case you're interested in what other folk are up to:

  • Dare Obasanjo — Thoughts on the Bloglines Sync API: These limitations don't make using the Bloglines Sync API a terribly useful way for synchronizing between two desktop aggregators. Instead, it primarily acts as a way for Bloglines to use various desktop aggregators as a UI for viewing a user's Bloglines subscriptions without the Bloglines team having to build a rich client application. Thanks, but I think I'm going to pass.
  • Brent Simmons (NetNewsWire) — Thoughts on the Bloglines Sync API: The API is simple and easy-to-implement. On one hand this should promote wide adoption, but on the other hand it’s easy to criticize it for not doing x, y, and z. My own take is that it’s like all software: you start with something basic but workable, get a solid base, then improve it in increments.
  • Sam Ruby — Vacant Space: You know what people like in APIs? Hint: it is not where you put the blank line. People like it when you don't need to throw in the kitchen sink to make this work.
  • eWeek — Bloglines Tackles RSS Bandwidth Issue (†Search Engine Watch)
  • O'Reilly — The New Bloglines Web Services: This article will take a look at the new Bloglines Web Services and their effect on the RSS/Atom landscape
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.2 for Windows (Beta) is now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/03/2004 01:14:59 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.2 is now available. This version is mainly centered around implementing Bloglines synchronization, to be described more fully in the next message. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Bloglines Synchronization Working STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 10/03/2004 01:18:26 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix is proud to announce that we now have Bloglines/Jäger synchronization working. If you subscribe to a weblog on Bloglines, you will be asked whether you want to add it to your Jäger subscriptions; if you unsubscribe to a Bloglines weblog, you will be asked whether you want to remove it from your Jäger subscriptions.

Unfortunately, it's a one way process for now: if you subscribe to something in Jäger, you won't automatically see it on Bloglines. Hopefully as Bloglines updates their API we'll be able to add this capability also.

Here's how you can do this:

  • Download BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.2 for Windows. Note that this is Beta code, but it's a pretty strong. Synchronization won't work on Jäger 1.4.X and I don't have Macintosh beta going yet, mainly due to the large number of changes to graphics
  • Do "File > Synchronization > Settings..." and click on the "Bloglines" panel
  • Fill in your Bloglines account information
  • Press "OK"
  • Do "File > Synchronization > Synchronize Now..."
  • Press "OK" when synchronization is complete

All your Bloglines subscriptions will appear in a new Category called "Bloglines".

Notes:

  • Jäger will never subscribe or unsubscribe to a blog without asking you first, so you're safe to try this. Furthermore, it'll only ask you once. If you subscribe to Instapundit.com on Bloglines and you decline to synchronize it on Jäger, it won't keep asking you over and over!
  • If you've already subscribed to a blog in Jäger, you won't be asked to re-subscribe to it. There may be a few glitches here because of Canonical URL representation (i.e. do the URLs end in trailing slashes, and so forth) but they shouldn't be too serious. If it gets annoying, tell me.
  • If you delete a blog on Bloglines, Jäger will ask you if you want to unsubscribe to it the next time you synchronize
  • You must explicitly synchronize – Jäger will not do this automatically
  • Getting content from Bloglines doesn't work yet. I'm still not entirely sure if this is worth doing.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Parsing OPML STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 10/05/2004 05:19:12 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger makes extensive use of OPML, to allow sharing of your blogroll, to allow importing of blogrolls and, in fact, to provide the initial subscription list that Jäger users see. The Bloglines API also uses OPML to export data and we will be shortly posting a proposed standard for sharing synchronization information among different weblog readers.

The Jäger source ships with an OPML parser but as part of our general upgrading of code quality, we've decided to release this a separate independent code module which you can use in your code (if you find the license to restrictive, please send me a note and we'll fix that).

Our opmlparser provides a pre-order depth-first iterator for an OPML file. Tags are stored as object attributes, values as Unicode strings. We provide a number of useful functions for retrieving values, plus a translation facility to ensure your code does not choke on different OPML application dialects.

Here's an example use of our OPML parser (a more complete example is shipping with the code): 

ompl_parser = opmlparser.OPMLParser()
ompl_parser.translate('text', 'title')
ompl_parser.translate('url', 'htmlUrl')
ompl_parser.feed(data)

for outline in ompl_parser:
	pprint.pprint({
		'title' : outline.get('title'),
		'htmlUrl' : outline.get('htmlUrl'),
	})

Here is the source code: opmlparser.py. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: [Python / OPML] Jaeger's OPML Parser URL: http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2004/10/7/156437.html IP: 216.40.34.103 BLOG NAME: The Farm: The Tucows Developers' Hangout DATE: 10/07/2004 03:58:29 PM David Janes has built some pretty cool tools in the process of making Jaeger, his Python/wxPython-based newsreader. One of these tools, an ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger and FireFox 1.0 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 10/07/2004 12:39:00 PM ----- BODY:

This is just a reminder that if you want to use Jäger and FireFox together, you'll need to install the Single Window extension and restart FireFox. Yes, it's a nuisance, but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it right now.

An upcoming release of Jäger will actually warn you when you change your browser preferences.

If you have a problem with your links opening in two different windows, it's a little be more difficult to fix. Try the following (hat tip: Small Value of Cool). This is still isn't working as great as it should and I'm finding it a little depressing.

  1. Open Windows Explorer ("Start > All Programs > Accessories > Windows Explorer")
  2. Select "Tools > Folder Options..."
  3. Select "File Types" tab
  4. Scroll down to extension "(NONE), File Type: HyperText Transfer Protocol"
  5. Click "Advanced" at the bottom of the Window
  6. Click "Edit"
  7. Clear the "DDE Message" field
  8. Press "OK"
  9. press "OK"
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Light & Dark EMAIL: lightanddark@canada.com IP: 24.64.209.126 URL: http://lightanddark.typepad.com DATE: 10/09/2004 07:01:08 AM Thanks for this, David - that was really starting to annoy me. By the way, in XP at least, it's (NONE) URL:Hypertext Transfer Protocol Just in case those less experienced (like me) take the above instructions too literally! Paul ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.3 for Windows (Beta) Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/07/2004 04:17:48 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.3 is now available.

The version has an entirely new synchronization engine built into itself based around OPML. We will be making proposal shortly for this format as a standard for intra-syndication client synchronization. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.3 source code STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/07/2004 05:22:06 PM ----- BODY:

Here's the source code for Jäger 1.5.3 including all the Universal Search Parser integration and the Bloglines and OPML synchronization code. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Synchronizing Heterogeneous Weblog Readers using OPML STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/08/2004 05:50:07 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix is pleased to release the following proposal to allow different weblog readers/syndication clients to synchronize their blogrolls and read/unread entries amongst each other. The standard is built around well known standards — OPML and FTP — and should be easy for any client to implement.

You can read the proposal in one of three formats:

You can see an example of a syndication file here. The latest beta version of BlogMatrix Jäger supports this proposed standard.

Your comments, cheers and possibly even jeers would be greatly appreciated. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: More on synchronization STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 10/08/2004 09:05:16 PM ----- BODY:

It occurs to me now that it should be possible to synchronize with almost any OPML file (even through HTML and ignore the FTP layer), as long as the define a few of the correct elements. The next version of the proposed standard will make this clear and adjust some of the MUSTs to make sure this is possible.

Once this is so, the story becomes quite simple:

  • You can synchronize against arbitrary OPML files
  • OPML files can define a few extra elements to make synchronization simpler
  • One can define a common repository using FTP -- or other -- to make a synchronization point
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Podcasting STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 10/09/2004 08:40:37 PM ----- BODY:

I've been busy since last night working on adding Podcasting to Jäger. What is podcasting, you ask? In a very tiny nutshell, it's letting automatically downloading music and audio attachments arriving on RSS feeds and adding them to your portable music device ... such as an iPod.

You can read more about Podcasting here:

Here's what we have so far with J&aum;ger. We have a lot of code already written — but not released — for dealing with attachments, so we're well along the path already.

Here's how you get to the Podcasting Settings, via a right click on a blog. You can also use the Actions > Attachments menu. Note the little paperclips indicating that some entries in this weblog have attachments — podcasting won't be much use to you if it doesn't.

Next, Here's the Settings Panel. There's two things you have to do: select automatically downloading attachments (for this weblog) and select adding those attachments to a Playlist in iTunes (or whatever):

This is what it is looks like once you're ready to load Podcasts. Once you press OK, attachments will start downloading and be added to your playlist. The Podcast Settings button will let you change the name of the default Playlist and let you choose what media player you're using (assuming we get something besides an iTunes interface implemented).

Loose ends:

  • Right now I'm getting this working with iTunes on Windows. We need to make it work with iTunes on the Macintosh and with Windows Media Player (and other?).
  • I'll be releasing my Python code for using iTunes (and potentially other players) later this weekend. It's called pytunes.py.
  • Jäger works just fine with BitTorrent right now, but we're going to need a better integration for this to really work well. This will remain an open question for a while
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Podcasting II STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/10/2004 08:24:07 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger just downloaded its first successful podcast: Blogosphere Radio for 10/05/2004. This original plans for a Acts of Volition Radio podcast, but alas, they worked through every single bug I could find in the Python code.

Expect a new beta tomorrow and more news about the next release. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: pytunes STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 10/11/2004 12:12:50 PM ----- BODY:

'pytunes.py' provides a generalized interface for controlling media players, such as Apple's iTunes. This implementation only works with iTunes on Windows but we expect to have a Macintosh implementation later this week and hope to demonstrate a controller for Windows Media Player also (if anyone can help me with the COM interfaces here, I'd be very grateful). This version concentrates on manipulating the playlists, adding songs and so forth rather than playing music, controlling the volume, etc. as this is my immediate need for the Podcasting version of BlogMatrix Jäger. 

import pytunes
itunes = pytunes.iTunesWindows()

# list everything in the Playlist 'Recently Played'
playlist = itunes.GetPlaylistByName('Recently Played')
for track in playlist.IterAllTracks():
	pprint.pprint({
		"album" : track.GetAlbum(),
		"title" : track.GetTitle(),
		"composer" : track.GetComposer(),
		"artist" : track.GetArtist(),
	})
	
# list songs with the word 'Love' in the Title
for track in library_playlist.SearchTitles("Love"):
	pprint.pprint({
		"album" : track.GetAlbum(),
		"title" : track.GetTitle(),
		"composer" : track.GetComposer(),
		"artist" : track.GetArtist(),
	})
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Simon Brunning EMAIL: simon.brunning@gmail.com IP: 195.167.165.130 URL: http://www.brunningonline.net/simon/blog/ DATE: 10/12/2004 10:02:13 AM This worked fine - until I made the mistake of running Makepy over iTunes so I could have a look at the COM model. This seems to have broken everything in sight. ;-) Still, deleting the generated wrapper makes everything work fine again. I'll have a bit of a play with this - I'd be interested to see if you can *set* track attributes as well as reading them, and if attributes like ratings and play counts are available. If so, this could offer a way of transferring your library from one PC to another along with *all* the meta data. Cool stuff, David! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: has EMAIL: has.temp2@virgin.net IP: 81.103.147.127 URL: http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/ DATE: 10/12/2004 01:53:49 PM Apple event-based IPC is relatively expensive, so if you're using iTunes' Apple event interface on the Mac, it's probably good practice to use as few events as you can and lever the Apple Event Object Model to perform more work per event. For example, a straight translation of your example would send 4N+1 events (N = no. of tracks found): from appscript import * for track in app('iTunes.app').sources['Library'].playlists['Recently Played'].tracks.get(): pprint((track.album.get(), track.name.get(), track.composer.get(), track.artist.get())) whereas this sends only 4: ref = app('iTunes.app').sources['Library'].playlists['Recently Played'].tracks pprint(zip(ref.album.get(), ref.name.get(), ref.composer.get(), ref.artist.get())) (The first method also has to assemble and decode object specifiers used to represent every track found - another expense.) There's little difference when dealing with just a handful of tracks, but the first approach can really bog down your application as the number of tracks being operated on increases - something to bear in mind if designing your API across both COM and Apple event interfaces. HTH ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: greenflash@davidjanes.com IP: 66.185.85.72 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 10/12/2004 04:29:17 PM Thanks for the Mac advise. I'll probably be hacking away at that tomorrow or later tonight. There'll be a source code dump later today. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Thompson EMAIL: semiapies@gmail.com IP: 216.61.144.5 URL: DATE: 10/12/2004 06:25:05 PM I slapped together a little class a few weeks back to read the current track playing on WinAmp, based on the COM plugin you can get for it. Clunky, but I haven't found a better way yet. If you're interested, I'll toss you my references. ----- PING: TITLE: [Python / iTunes] pyTunes URL: http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2004/10/12/158956.html IP: 216.40.34.103 BLOG NAME: The Farm: The Tucows Developers' Hangout DATE: 10/12/2004 05:44:14 PM The Python module goodies that spring forth from the Jaeger project (Jaeger is David Janes' newsreader/aggregator) keep on coming! ... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.4 (Beta) for Windows Now Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/11/2004 06:10:28 PM ----- BODY:

We've decided to accelerate the release of BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 (i.e. the version the 1.5.X series is working toward) because we think Jäger as a Podcast receiver is so compelling. You can download the latest beta here. I'm going to produce a 1.5.X Macintosh version later this week; if someone sends me e-mail saying this important I may accelerate this process.

Here's what version 1.5.4 contains (since 1.5.3):

  • Extensive support for Podcast reception. We'll be following this post up with a better description for Jäger's Podcast support. In the meantime, you can read this post.
  • produced OPML files (such as those used in synchronization) now use 'text' rather than 'title' as an attribute for identifying outlines
  • Better support for Firefox 1.0. You still must install the Single Window extension.
  • The welcome page is gone gone gone.

Here's what's left to be added before 1.6

  • a working Macintosh version (we may slip the Mac 1.6 version by two weeks after the Windows release, just because there's so may things that have to be written in a Mac specific way)
  • Windows Media Player support for Podcasting.
  • Podcast filtering – in particular, we need to narrow the types of files accepted for Automated downloading and added to Podcasts.
  • Clean up of the graphics
  • Speeding up of the initial phase of searches
  • Bittorrent? We may add this in an incremental 1.6.X release.

Here's what's broken right now:

  • Synchronization via FTP. Yes, this is a big one, but we really want to get this release out today.
  • If you remove a weblog, any corresponding downloads are not removed from the download queue.

Here's what's going to be left out of the 1.6 release:

  • Persistent searches
  • Integrated Technorati searching. This is mainly because the flakiness of the results returned from the API is starting to drive me around the bend.

Update: we quickly just uped the version number to 1.5.5 to fix a very small bug that you need not worry about! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jerry Brown EMAIL: evilgeezer@gmail.com IP: 67.166.180.68 URL: http://homepage.mac.com/jsbrown/iblog/ DATE: 10/13/2004 07:33:56 AM Would definitely like to see a Mac version of this, as well as bittorrent support. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Tuning in to Podcasts with BlogMatrix Jäger: the Absolute Newbie Guide STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 10/11/2004 08:41:25 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger is an open source desktop weblog reader for Windows and Macintosh. Our next major release is going to be numbered 1.6 and have deep support for receiving Podcasts. You can read more about Podcasting here. In preparation for the 1.6 release, we've been releasing a number of beta versions, numbered 1.5.X. The latest version, 1.5.5, is our first demonstration of this support. You can read more here.

This guide is intended to help newbies to BlogMatrix Jäger get started with using it for receiving Podcasts and reading weblogs.

Step 1 – Install Jäger

This is quite simple: get the beta copy of the Jäger installer from here, run it, and follow the instructions. You should see a version number of 1.5.X; if you see 1.4.X, you've somehow got the wrong copy.

If you don't have a copy of Apple's iTunes, get that also and install it. I find it's much nicer that Microsoft's Media Player, though your mileage may vary. The final 1.6 release of Jäger will support WMP, so if you prefer that you're not out of luck.

Step 2 – Run Jäger

If you clicked through the installation instructions, you've probably already got a Jäger up and running on your screen. There's a small welcome splash screen that you have to click through begging you for money. You can ignore this if you please; I'm just fine diving in dumpsters looking for food less than three days old....

The first thing you'll notice about Jäger is that it's very small: it should be over there on the left hand side of your screen. Jäger doesn't have a built in browser display like most aggregators: it uses your browser. Out of the box, it will take over a single window of the Internet Explorer browser. You can configure Jäger to use Firefox (my personal choice) or Opera, but we won't go into that here.

After about 45 seconds, a "Subscribe to Weblogs" window will appear. If you click on the "Subscribe" button, your copy of Jäger will be populated with a number of fairly decent weblogs and news sources to get you started. If you're not interested in this, just press "Cancel".

Step 3 – Personalize Jäger for Receiving Podcasts

In Jäger, select the "File > Attachment and Podcast Manager..." menu item. This will bring up the (surprise surprise) "Attachment and Podcast Manager" dialog. This dialog has three panels (right now – there'll probably be a couple of more before 1.6 goes out the door): "Downloading", "Settings and Defaults" and "Help".

The "Downloading" panel keeps a list of everything being currently downloaded: there should be nothing in this, since we haven't added any weblogs that do podcasting yet. The "Help" panel has a much briefer version of this document. You're interested in the "Settings and Defaults" panel, so click on this. You should see the following:

If you're planning to use Jäger for podcasting, select the two check boxes. This will ensure that any new blogs you add that have podcasts will automatically starting download and saving them. If you don't check these, you'll have to explicitly configure each weblog for podcasts – we'll get into how to do that a little later.

The other settings should be pretty obvious: the determine what Folder Jäger will drop the attachments into, what format will be used for the filenames of the attachments (to avoid accidental conflicts) and what playlist in iTunes the songs will be added to. The nice thing about these three settings is that if you alter them, all weblogs that have selected the default values will be changed also. That is, if you change your mind about where things should go or what they should be named, you won't have to laboriously change every single weblog one at a time.

When you're happy with the settings, press "OK".

Step 4 – subscribe to some podcasting weblogs

You're ready now to get some podcasts with Jaeger. Take this link and drag it from the browser and drop it on Jäger. You'll then go through a four step dialog called "autodiscovery"; when you're finished, Jäger should look something like this:

The little paper clips indicate that there are attachments (i.e. RSS 2 enclosures) associated with the various entries. Red paperclips indicate the files are not downloaded yet; grey indicate they are.

Jäger has a very powerful autodiscovery mechanism. If you see a webpage you're interested in, just drag the link to Jäger and let it take care of the rest. You generally don't need to find the particular RSS feed or whatever – it knows how to do it. If there's no syndication feed associated with a page, Jäger has a number of strategies for dealing with that too, but that's not for this document.

If you're interested in more podcasts, try looking around in this (http://www.ipodder.org/directory/4/podcasts) webpage directory.

Step 5 – configure the weblog

Just for a laugh, let's look at the weblog configuration for the Acts of Volition website. Select the weblog in Jäger, then right-click and select "Attachments and Podcasting" and then "Settings". If you selected an entry within that weblog, you'd get an option of opening the attachment directly in your browser too. Once you've pressed settings, you'll see the following dialog panel:

If you didn't configure Jäger to automatically download attachments and add them to your playlists, you'll have to do this here. Select the "automatically save attachments" check box and then the "Add saved attachments to playlists" check box.

If you need to customize where things are downloading, so on and so forth, you can do it on this page. Pressing the "Defaults..." button will bring you to the "Settings and Default" panel in the "Attachment and Podcast Manager".

Press OK when you're finished.

Step 6 – watch the podcasts be downloaded

At this point, your copy of Jäger should be downloading podcasts. Select the "File > Attachment and Podcast Manager..." menu item and have a look at the "Downloading" panel:

If you double click on any of the entries, you'll be brought to the folder where the downloads are taking place. The final 1.6 version of Jäger will also have a "right-click" menu that you can do things like remove items from the list and so forth.

If you need to pause downloading, you can do that by "File > Work Offline".

Step 7 – listen to your podcasts in iTunes

After Jäger downloads an attachment, it will automatically add it to the appropriate playlist (assuming you configured everything correctly). Go to your copy of iTunes and enjoy your podcasts. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Go go go go go go URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_10.html#003002 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 10/11/2004 09:47:12 PM Last month, I couldn't get anything done. Well, that phase has gone: I have been in manic development mode for the last 4 days. Ideas are popping into my head like a firehouse and I cannot even start to... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.6 (Beta) for Windows Now Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/12/2004 09:13:26 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.6 (Beta) for Windows is now available. You can download it here.

What's new:

  • We now support Windows Media Player as well as iTunes as your Player of choice. WMP seems to take a little while to update its UI when it's updated externally: we'll see if we can fix that up for you.
  • The little paper clips turn grey as soon as the attachments are downloaded. We need a better graphic here, but it's a start. Opening the attachment will still open the online version rather than the local downloaded version.

What's fixed:

  • Entries were occasionally being expired as soon as they were added during autodiscovery. This is fixed.
  • Search initialization is faster.
  • The Search History button is gone, as we're not going to have time to implement it.

Expect a source code dump in the next 90 minutes. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: pytunes STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/12/2004 09:26:15 PM ----- BODY:

A new version of the pytunes library, a cross-platform module for controlling media players, is now available here.

Unlike the previous version, this unpacks into an entire directory. This version supports Windows Media Player (new) and iTunes for Windows. Creating the initial object has changed slightly: 

import pytunes

player = pytunes.iTunesPlayer()
player = pytunes.WindowsMediaPlayer()
player = pytunes.GetPreferredPlayer()()

Everything else should be much the same. There's a couple of functions for listing available players. This code pretends to be an object hierarchy, even though it isn't. It will be in an upcoming release.

I've only written enough code to do what I need to do, plus sketched out where I think it may want to go in the future. Feel free to contribute code or ideas. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.7 (Beta) for Windows Now Available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/14/2004 12:52:09 AM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.5.7 (Beta) for Windows is now available. You can download it here.

What's new:

  • If you choose iTunes as your preferred player, you can still send tunes that are only supported by Windows Media Player to that application
  • Only well-known file types will be added to Playlists
  • Downloading is much faster
  • There is a popup menu in the Downloading window to control the state of various items. You can also view the downloaded file in its folder or open the original item to which the attachment was added.
  • You can force Jäger to redownload an attachment
  • When/if you switch your browser to Firefox you are automatically brought to the page to add the Single Window extension.
  • Opening downloaded attachments will now open the local version rather than going back to the net

Bug fixes:

  • Partially downloaded files are deleted
  • When removing a blog, all associated downloads are removed
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: GenericThread STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 10/14/2004 10:27:30 AM ----- BODY:

GenericThread is a part of BlogMatrix Jäger's "generic" library providing generally useful functions. GenericThread is a wrapper around python's "threading.Thread" that provides a few useful extra functions:

  • passing of arguments when starting
  • pythoncom initialization, for applications which use Win32 COM objects
  • methods which are called before and after the main body of the thread, for initialization and teardown
  • the ability to gracefully halt thread operations

You can download GenericThread here.

Here's an example of using GenericThread: 

import time
import GenericThread

class MyThread(GenericThread.GenericThread):
	def __init__(self):
		# the named parameters are optional
		GenericThread.GenericThread.__init__(self, is_daemon = False, is_com = False)
		
	def CustomizeStart(self, a, b, c):
		# the command line arguments are arbitrarly defined -- you can as many as you want
		print "CustomizeStart.CustomizeStart: called -- we're in the thread, starting up"
		
	def CustomizeFinished(self, a, b, c):
		print "CustomizeStart.CustomizeFinished: called -- we're in the thread, shutting down"
		
	def CustomizeRun(self, a, b, c):
		print "CustomizeStart.CustomizeRun: called -- we're running: do your work here"
		
		for i in xrange(10):
			self.CheckHalt()
			time.sleep(.5)
			print i, a, b, c
		
thread = MyThread()
thread.Start("a", 4784, [ 1, 2, 3 ])
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Wow: STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 10/14/2004 11:00:13 AM ----- BODY:

CBC news reports:

Strong sales of its popular iPod digital music players helped Apple Computer to more than double its fourth-quarter profit, the company announced Wednesday.

[...]The results handily beat analysts' expectations. Apple says iPod shipments are up six-fold in one year

Apple said it shipped 2,016,000 iPods in the quarter, up 500 per cent over the same quarter a year earlier.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.6 - coming today STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/15/2004 01:15:14 PM ----- BODY:

We're running the first cut of the 1.6 release at the office right now. We'll be releasing it later this morning. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix introduces Jäger 1.6 for Windows STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/15/2004 02:11:50 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix is please to announce that Jäger 1.6 for Windows is now available. It can be downloaded from here. Jäger 1.6 contains many feature enhancements, minor bug fixes and three great new major features:

  • Podcast Reception
  • Bloglines Synchronization
  • Universal Searching

Podcast Reception
BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 is the first weblog reader to provide integrated Podcast reception. Podcasts are weblog attachments containing audio or video items, such as news items, MP3 music files or audio commentary. Jäger will automatically download these attachments and add them to the playlist of your choice on iTunes or on Windows Media Player.

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 has the best features of any podcast reception tool out there, including entry filtering, choice of media players, scheduling control, plus all the other features that come along with Jäger, such as drag and drop subscriptions and OPML support.

Bloglines Synchronization
BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 is the first weblog reader to offer synchronization with Bloglines, the online weblog reading service. Simply enter your Bloglines account information and press "Synchronize Now" and Jäger will keep its blogroll up to date with your Bloglines account.

Universal Searching
BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 is the first weblog reader to provide integrated searching not only its own stored content but also many external search engines and databases, such as Google, Yahoo, IMDB, Amazon, Sourceforge, ESPN, BBC News, CBS News and others. An upcoming release of Jäger will extend this functionality to add persistent searches

About BlogMatrix Jäger
BlogMatrix Jäger is a weblog and RSS syndication reader that uses the user's browser to display content. Jäger is a cross-platform open source project that runs as a native application on both Windows and Macintosh OS 10.3. Jäger is one of the most feature rich weblog readers available, including features such as drag and drop subscription, OPML publication and subscription, Podcast reception, "universal searching" through online search engines, synchronization amongst multiple copies of Jäger, synchronization with Bloglines, automated weblog translation from foreign languages, a plug-in Tool environment, online and offline weblog reading, HTTP proxying, Technorati and other online tools integration. BlogMatrix Jäger can read for RSS 0.9, RSS 2.0, RSS/RDF, Atom; it also provides a number of "strategies" for reading websites that don't support syndication feeds such as online newspapers. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: PlanoTx EMAIL: tobyz7@comcast.net IP: 67.166.250.218 URL: DATE: 10/18/2004 04:47:51 PM I'd love to see a 'real' HELP section on the Web -- one with entries for the command menu and submenus. For instance, the command Settings/Mark as/Favorite is always greyed out. Why? I can't mark a great site as a favorite now, but I could in an earlier version. HELP!! ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger, meister! URL: http://www.hill-kleerup.org/blog/mtarchive/007584.html IP: 63.247.135.212 BLOG NAME: ***Dave Does the Blog DATE: 10/15/2004 05:57:26 PM My RSS (etc.) aggregator, BlogMatrix Jäger, has issued a new release, which includes the much-clamored-for features of Podcast reception and synchronization with Bloglines. Well, no, I hadn't clamored for either... ----- PING: TITLE: Why I've been silent URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_10.html#003012 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 10/15/2004 07:37:46 PM BlogMatrix introduces Jäger 1.6 for Windows. BlogMatrix is please to announce that Jäger 1.6 for Windows is now available. It can be downloaded from here. Jäger 1.6 contains many feature enhancements, minor bug fixes and three great new major... ----- PING: TITLE: BlogMatrix: RSS news reader with podcasting reception abilities. URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2004/10/16/243073.aspx IP: 66.129.67.203 BLOG NAME: ISerializable DATE: 10/15/2004 11:10:03 PM ----- PING: TITLE: New Ipodder Software - J URL: http://www.ipodder.org/2004/10/15#a178 IP: 67.18.151.42 BLOG NAME: iPodder.org DATE: 10/16/2004 05:41:47 AM BlogMatrix J ----- PING: TITLE: re: Still looking for smart clients URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/rholloway/archive/2004/10/20/245069.aspx IP: 66.129.67.203 BLOG NAME: Randy Holloway's Weblog DATE: 10/20/2004 02:57:21 PM ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/2005/02/07/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/07/2005 04:24:26 PM ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/07/2005 04:25:16 PM ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/07/2005 04:31:45 PM ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/07/2005 04:39:29 PM ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/07/2005 04:47:41 PM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/07/2005 04:49:17 PM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/07/2005 04:55:15 PM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: SharePointPodcast.de URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/2005/02/07/880.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/07/2005 09:28:24 PM Das Projekt trug ich schon einige Wochen mit hier herum, heute habe ich dann mal den ersten SharePointPodcast online gestellt. SharePoint f ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/08/2005 09:28:28 AM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/08/2005 10:35:00 AM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/08/2005 10:42:19 AM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: NO WAY! - A Podcast about SharePoint but its in German!!! - BUMMER! URL: http://msmvps.com/anguslogan/archive/2005/02/07/35288.aspx IP: 66.226.14.50 BLOG NAME: Angus Logan DATE: 02/08/2005 11:36:05 AM ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/08/2005 11:44:44 AM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/08/2005 03:42:03 PM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: SharePoint Podcast #1 - SharePoint f URL: http://weblogs.mysharepoint.de/mgreth/archive/0001/01/01/864.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff DATE: 02/16/2005 10:31:57 AM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 3,5 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting? SharePointPodcast RSS-Feed-Podcast Podcastingsoftware iPodder (Win, Linux, Mac) Doppler (Win) J ----- PING: TITLE: SharePointPodcast # 1 URL: http://cs.mysharepoint.de/blogs/sharepointpodcast/archive/2005/02/22/1.aspx IP: 62.112.149.73 BLOG NAME: SharePointPodcast DATE: 02/22/2005 11:16:32 AM SharePointPodcast Ausgabe 1 7.2.2005 (mp3, 4,6 MB) Intro Was ist Podcasting?... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Source Code STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/15/2004 02:52:11 PM ----- BODY:

The complete source code for Jäger 1.6.1 is available here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: More Loose Ends STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/15/2004 03:16:41 PM ----- BODY:

The Macintosh version of 1.6 will follow in the next two weeks and BitTorrent will (hopefully) be added at around the same time. The "bootstrap" list of weblogs has been updated (finally) from the original 1.0 version to remove some dead blogs and to add a Podcast section. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bob Ippolito EMAIL: bob@redivi.com IP: 64.81.197.11 URL: http://bob.pycs.net/ DATE: 10/15/2004 06:49:19 PM You should give py2app a try for packaging the next Mac OS X distribution, it should be a lot cleaner and produce more robust bundles than a bundlebuilder based solution will. If you try it and have any issues, let me know, but it has been tested with wxPython based applications so I wouldn't expect anything to go wrong. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bentaly EMAIL: fara_saon@email.com IP: 203.101.31.104 URL: http://www.pillmagic.de DATE: 12/02/2004 06:09:33 AM Evangeline is an 1847 epic poem by American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; it also is the name of the poem’s heroine, who in Cajun Louisiana has taken on mythological status. Longfellow’s work was loosely based on the 1755 expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia (known as Le Grand Dérangement), the arrival of some of those Acadians in south Louisiana, and their efforts to find loved ones from whom they were separated. In the poem, an Acadian maiden named Evangeline Bellefontaine is torn from her lover, Gabriel Lajeunesse, on their wedding day. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: On the road STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/16/2004 09:43:29 AM ----- BODY:

I'm on the road for the next week; I'm off to LA and Palm Springs. I'll be in contact occasionally to check e-mail, accept your gratuities, comments, jeers etc..

Feedback for 1.6.1 has been quite positive and I've got quite a few ideas for incrementally improving the 1.6.2 release. Don't forget to tell your friends! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Back Soon STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/23/2004 03:59:05 PM ----- BODY:

We'll be back in the office on Monday, so if there's any outstanding e-mails or bug reports that you haven't received a response to, you'll get it soon.

We're very pleased with the feedback from the 1.6 release. We'll be sending out a minor bug release next week, but there's no major complaints. If you have any suggestions, noticed any problems, or just want to say "hi!", don't hesitate to contact us. The best way to do this is via the "Help" menu in Jäger, but you can also just send e-mails to support@blogmatix.com.

Our priority for the next week is to get the Macintosh version of 1.6 out. After that we have more exciting developments in the works that we'll be telling you about in the coming weeks. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Thoughts on the future of weblog readers STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Industry CATEGORY: Industry DATE: 10/23/2004 04:11:30 PM ----- BODY:

Danny Ayer has an interesting post on what he wants out of blog reading software.

Jäger gets tapped out at about 500 subscriptions. There are two problems in the design of Jäger that cause this. First, Jäger wants to keep a lot of information in memory — pretty well everything except the full-text content of blog postings, which is dynamically loaded at viewing time; and secondly the fact that each weblog and all its entries are stored as an individual file on your disk and thus we are limited by the speed of your filesystem which typically isn't that great.

Both these problems can be overcome, but its not a priority issue at this point. There's so much more that needs to be done for the average user before we start worrying about the outlying cases.

Jäger does have a quite powerful set of facilities for sorting through weblog content. You can set up filters to ignore certain blog postings OR to ignore all blog postings except certain ones. You can set up watch lists to highlight blog postings you're interested in AND you can mark blogs to say only show watched entries.

One of the primary failings of Jäger is the documentation for all this is scattered throughout our blog postings. Our project for Novemeber is to collect this into a coherent set of documentation.

Danny does have the right idea though. In the next major revision of the underlying guts, we should be aiming for a two or three magnitude order of improvement in the number of blogs that can be handled, not just a single order. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.2 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/26/2004 02:15:04 PM ----- BODY:

We're just putting the finishing touches on BlogMatrix 1.6.2. Initially, this was intended just to be a "catch up" release for the Macintosh but after using the Podcasting code for a while, we noticed several shortcomings that needed to be addressed. We're not including any screen shots with this announcement; we'll save that for tomorrow.

Here's what's new:

  • there's a new "major" list in the application, similar to the "Updated Favorites", "Updated Webpages" and "All Webpages" lists. It is called "Attachments and Podcasts" and will list every attachment that Jäger currently knows about. This is great for finding Podcasts you have already downloaded or are in the process of downloading
  • we've added the concept of "expiring" attachments. That is, after a certain period of time, attachments will automatically be deleted from disk. You can control the length of time before expiration on a global basis or on a per-weblog basis. You can also stop an attachment from every being expired.
  • the "Attachments and Podcasting" submenu (available from the "Actions" menu or from a right mouse click on any list) has been greatly extended. You can now:
    • get more information about an attachment
    • remove an attachment from the disk
    • stop an attachment for ever being expired
  • You can now combine selective downloading with Podcasting. In the original release, you had to download every attachment within a weblog to have the attachments added to your Podcast lists. Now you can use the "Attachments and Podcasting" submenu to choose which attachments you want to download.
  • Mousing over attachment paperclips gives more information about the attachment and its status

The following bug fixes have been fixed:

  • sometimes attachments were being downloaded multiple times after restarting your computer. This was because information wasn't being marked as "save to disk" correctly with the application. This is fixed.
  • There are some issues about choice of download folder reverting to the default after restarting. We're tracking this down.

The Macintosh version (for OS 10.3 only, unfortunately) will be using several new pieces of technology:

  • the application will be constructed with Bob Ippolito's "py2app"
  • the controller for iTunes podcasting will be built with Hamish Sanderson's "appscript" module

Update: I correct the version number. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.6.2 screenshots STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/26/2004 06:45:44 PM ----- BODY:

Here's a screenshot from the Macintosh version. The currently displayed list is the "Attachments and Podcasts" List. The mouse pointer (not displayed, due to peculiarities of the Grab utility) is over a paperclip and the popup window displays details about that particular attachment.

Also note the cute little jellybean icons for the Search and List options near the left side of the Jäger application.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.2 is now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/27/2004 09:44:25 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.2 is now available from here. Jäger 1.6.2 continues our concentration on Podcasting, bring a number of new features to the table. In addition, 1.6.2 fixes a number of minor bugs that were in the 1.6.1 release.

The major change with 1.6.2 is the addition of the "Attachments and Podcasts" List, which will appear near the bottom of the application. This List provides:

  • the status of every attachment in the webpages you are monitoring
  • mousing over the paperclip icons will give a mini status report
  • by right-clicking and selecting "Attachments and Podcasting" on an item will allow you to selectively download items, play items, or item the folder the attachment has been downloaded to
  • mark attachments as "never expires"

In addition, Jäger 1.6.2 adds attachment expiration. Attachments that are downloaded now expire after 7 days, unless marked as "never expires". A future release will allow more detailed control of the expiration period on a blog-by-blog basis ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Selznick EMAIL: mws@mwsmedia.com IP: 24.205.113.113 URL: http://www.mwsmedia.com DATE: 10/28/2004 07:38:54 PM Wow -- the new changes have really made this useful! Thanks. ----- PING: TITLE: New Jäger version available URL: http://useful-sounds.de/pivot/entry.php?id=30 IP: 66.159.239.140 BLOG NAME: useful-sounds.de - soundfiles, podcasting and more (Nicole Simon's english blog) DATE: 10/28/2004 01:35:50 AM David Janes from Jäger just announced a new version on the ipodder mailinglist. While I was not satisfied with the last one, perhaps some of the new features are interessting enough. Check out their blog for all the new stuff. But one big fault stil... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: PayPal STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/28/2004 11:05:50 AM ----- BODY:

If you're thinking about getting a license to get rid of the nag screen (and help us out greatly too!), today's a good day to do it: PayPal is waving our merchant fees, meaning we actually get to keep all your money today! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Podcasting and Webjay STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/28/2004 12:46:51 PM ----- BODY:

We just checked out Jäger 1.6.2 to see if it would work with Webjay's enclosures format (which doesn't include the proper length). It works just great, though the current download is showing "-1" bytes which is a tiny bug we'll have to fix. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Tuning in to Podcasts with BlogMatrix Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/29/2004 04:30:40 PM ----- BODY:

We've just completed a major section of documentation for Jäger: Tuning in to Podcasts with BlogMatrix Jäger. Go read it! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Caleb Epstein EMAIL: nospam@home.com IP: 205.142.0.75 URL: http://bklyn.org/ DATE: 10/29/2004 08:54:12 PM Is there any way to automatically have Jaeger clean-up old Podcasts? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Caleb Epstein EMAIL: nospam@home.com IP: 205.142.0.75 URL: http://bklyn.org/ DATE: 10/29/2004 08:56:18 PM Forget it. I just RTFM'd. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on Linux STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 10/30/2004 02:29:05 PM ----- BODY:

Here's a screenshot of Jäger running under Redhat Fedora Core 3 (Test 3) using the Konqueror browser. Click on the image for full size.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.4 for Windows Fix Release STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 10/31/2004 10:29:34 AM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.4 for Windows is now available from here. Jäger 1.6.4 fixes a serious bug that was wiping out the values of text fields in dialogs. If you're using Jäger 1.6.2, we highly suggest you upgrade ASAP. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Documentation STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 11/02/2004 10:53:32 AM ----- BODY:

We're spending most of this week working on documentation. Here's a few pages:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.5 for Windows now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 11/02/2004 11:36:14 AM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.5 for Windows is now available. This version only contains minor updates from version 1.6.4, mainly that arrows on the lists will open and close with a single click. If you're running 1.6.3, update at you're leisure. If you're running an earlier version, especially 1.6.3, update now. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blog Jones EMAIL: blogjones@blogjones.com IP: 68.159.84.14 URL: http://www.blogjones.com DATE: 11/15/2004 05:12:30 AM Thank you, thank you, thank you for this. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.5 for Macintosh now available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 11/02/2004 11:50:15 AM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix is pleased to announce that Jäger 1.6.5 for Macintosh is now available. It can be downloaded from here. Jäger 1.6 contains many feature enhancements (including much work on making Jäger more "Mac-like" in its UI), minor bug fixes and three great new major features:

  • Podcast Reception
  • Bloglines Synchronization
  • Universal Searching

Screenshots (for all our different supported OSes) are available here. A complete feature list is here.

Podcast Reception
BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 is the first weblog reader to provide integrated Podcast reception. Podcasts are weblog attachments containing audio or video items, such as news items, MP3 music files or audio commentary. Jäger will automatically download these attachments and add them to the playlist of your choice on iTunes or on Windows Media Player.

BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 has the best features of any podcast reception tool out there, including entry filtering, choice of media players, scheduling control, plus all the other features that come along with Jäger, such as drag and drop subscriptions and OPML support. Read more about out Podcast support here.

Bloglines Synchronization
BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 is the first weblog reader to offer synchronization with Bloglines, the online weblog reading service. Simply enter your Bloglines account information and press "Synchronize Now" and Jäger will keep its blogroll up to date with your Bloglines account.

Universal Searching
BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6 is the first weblog reader to provide integrated searching not only its own stored content but also many external search engines and databases, such as Google, Yahoo, IMDB, Amazon, Sourceforge, ESPN, BBC News, CBS News and others. An upcoming release of Jäger will extend this functionality to add persistent searches

About BlogMatrix Jäger
BlogMatrix Jäger is a weblog and RSS syndication reader that uses the user's browser to display content. Jäger is a cross-platform open source project that runs as a native application on Windows, Macintosh OS 10.3 and Red Hat Fedora (in Beta). Jäger is one of the most feature rich weblog readers available, including features such as drag and drop subscription, OPML publication and subscription, Podcast reception, "universal searching" through online search engines, synchronization amongst multiple copies of Jäger, synchronization with Bloglines, automated weblog translation from foreign languages, a plug-in Tool environment, online and offline weblog reading, HTTP proxying, Technorati and other online tools integration. BlogMatrix Jäger can read for RSS 0.9, RSS 2.0, RSS/RDF, Atom; it also provides a number of "strategies" for reading websites that don't support syndication feeds such as online newspapers. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Jäger 1.6.5 for Macintosh URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_11.html#003038 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 11/02/2004 12:02:16 PM I've finally got the latest version of Jäger running, up and out for the Macintosh. Jäger 1.6.5 supports podcasting (very nicely), the universal search parser and Bloglines synchronization. I've also put a fair amount of work into making the... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Thank You STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 11/02/2004 12:22:59 PM ----- BODY:

Thank you to Bob Ippolito (py2app) and Hamish Sanderson (appscript) for their help in getting Jäger for Macintosh out the door. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: It's funny because it's true STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 11/08/2004 01:35:46 PM ----- BODY:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Swarm Translator STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 11/08/2004 09:34:38 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix is pleased to release its latest product: the BlogMatrix Swarm Translator.

BlogMatrix Swarm Translator is open source "single purpose" Wiki to help you translate your application into different (human) languages. You can install the Swarm Translator on any web hosting environment that supports CGI and has Python 2.2 installed OR if you're really nice to us, we'll consider hosting on our site.

You can see the Swarm Translator in action here. The Swarm Translator was written to assist the BlogMatrix Jäger project. If you speak English and another language, consider adding a few translations yourself. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger in the news STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 11/08/2004 09:40:31 PM ----- BODY:

We got quoted in an article by Sean Michael Kerner called "The RSS Enclosure Exposure" on internetnews.com. Here's our clip:

There are many tools and services that support podcasting, such as iPodder and BlogMatrix Jaeger, with the number increasing almost daily.

BlogMatrix bills itself as a "'one-panel'" weblog reader and podcast receiver for Windows, Macintosh OS 10.3 and Linux." According to BlogMatrix spokesman David Janes, the application has more than 10,000 downloads, though he admits that he doesn't know how many are actually using the podcast reception features.

"Podcasting is a very young niche: as a gerund, it's less than six months old," Janes told internetnews.com. "The use model is still evolving in much the same way Web browsers changed in the early to mid 90s; lots of ideas will be tried and lots of ideas will be discarded."

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.9 for Windows and Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 11/09/2004 03:57:25 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix has just released Jäger 1.6.9 for Macintosh, available here. This is a fix release with some substantial performance improvements and bug fixes. These include:

  • A large amount of data was becoming "trapped" in memory, making IO slower than it need be; this is fixed
  • Categories now open whenever you select them (you don’t need to double click on them)
  • Fixes to the EBay and Google search engines
  • A problem with opening certain podcasts with spaces in their names has been fixed on Windows
  • Search Results where being exported with OPML; no longer

Although this is not a critical update, we recommend you upgrade to 1.6.9 soon. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mauricio EMAIL: mauricio.melara@gmail.com IP: 150.108.235.22 URL: DATE: 11/10/2004 03:42:11 PM I truly dig your implementation guys. Top notch. My only gripe with the latest update is that I can no longer move up and down the updated categories or directories with the up/down arrows. Whenever possible, I use keys rather than the mouse. If there is any possible way to turn back the clock on that ability, or creating hotkeys to read updated categories/webpages I would be greatful. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger in podcasts STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 11/11/2004 09:14:49 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Jäger gets favorably mentioned on Michael Levin's podcast. We've added Michael's podcast to our list of "bootstrap" blogs that users see the first time they see Jäger. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Podcast from the Swamp goes to San Pedro! URL: http://jroller.com/page/Sandymountster/20041112#podcast_from_the_swamp_goes IP: 64.246.48.53 BLOG NAME: Michael Levin's Weblog DATE: 11/12/2004 10:34:15 AM Here's a new Podcast from the Swamp ! GatorJUG Podcast RSS 2.0 feed MP3 (25Mb) Thanks to Tod Maffin for the lead-in magic! Today's Podcast from the Swamp discusses Podrolling and lots more! Topics include: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on the web STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 11/11/2004 09:26:13 PM ----- BODY:

Assuming that 5 stars means the same on both sides of the Atlantic, someone in Germany likes us. Danke shön, dudes. Oh yes: Jäger runs on the Mac too!

And BTW, we're busy trying to recruit people to help us translate Jäger in to German. If you know anyone who can help or has 5 minutes to spare, feel free to drop a few translations here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on SourceForge STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 11/12/2004 02:34:51 PM ----- BODY:

We've started transitioning our development to SourceForge. After a few initial misteps, I think we have it straight.

If you're on a UNIX system or using Cygwin like we prefer, you can "check out" Jäger by doing the following: 

$ cd <wherever you'd like to put the source tree>
$ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/blogmatrix login
press enter when prompted for a password
$ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/blogmatrix co jaeger

You can then run Jäger as follows: 

$ cd jaeger/jaeger
$ export JAEGER_STDIO=true
$ python BlogJaeger.py
on Cygwin we use alias python=c:/python23/python
on the Mac you'll have to use pythonw

Note that you'll have to have Python 2.3 and a recent version of wxPython installed also on your system first.

If you need test Jäger and don't want to touch your day to day settings (i.e. your subscription list and so forth), here's a neat trick: 

$ python BlogJaeger.py --settings Testing
you can replace Testing with the name of your choice

Update: corrected the name of the file that has to be run! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jan Theofel EMAIL: theofel@etes.de IP: 84.56.133.71 URL: http://www.theofel.de/weblog/ DATE: 11/13/2004 07:49:43 AM I followed your steps exactly but there is no file "Jaeger" or "jaeger" in the path jaeger/jaeger. Did you rename the file? ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Install Firefox 1.0 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 11/14/2004 01:25:41 PM ----- BODY:

If you're using BlogMatrix Jäger with FireFox, take the trouble to install version 1.0 now. It solves all the problems we've had with versions 0.8 and 0.9 with regards to the wrong window opening, having to install the "single window" extension, and so forth.

After you've installed FireFox:

  • select the Tools > Options... menu
  • press the Advanced icon
  • make sure Tabbed Browsing item is opened
  • in the Open links from other applications in: area, select either
    • a new tab in the most recent window, or
    • the most recent tab/window (my favorite)

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mark EMAIL: none@none.com IP: 24.1.3.126 URL: DATE: 11/17/2004 01:42:37 PM For some reason, Firefox hasn't worked well for me with jaeger with or without the single window extension. This post seemed to indicate it definitely should work now, but still it didn't. Firefox would always try to open "1./" or "1/" rather than the link for the post on which I'd double clicked. This was windows 2000, Firefox 1.0 (and 1.0 pre). Fine, so go code surfing since the code's on sourceforge (yeah!). After adding pywin32-203 to my python 2.3 install in addition to the instructions here (http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/weblog/archives/2004_11.shtml#003049), I commented out the registry manipulations in BlogBrowser.py circa link 628, it works. Hope this helps someone. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 66.185.85.74 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 11/17/2004 02:40:10 PM I'll take it out for the next release. Thanks! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.10 for Windows and Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 11/16/2004 09:22:33 AM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix has just released Jäger 1.6.10 for Windows, Macintosh and Linux is now available here. Changes include:

  • HTTP BASIC authentication is supported. This will allow you to subscribe to your GMail syndication feed (just drag this link to Jäger if you're a GMail user).
  • The "Attachments and Podcasts" list has several new icons to better show the status of downloaded attachments.
  • Double-clicking on the Quick Launch icon will open and close Jäger now (Windows).
  • If Jäger has resized your browser, it will restore it to its original size when Jäger is minimized to the Quick Launch area (assuming you don't resize or move your browser in the meantime). (Windows)
  • All URLs are opened through the same code path, to ensure that HTTP proxies are universally recognized throughout the application.
  • The loading and saving of the blog database is now 3 to 10 times faster than the 1.6.5 release.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Erik Bryn EMAIL: erik.bryn@gmail.com IP: 24.14.117.245 URL: http://www.erikbryn.com DATE: 11/17/2004 11:23:48 AM I'm unable to sync w/ my Bloglines account. I'm getting an error message in the Sync settings window when I try to connect saying "Caught exception". In the Sync Now window I get an error saying "caught exception in DOWNLOAD". I'm using 1.6.10 on Mac OS X 10.3.6. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Note on browser resizing STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints DATE: 11/16/2004 01:29:57 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger can restore your browser to its original size when Jäger is minimized to the Quick Launch area. You have to go to Jäger Preferences..., select Appearance and change When closing to Restore browser to its original size. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger on the web STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 11/20/2004 11:46:44 AM ----- BODY:

We've added ourselves several public directories:

  • Gnome Files — the Gnome/GTK+ Software Directory
  • Freshmeat — "the Web's largest index of Unix and cross-platform software"
  • Sourceforge — "the world's largest Open Source software development web site, providing free hosting to tens of thousands of projects". All our source code is now up on Sourceforge.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: It's like Tivo for radio. URL: http://monkeyfilter.com/link.php/6091 IP: 67.18.58.18 BLOG NAME: MonkeyFilter DATE: 11/24/2004 11:41:06 AM The awkwardly named BlogMatrix Jäger will automatically record a streamed audio broadcast, convert it to MP3 format, and store it on your iPod. Alas, until it leaves beta, the software will only run on Windows, so Mac users like me will have to wait.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Offline STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News DATE: 11/24/2004 04:05:44 PM ----- BODY:

We probably won't be able to respond to too many e-mails for the next 24 hours. Our ISP is having a serious problem. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Capture Streaming Radio Stations with Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 11/29/2004 12:35:16 PM ----- BODY:

Although we haven't blogged anything about it here, many people have found out about our extensions to Jäger to support recording streaming Internet radio and store them as Podcasts.

  • It works on all platforms, though you'll have to get the Unix version out of CVS.
  • you can read all about it here
  • you can see a list of the radio stations I've figured out here
  • you can download the software here for Windows or here for the Mac.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: PJ Cabrera EMAIL: pjc_ipodder@DIE.alias.SPAM.hotpop.DIE.com IP: 164.42.149.48 URL: DATE: 11/29/2004 08:15:39 PM You are just too cool. :-) I'm keeping Jager just for this, with or without browser embedding. And it's worth a $20 donation, no sweat. Especially if you can get this running on Linux. I don't mind having to drag and drop the files onto iTunes by hand if I can just leave my Linux box set up to grab All Things Considered and Fresh Air while I'm at work. I'm gonna SSH to my home network, start a grab from CVS right now, and will test some once I get home this evening. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mauricio EMAIL: mauricio.melara@gmail.com IP: 150.108.235.22 URL: DATE: 11/29/2004 09:41:12 PM i second that. you all are synthesizing what would normally take 2 programs (radio stream capture program + itunes). I tested with wnyc.org streams for FM and AM. Works well thus far. The real test will be tomorrow morning when I have BlogMatrix set to record Morning Edition. By the way, syndication links for wnyc are: http://wnyc.org/asx/wnycfm.asx http://wnyc.org/asx/wnycam.asx One question though, why does editing the 'Title' affect the Artist field in iTunes? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 66.185.85.74 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 11/29/2004 10:05:47 PM Thanks folks. I'm working on a very big directory of radio stations *that will be generated out of an XLS spreadsheet), so it might take a couple of days before they show up. I'm using the Title for the Artist. I'm willing to fiddle with this -- still trying to figure out all the exact parameters. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger 1.6.16-beta for Windows available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 11/30/2004 12:18:28 PM ----- BODY:

We've refreshed the beta version of Jäger with our streaming radio recorder. Get it here or here.

  • This is much more reliable at recording and converting than previous versions. We have run many tests doing simultaneous downloads without problems
  • This now supports HTTP proxy for the streamer
  • "Record Once" works correctly.
  • There's now a "Record NOW" option, to start recording immediately. This is very very handy, especially as you start finding non-live (pre-recorded) streams.

Also, if you're using an older version of Windows with less powerful hardware and can't get the recorder to work, check out this note from Toaster:

I got as far as downloading Mingw32 intending to learn how to compile things but decided it was too complicated. So just downloaded latest Mplayer from mplayerhq (CH) mirror, unzipped and copied exec to BlogMatrix (C:\Program Files\BlogMatrix). The only other thing I copied was a Win98 driver from the new mplayer's drivers folder to Windows System folder - "mapdev.vxd - provides direct hardware access under Win9x". I have no idea whether this was necessary but before I did this calling Mplayer from a DOS window kept launching Windows Media Player. Anyway it works now so I'm very pleased.

This is Mplayer url: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html

It may be possible that we just have to ship "mapdev.vxd" ourselves; we'll try that in an upcoming version. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! for Windows (1.6.17-beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 11/30/2004 02:42:57 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix is proud to announce our new application specifically designed for downloading podcasts and recording Internet radio programs. It's called BlogMatrix Sparks! and it's now included with the Jäger installer. (Note: we misnumberd the version -- it will say 6.17 when you install it).

Click on the image to see a few screenshots:

A few notes:

  • The radio recording code works quite well
  • The podcasting stuff all works but the tree control to display the podcasts isn't really there yet. We're concentrating on getting the radio recording part working first.
  • We hope to have the Macintosh version out later today.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mauricio EMAIL: mauricio.melara@gmail.com IP: 150.108.235.22 URL: DATE: 11/30/2004 06:49:20 PM Awesome, awesome work. Testing it right now. Thanks for keeping the radio function intact in BlogMatrix - to tell you the truth I'm not sure yet whether I would want to have the functions segregated (RSS + tipod). Unless you are thinking of migrating everything to Sparks, which by the way is a very nice looking app thus far. I like the option of being able to browse the feed's web page within Sparks. Anyhow, keep up the amazing work. Brilliant. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ross Rader EMAIL: ross@tucows.com IP: 196.7.13.117 URL: http://www.byte.org DATE: 12/01/2004 03:57:47 PM Very cool David - time to rock and roll! I can't wait to download it and check it out. Congrats! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Neil Bartlett EMAIL: neilbDELETE@REMOVETHISneilbartlett.com IP: 64.229.179.217 URL: DATE: 12/02/2004 05:19:00 AM Exceptional. Worked first time. Going to be a very useful tool. I've already booked my fav British radio progs. For scheduling a time zones concept would be useful as it is a little tricky to figure out the timing of foreign radio boradcasts. ----- PING: TITLE: Internet Radio Recorder, take II URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_12.html#003061 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 12/01/2004 02:21:48 PM I've been doing a lot more work with the streaming recorder and have made a new application called "BlogMatrix Sparks!", available both on the Mac and on Windows. This one is very streamlined and there's been quite a bit... ----- PING: TITLE: Introducing Blogmatrix Sparks! URL: http://www.byte.org/blog/_archives/2004/12/1/194425.html IP: 216.40.34.103 BLOG NAME: Random Bytes DATE: 12/01/2004 04:06:10 PM

Jäger: “BlogMatrix Sparks! for Windows “

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Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! for Macintosh (1.6.18-beta) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/01/2004 02:08:55 PM ----- BODY:

We now have BlogMatrix Sparks! working on the Macintosh. Download it here. The primary difference between this version and the Mac version is that this does not have an embedded Mozilla browser.

Here's a quick use case:

  • Go to "My Directories"
  • Try double-clicking on a BBC feed (or a CBC one),
    • keep pressing Next until you get to the recording menu
    • set Repeat to Record Now
    • set Record for to "1 minute"
    • Next and Finish
  • Go to "My Subscriptions"
    • you should see your feed under "Radio Stations"
    • if you do File > Download Manager you should see the download
    • in about 3-4 minutes an MP3 should show up in the feed and on your iTunes

If you have Mac OS 9 compatibility with iTunes installed, there may be a few issues with the MP3 being added to your Playlist. We're trying to track this down -- an error will appear in the Download Manager, but the MP3 will show up in your subscriptions. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Internet Radio Recorder, take II URL: http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2004_12.html#003061 IP: 63.247.141.250 BLOG NAME: Ranting and Roaring DATE: 12/01/2004 02:21:49 PM I've been doing a lot more work with the streaming recorder and have made a new application called "BlogMatrix Sparks!", available both on the Mac and on Windows. This one is very streamlined and there's been quite a bit... ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! screenshots STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/01/2004 02:24:43 PM ----- BODY:

There's a few screenshots, slightly out of date, here. There's a lot more work to be done on the Sparks! web site yet! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Credit where Credit is due STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/01/2004 02:37:30 PM ----- BODY:

Just to make sure this doesn't get lost in the shuffle:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.6.19-beta for Windows and Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/02/2004 02:43:03 PM ----- BODY:

We just updated Sparks! for Windows and Macintosh. We suggest you upgrade when you get the chance.

  • The Podcasters part of the tree is much more complete
  • There is a much bigger directory of radio programs
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Hey, look STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/02/2004 08:40:33 PM ----- BODY:

Sparks! has a home page. And so does BlogMatrix. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Jäger in the news STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 12/03/2004 04:04:27 PM ----- BODY:

We got mentioned in the Guardian yesterday. Cool! Thanks Ben. On the negative sign, they screwed up the URL though several hundred visitors figured it out anyway. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Apple, may your camels each be infested with 10,000 fleas STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner DATE: 12/03/2004 04:08:24 PM ----- BODY:

Jäger's podcasting feature is messed up with iTunes 4.7. Why? Because Apple changed the COM interfaces from 1 indexing to 0 indexing.

"pytunes" now has a lot of code that looks like this: 

def __iter_tracks(self):
	for current in xrange(0, len(self.com_playlist.Tracks) + 1):
		try:
			yield Track(self, self.com_playlist.Tracks[current])
		except IndexError:
			continue

There'll be a release tonight that fixes this. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Simon Brunning EMAIL: simon.brunning@gmail.com IP: 195.167.165.130 URL: http://www.brunningonline.net/simon/blog/ DATE: 12/03/2004 04:19:46 PM Interesting. You and I seem to be accessing track lists in different ways. The approach I've taken seems not to have been affected. My scripts (examples of which can be found at http://www.brunningonline.net/simon/blog/archives/001644.html and http://www.brunningonline.net/simon/blog/archives/001627.html ) work exactly the same under iTunes versions 4.6 and 4.7. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.6.20-beta for Windows STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/04/2004 12:04:27 AM ----- BODY:

Download it here (with Jäger)

Changes:

  • Now works with iTunes 4.7!
  • All radio stations and programs have a "Play Live" option to let you listen to them now
  • Tree icons now show as 'hot' when downloads are happening
  • Drag and Drop works correctly (i.e. launches the subscribe wizard)
  • Minor menu items and text fixes
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.20-beta for Windows STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 12/04/2004 12:06:12 AM ----- BODY:

Download it here (with Sparks!)

Changes:

  • Now works with iTunes 4.7!
  • Bloglines synchronization working again
  • An issue with the list control item losing focus with ALT-TAB has been fixed.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mauricio EMAIL: mauricio.melara@gmail.com IP: 66.65.9.98 URL: DATE: 12/04/2004 12:58:24 AM just a heads up, the installer for windows locks up. Here's the error message: 'An error occurred while trying to replace the existing file: Delete Failed; Code 5. Access is denied.' Followed with 'Abort, Retry, Ignore' ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.6.21-beta for Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/04/2004 12:10:19 AM ----- BODY:

Download it here

Changes:

  • The browser widget no longer displays images, as this was occasionally causing crashes.
  • All radio stations and programs have a "Play Live" option to let you listen to them now
  • Tree icons now show as 'hot' when downloads are happening
  • Drag and Drop works correctly (i.e. launches the subscribe wizard)
  • Minor menu items and text fixes
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Jäger 1.6.21-beta for Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases DATE: 12/04/2004 12:12:43 AM ----- BODY:

Download it here

Changes:

  • Includes all the goodies that have been shipping with the Windows version.
  • Bloglines synchronization working again
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Category Support in Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/04/2004 07:10:41 PM ----- BODY:

The next release of Sparks! will have proper category support (the current version has everything listed under "Default Category").

  • Create a new category by right-clicking "Radio Stations" or "Podcasters" and choosing "New Category". An empty category called "New Category" will be created under that folder.
  • Remove an empty category by right-clicking on it and choosing "Remove Category".
  • Change the category of a podcaster/weblog or radio station by dragging it to the new category and dropping it. Categories cannot be hierarchically nested. Convince us, if you think otherwise.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Browsing in Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/04/2004 07:13:30 PM ----- BODY:

The next windows version of Sparks! will use an Active X version of Internet Explorer rather than Mozilla for the browser. This will save several megabytes of downloading for little loss in function. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Filing in Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/05/2004 07:57:44 PM ----- BODY:

Every Radio Station, Podcaster weblog and normal weblog has three "filing cabinets": Attachments on Disk, Read and Saved. They work as follows:

  • Attachments on Disk: contains all entries with valid stored attachments. I.e. something you can listen to.
  • Read: contains all the entries you have read or played, after the last "Update Read" action. "Update Read" is available on weblogs, radio stations, their categories and on the root nodes and will move everything appropriate into the Read cabinet.

    This is only implemented at the weblog/radio station level right now. The next release after this one will complete those, plus add a "Add Add to Read" action, so you can skip reading lots of blogs at once.

  • Saved: contains all the entries that you have marked as "Saved" (via an action on the entry). Saved entries never expire; nor do their attachments.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.6.23-beta for Macintosh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/05/2004 08:30:09 PM ----- BODY:

Download it here

Changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.6.22-beta for Windows STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/05/2004 08:33:02 PM ----- BODY:

Download it here (with Jäger).

Changes:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mauricio EMAIL: mauricio.melara@gmail.com IP: 66.65.9.98 URL: DATE: 12/06/2004 01:34:36 AM dave: feel like i'm always the squeaky wheel, but I swear I don't mean to find out some kinks. So, I just installed the latest version. The first odd thing was that the radio directory didnt have anywhere near thousands of stations. Then I went into about blogmatrix sparks. the first line says: BlogMatrix Sparks! version 1.6.20-beta that's all man. check ya later ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 66.185.85.74 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 12/06/2004 10:09:48 AM Fixed now! See new postings. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Credit where Credit is due (II) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/05/2004 08:40:32 PM ----- BODY:

The BBC programming directory in Sparks is (mostly) curtesy dave.org.uk. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Whoops STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/06/2004 09:58:33 AM ----- BODY:

We uploaded the applications but forgot to update the "beta" links. The applications are there now! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Using the Directory in Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Hints CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/06/2004 10:06:59 AM ----- BODY:

"My Directories" ships in every copy of Sparks! with two undeletable directories: "BlogMatrix Radio Stations" and "Podcast Directory". These files are dynamically loaded (using OPML) whenever Sparks! is started.

The total number of radio stations we have access to is pretty big — it's probably two or three megabytes of data. To avoid making you download a lot of data you don't need we've split the directory up by geographical region. Under the "BlogMatrix Radio Stations" directory, you'll see six world icons for Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, North America, and Oceania. Double-click on these to get radio stations list for these regions. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Having problems with recording? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/08/2004 10:46:27 AM ----- BODY:

We'll be doing an update tomorrow with our latest fixes and updates. In the meantime, here's a few hints.

If your attempt to record radio fails:

  • in the "My Subscriptions" panel
  • click on the radio station you were attempting to download
  • there should be a "Download Failed" icon at the top
  • click on that
  • send us the detailed error log.

When you're sending us bug reports, make sure you tell us:

  • What kind of computer you're running
  • What OS version you're running
  • Whether you're using Sparks! or Jäger

If you're running an Athlon PC or an older computer and the message STATUS_ILLEGAL_INSTRUCTION appears, download this, unzip it, and put the files in "C:/Program Files/BlogMatrix". This won't be necessary after the next version as the version of mplayer we will ship will work on all platforms. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The critics rave STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 12/08/2004 12:00:36 PM ----- BODY:

Rick Pali of the weblog Seeking the Alien Shore wrote great review of my weblog aggregator Jäger yesterday.

The genius behind Jäger is it can be used on any site. Many journals and blogs I read have no feeds, but Jäger informs me of updates just the same. You can keep tabs on virtually any site on the web.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Sooner than you think STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 12/08/2004 12:04:06 PM ----- BODY:

Elyse Ashburn of the News & Record wrote an article "New technology poised to redefine radio's existence". A curious section:

Coming soon

TiVo for radio: Digital technology will enable radio listeners to record and replay music sets much the way digital cable subscribers can do with television programs. You’ll never have to miss Rush Limbaugh or NPR’s “Car Talk” again.

ETA: 2006 or 2007

Well, I guess we're ahead of the curve by two years. Check out Sparks!. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BBC update STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/08/2004 02:53:35 PM ----- BODY:

We've updated our BBC feeds (in "My Directories") with Radio Cymru, Radio Wales, BBC World Service, Radio Scotland and Radio Ulster plus all their various subfeeds and programs.

Note that you have to (right now) restart Sparks! to see these new feeds. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: In the next Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/08/2004 10:59:26 PM ----- BODY:

A few changes will be coming in the next version of Sparks!

  • MPlayer will run on all platforms so those of you having the STATUS_ILLEGAL_INSTRUCTION problem will be fixed up.
  • "audio/mpeg", ICE and SCPLS type streams are now succesfully recognized
  • The tree is correctly resorted after renaming categories or blogs/radio stations
  • Under the Radio Stations folder there is a "Recent Recordings" folder; under "Podcasters" there is a "Recent Downloads" folder. These folders contain all successful downloads in the last 48 hours, the most recent at the top of the list
  • The "iTunes" and "Windows Media Player" folders are getting a little more useful. There's still work to be done here: they reflect what Sparks! thinks is in these folders but not what the players actually say are in the playlists
  • Video attachments get their own movie clip icon. Jäger and Sparks! have always been able to deal with video attachments, contrary to what this article implies.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Not in the next Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/08/2004 11:16:31 PM ----- BODY:

Recording radio stations in Sparks! and Jäger doesn't appear to work when Jäger isn't installed on the C:\ drive. Very sad. We'll try to fix this for next week. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jezzag EMAIL: jezzag@yahoo.com IP: 80.4.224.6 URL: DATE: 12/09/2004 12:02:57 AM Guess this is for the PC version only right? Only I've installed the app on a Mac and can't get it to work. I choose a stream and go through the registration process and then click finish to discover that there is nothing in the My Subscriptions section. Am I missing something or am I overcomplicating matters? Do I need to install LAME? ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: In the next Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/09/2004 11:28:32 AM ----- BODY:

The next version of Sparks! (today, for Windows) will have the following two menu items at the Podcasters/Radio Stations folder, the category folders and at the radio station/blog level:

  • Update Read: this will move every entry that you have viewed (or played) to the appropriate "Read" cabinet (i.e. under the blog).
  • Move All to Read: this will move entry entry, even if you haven't viewed or read them, to the appropriate "Read" cabinet.

Thus, if you've seen or heard everything you wanted to, right-click on Podcasters (or Radio Stations) and select "Move All to Read" and everything will be cleaned up. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Compatibility (on Windows) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/09/2004 01:06:47 PM ----- BODY:

If you want to run the non-beta version (1.6.10) of Jäger with the (beta) version of Sparks!, you'll have to install one of them in a different directory (on the C:\ drive). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The Future of Digital Music STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/09/2004 01:55:55 PM ----- BODY:

There's a discussion on Gear Live between the editors about The Future of Digital Music". A choice selection:

Hector: With the players of the future, we will be able to schedule personal recordings of incoming broadcast music on a given hour, and play it back when we have the free time. It’s a very similar concept to what’s being done with DVR’s, such as TiVo. Imagine listening to a certain program or DJ that played a couple nights ago, but at your own leisure. Even better, we would be able to save the recordings into a file for endless playback later. Right now you can record off of an incoming FM signal, but you have to be listening in at the time, and even then you’re not sure if they’re going to play the song that you want. I want to substantially fill out my music collection.

Greg: I definitely think Hector is correct here; TIVO for radio has already begun to emerge a little bit. A program was released about a year ago that recorded at your specified time, any Tunecast radio stream, some even stream at 128kbps and higher, CD quality. The program then cut the stream into separate mp3s and used the information from the radio server to fill in the ID3 tags. But with internet radio and podcasting continually gaining momentum as people sicken of the monotony of the same playlists on every broadcast radio station, the ability of every person interested to start their own radio station is intriguing.

Hey guys, with recording live digital music the future is now: send us an e-mail if you get the chance. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Error logs STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/09/2004 04:46:02 PM ----- BODY:

The menu option Help > Report a Bug... brings you to a form on BlogMatrix's site. This form now has the option of uploading the application's logfile.

  • The next version of Sparks! and Jäger beta (coming this afternoon) will fill in the name of the logfile in the field below the "Logfile" form entry. You must manually copy the name up one line for the logfile to be uploaded.
  • If you're running an older version of Jäger, use the Browse... option and select the file C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\BlogMatrix\stderr.log.

If there's any sort of complexity to your error, we'll probably need your logfile. There's no confidential or security related information placed in this file, so don't be afraid to send it. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.6.24-beta for Windows available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/09/2004 06:20:43 PM ----- BODY:

Get it here (packaged with Jäger).

There's lots of cool updates in this version; the last few blog entries have most of the gory details. Not mentioned is that you can encode MP3s at 160 and 192kps now. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Finished, but no result STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/09/2004 09:40:12 PM ----- BODY:

If you try to add a radio station and it says "Ready to add weblogs" but there's nothing listed:

  • That it says "weblogs" rather than "radio stations" is a bug
  • When nothing is listed, it should give an error message explaining why
  • That nothing is listed may or may not be a bug. Please tell us ASAP and we'll see what the problem is.

We'll sort the first two items out for the next version. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: carlos EMAIL: nospam@hotmail.com IP: 200.30.8.242 URL: http://carlos.typepad.com/anonymonk/2004/12/blogmatrix_jage.html DATE: 12/09/2004 11:17:42 PM If you wish, check out my comment on Jäger on my blog: http://carlos.typepad.com/anonymonk/2004/12/blogmatrix_jage.html Nice program! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Stream Format Update STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/10/2004 11:51:23 AM ----- BODY:

Streaming Internet Radio can come down in a lot of different formats. If you try to subscribe to a radio station and it doesn't work, it's probably because we don't recognize that format — yet. Please send us an e-mail if you have a problem and we'll try to fix you up.

Since the last release, we've added:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Maximize Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/10/2004 12:05:20 PM ----- BODY:

Currently, when Sparks! is maximized it records that size as the size of the application. If you shut down Sparks! in that state, it will be restarted sized too big for the screen.

The next version will fix that. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.6.25-beta available for Mac OS 10.3 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/10/2004 02:31:53 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.6.25-beta available for Mac OS 10.3 is available here.

This release includes everything in the Windows 1.6.24-beta releases plus a few more minor bug fixes.

  • "audio/mpeg", "audio/x-mpegurl" and ".pls" streams are now recognized.
  • The tree is correctly resorted after renaming categories or blogs/radio stations
  • Under the Radio Stations folder there is a "Recent Recordings" folder; under "Podcasters" there is a "Recent Downloads" folder. These folders contain all successful downloads in the last 48 hours, the most recent at the top of the list
  • Video attachments get their own movie clip icon. Jäger and Sparks! have always been able to deal with video attachments, contrary to what this article implies.
  • "Update Read" and "Move all to Read" to keep things nice and tidy
  • If a radio station cannot be found, a meaningful error message is displayed

Known bugs:

  • The "iTunes" icon is pretty well useless. We'll fix this up for the next release.
  • When submitting bugs via "Help > Report a Bug" it's almost impossible to get log file attached (due to weirdness in Safari)
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: My Apologies STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/11/2004 02:03:58 PM ----- BODY:

I didn't answer any e-mails yesterday. I had a Christmas party yesterday at lunch time and it didn't wrap up until around 8PM. At 1AM this morning I had a flash of insight how to integrate (the desperately needed) searching into application and simplify the UI even more. I hope you'll all be pleased with the results: screenshots tomorrow. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The Next Sparks! (Windows) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/12/2004 08:28:33 PM ----- BODY:

Here's a screenshot (click for a larger version) from the next version of Sparks!

Here's what changed:

  • The "My Subscriptions" and "My Directories" tabs are gone — everything's all in the same tree control now
  • There's a search field above the tree control
  • There's a (read-only) location field above the browser
  • The little arrow to the right of the location field will open the current page in the browser
  • We've got some good looking buttons. We actually dynamically composite (using alpha levels) bitmaps and buttons at runtime to get the right look
  • (OPML) directories are loaded when the user double-clicks on them. Not only does this save bandwidth, it makes us more comfortable listing all the possible radio directories on the main screen. The directory icon (a little planet) is greyed out until it is loaded.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: CVS reorganization STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Programmer's Corner CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/12/2004 08:31:12 PM ----- BODY:

If you're working off the CVS source tree, we suggest that you put that aside and check everything back out. We've renamed tons of stuff and deleted many unneeded files. The Sparks! part of the project is much simpler now. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The Next Sparks! (Mac OS 10.3) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/12/2004 10:07:29 PM ----- BODY:

Here's a screenshot (click for a larger version) from the next version of Sparks! running on the Macintosh.

This is pretty much the same as the Windows version except that we're using a much simpler browser. But look! It's actually rendering the webpage as text. Very very cool. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: How to export OPML to a file from Jäger STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 12/15/2004 04:01:08 PM ----- BODY:

  • Select Actions > Tools > Export Blogroll or OPML
  • Select the Publish as OPML link
  • Scroll down to the section "Blogroll"
  • Click on Right-click on this link
  • From your browser, File > Save
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.7.1-beta for Windows available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/15/2004 05:36:03 PM ----- BODY:

Sparks! 1.7.1-beta for Windows is now available. There's a number of important changes:

  • Sparks! now installs in its own directory, independent of Jäger. We are going to remove radio recording from Jäger and let Sparks! specialize in this. The 1.6 numbering will remain for Jäger versions; 1.7 will be the beta s for Sparks.
  • The My Directories and My Subscriptions notebook is now gone. Everything is in the one tree control.
  • Sparks! is now a first rate weblog reader. Use the "My Bloggers" to store your weblogs.
  • Import your old blogs into Sparks! by using OPML. We'll have a proper UI function for this soon, but for now just right-click on "My Bloggers", choose "Subscribe..." and select the OPML file.
  • You can move weblogs back and forth between My Bloggers and My Podcasters by drag and drop.
  • There is a control bar on the bottom which we will explain in another post. The most important button is the green triangle in the lower-left corner which will bring you to the next unread posting.
  • There is a search area available but its just for show! It's not quite finished yet.
  • The web browser has a location area above it showing what you are looking at
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mauricio EMAIL: mauricio.melara@gmail.com IP: 150.108.235.22 URL: DATE: 12/16/2004 01:47:01 PM hey dave: great integration for blog reading in Sparks. In the spirit of helping, I want to send you the log for one of my latest radio recordings. Where should I send it? Here are my issues: 1) Although the recording + encoding succeed, the log gives a CPU detection warning in the log. 2) Everytime I shutdown and restart Sparks, it forgets that iTunes is my podcast player. This becomes a problem with scheduled recordings because even though the recording + encoding succeed, the item never gets added to my iTunes playlist. This is reminiscent of that text field erasing bug in an earlier Jaeger build. This time around, I've done some testing and determined that recordings do not get added to iTunes when Sparks does not know that iTunes is the default podcast player (despite the settings in Preferences saying otherwise). Otherwise, as usual, powerful stuff man. Keep at it. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.7.2-beta for Mac OS 10.3 available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/15/2004 07:13:26 PM ----- BODY:

Get it here. This is functionally identical to the Windows release. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.7.3-beta for Windows available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/17/2004 10:11:34 AM ----- BODY:

Download it here. This is quick bug fix release to fix two intolerable problems:

  • The media player always reverts to Windows Media Player every time you restart
  • The first time you start Sparks! the directory does not show up

In addition, you will see our toolbar has evolved slightly. This is a work in progress and we'll have more info later.

Mac Users: your directory will return the second time you run Sparks! Unfortunately, there will be no more Mac releases until the new year. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Advanced Encoding Settings STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/17/2004 02:41:35 PM ----- BODY:

The next release of Jäger will give you much greater control over how MP3s are encoded, what tags are added and what happens when recording fails. Read about it here.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Will EMAIL: will@mailliw.com IP: 80.229.219.51 URL: http://cricket.mailliw.com DATE: 12/17/2004 07:48:44 PM Please please please can you look into the recording issues David?! (erroring after x mins, codec errors, etc). Will ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 142.162.157.159 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 12/17/2004 07:57:42 PM The "Recording" panel is all about that problem! ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Release Plan for Sparks! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/18/2004 03:02:52 PM ----- BODY:

Just so everyone's clear about what we're doing here...

The next release, on Monday, will include:

  • the advanced encoding settings
  • the ability to retry to record a station due to a connection failue (hopefully this will solve a lot of the periodic or flaky recording problems people have been having)
  • the ability to change the underlying programs, especially the MP3 encoder. This will allow you to do MPEG-4 encoding, for example.
  • control over the MP3 tags

The release after that, probably for Wednesday or Thursday will have BitTorrent and possibly better control over MP3 tags for Podcasts. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mauricio EMAIL: mauricio.melara@gmail.com IP: 150.108.235.22 URL: DATE: 12/18/2004 05:55:20 PM yeah, although previous versions of sparks had consistently recorded scheduled radio sessions, now they peter out before the time is up. So they record, encode and transfer to iTunes successfully (thanks for the quick fix) but the sessions are incomplete. As I mentioned in a previous post, the only difference I notice is this warning in the logs: "Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal! To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection." Hope that helps. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Windows ME STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/18/2004 03:08:03 PM ----- BODY:

Sparks! doesn't work on Windows ME. Sorry — this version of windows is just too backwards for the libraries we're building our code on. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.7.4-beta for Windows available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/20/2004 12:08:15 PM ----- BODY:

BlogMatrix Sparks! 1.7.4-beta for Windows is available here. If you're running an older version of Sparks! we suggest you upgrade to this version.

The following changes have been implemented:

  • The radio recorder will restart and/or retry if it cannot connect or if the network dies during recording. The parameters for this is controlled by the Advanced button next to the Bitrate field in the recording schedule. The documentation for this feature is here (more coming today)
  • It is possible now to manually configure the programs used for recording Internet streams or creating the final output files (i.e. it's possible to write MPEG-4 rather than MP3s). More details will be forthcoming on this feature.
  • The MP3 ID3 information written with recordings can be easily changed (using the Advanced button)
  • The default values for all Advanced Encoding can be changed by "My Radio Stations > right click > Advanced Encoding Defaults"
  • Sparks! is a first class blog reading application.
    • Import your OPML blogroll using "My Bloggers > right-click > Subscribe..."
    • Use the green >| arrow button to go to the next unread blog. All unread entries will be listed.
    • Use the green > arrow button to go to the next unread blog entry.
  • There's a cool new "blogger" icon
  • The "Recent Recordings" and "Recent Downloads" cabinet that was under "My Radio Stations" et al. has been moved to a single cabinet called "Recent Podcasts and Recordings" at the top level. This cabinet contains all the attachments downloaded in the last 48 hours
  • The browser has a status bar
  • There is a built in media player for audio and video files. Video bloggers take note! Use the two buttons next to the location field (in the upper right corner) to play externally

The next release will focus on BitTorrent and improving Podcast reception. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roger EMAIL: halfacat@gmail.com IP: 24.251.144.187 URL: http://desertstandard.com DATE: 12/21/2004 02:58:03 AM this is the most rocking app in years!! you are a rockstar. just keep the Mac versions coming sooner!!! =) ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Whoops STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/20/2004 01:39:19 PM ----- BODY:

1.7.4-beta won't be available for about 20 minutes while a small installer bug is fixed. It's back. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Advanced Encoding Settings, take II STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/20/2004 03:35:49 PM ----- BODY:

We've updated the Advanced Encoding Settings documentation. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Christmas comes early - Sparks! 1.7.5-beta for Windows available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/21/2004 12:13:35 PM ----- BODY:

Based on the feedback we received yesterday, we decided to do a quick release this morning with a few changes:

  • Tooltips are now over the icons to the left of the location area (above the browser). For the record, the difference between these and those in the toolbar is that these will always open in an external application
  • The entry title for recordings is now the "Song Name" from the Advanced Settings for MP3 Tags
  • When new blogs are added or radio stations are subscribed to, they are selected in the tree control
  • There are many more options for the MP3 tags. (Try My Radio Stations > right-click > Advanced Encoding Defaults > MP3 Tags and entering $blog - $begin_year.$begin_month.$begin_day for $(delta_hour)h $(delta_minute)m $(delta_second)s in the Song Name field). The fields are:
    • begin_year, begin_month, begin_day: recording date
    • begin_hour, begin_minute, begin_second: recording time
    • delta_hour, delta_minute, delta_second: clock time it took to record
    • delta_minutes: total number of minutes spent recording
    • delta_seconds: total number of seconds spent recording
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: MPEG-4 Encoding STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/22/2004 09:38:54 PM ----- BODY:

Notes from user Ryan on getting Sparks! to encode radio as MP4 files.

Don't worry about the genre thing. It's very minor. I've seen LAME crash before on non-standard genre fields. Besides iPod's don't support id3 tag sorting for m4b files, they are lumped into the Audiobooks category...

Anyway, I experimented with the wave to mp3 option and am happy to report a successful test:

I used the following string in the dialog: 

e:/faac.exe -o test.mp4 --artist $mp3_artist \
--title $mp3_title --genre $mp3_genre $FILEIN

I renamed test.mp4 to test.m4b and it played perfectly.

Sparks! did generate a Download Failure error message (log file attached), but everything is ok with the file.

The Advanced Encoding Settings has a field for setting the extension (and thus we'll be able to just use $FILEOUT) but it's not hooked up yet. Next version

FAAC crashed on my first two attempts for the followings reasons:

  1. I used $FILEOUT instead of test.mp4; $FILEOUT appends .mp3 to the filename (as you indicated, the 'extension' box isn't presently hooked-up)
  2. I tried test.m4b instead of test.mp4; FAAC crashed on this because, like .mp3, .m4b is not a supported extension of FAAC (though I've read there are re-compiled versions of FAAC that do support m4b.)

It seems as though FAAC is the real barrier for me here. I don't know if you really want to support m4b in Sparks! (I don't know how requested this feature is among podcasters). In which case Sparks! could perform the renaming of mp4 to m4b. Otherwise, I'll keep digging around for an AAC command-line encoder that supports m4b. Thanks for the additional mp3 tag variables!

As mentioned, you'll have complete control over the output extension. We'll also be providing a download site with precompiled versions of tools such as FAAC soon. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Johnathan EMAIL: jegrant@clickauction.net IP: 68.74.59.208 URL: http://www.clickauction.net/jgblog/ DATE: 12/27/2004 08:03:26 AM "... iPods don't support id3 tag sorting for m4b files ..." ?! Huh? My 4G (click-wheel) 40GB iPod certainly does. I use this feature all the time with files I record into Bookmarkable AAC (M4B) format with Audio Hijack Pro. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Baba O'Reilly? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/23/2004 04:07:24 PM ----- BODY:

This question showed up on Metafilter yesterday:

Anyone out there using the Jaeger podcaster?

I was hoping that I could use it to listen to the Teenage Wasteland archives from WFMU. But I'm not sure how to set up a feed, any ideas?

We're moving our radio recording feature out of Jäger an into our new product Sparks! which has been designed especially for this purpose. Here's how you do what you want:

  • Get, install and run Sparks!
  • Go to the Teenage Wasteland page
  • Drag any of the archive links (the URL will have ".ram" in the path) to Sparks! A "Subscription Wizard" will popup up.
  • Check the "Discover Radio Stations" button (if you dragged directly to the "My Radio Stations" directory, it will be checked for you)
  • Press "Next" until you get to the "Set Recording Schedule" page
  • Change:
    • "Repeat" to "Record Now"
    • "Home Page URL" to "http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/TW"
    • "Record for" to something appropriate
  • Press Next and then Finish
  • Wait for the recording to finish

Recordings in Sparks! expire after 7 days so you'll probably want to copy it somewhere else or right-click on it and select "Saved".

Reading through this list I realize it's probably going to be necessary to figure out a way to record non-live shows better. Still, almost every bit of information above is necessary except the recording length. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bill Miller EMAIL: musashimaru@hotpop.com IP: 84.129.111.19 URL: DATE: 12/26/2004 01:43:18 PM Hi, I got an Ipod yesterday for Christmas and wanted to put some WFMU archives on it. I tried following the steps on the post, but I was unsuccessful at the first step. I first tried to drag an archive (http://www.wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=13034), but that wasn't accepted by Sparks. Then, I went to the address of the archives http://archive.wfmu.org:5555/archive/TW/tw041212.rm, and tried to drag the address to Sparks. Didn't work either. I hope you figure this thing out. A suggestion: how about some batch encording: point a directory of archives at Sparks and be able to select the files to encode, press a button and off you go! Thanks, -- Bill ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Christmas Present: Sparks! 1.7.6-beta for Windows available STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sparks CATEGORY: Releases CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/24/2004 03:27:46 PM ----- BODY:

We upgraded Sparks! to version 1.7.6 this morning. There's a few minor bug fixes but the main change is the addition of the Search function. To use, select a node in the tree, type some text in search field and press the search button.

Click on the image to see it full-size

It's unlikely there'll be any more releases until the new year but the next version should be fairly kicking: BitTorrent, full Unicode support and full text searching are all in the works. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Merry Christmas! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Thoughts CATEGORY: Thoughts DATE: 12/25/2004 09:08:11 AM ----- BODY:

The first line of code in Jäger was written one year ago today! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Sparks! with Japanese and Farsi STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: News CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 12/25/2004 04:02:19 PM ----- BODY:

Here's a screenshot of Sparks! showing a Persian blog (and listing a Japanese blog a little further up).

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Location Bar Upgrades STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking DATE: 12/31/2004 01:45:39 PM ----- BODY:

I'm going to start blogging ideas for new features in Sparks! and Jäger here in our blog, so you know what we're up to, so you can provide feedback and so we don't lose track of what we're doing.

  • The location bar needs to track the currently displayed page, not the page that the user first clicked on
  • The location bar needs a subscribe button to allow the user to subscribe to the currently displayed page.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Recording Radio Programs STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking DATE: 12/31/2004 01:50:45 PM ----- BODY:

  • There should be a "record until finished" option, for recording shows with a fixed length.
  • It should be possible to break long shows into multiple parts, say in 10, 15, 20, 30 and 60 minute chunks.
  • It should be possible to record shows forever (!). The shows should be organized nicely in a hierarchical structure.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ryan EMAIL: ralban@gmail.com IP: 69.137.41.175 URL: DATE: 12/31/2004 06:58:16 PM How would "record until finished" work? Do audio streams send an EOF flag at the end of a show? Many of the radio shows I record are from live feeds... The "break long shows into multiple parts" feature sounds interesting. We would need a $part variable to name the files : 20041231-1-Show, 20041231-2-Show etc. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: davidjanes@blogmatrix.com IP: 142.162.157.159 URL: http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/ DATE: 12/31/2004 07:13:16 PM Record until finished would be mainly aimed at shows that have a definitive length -- the server will send EOF at the end. I'm a little worried about this one to tell you the truth. I'm playing around with the break into multiple parts option now. There would definitely be a $part/$nparts type of option available. ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Working Offline STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking DATE: 12/31/2004 01:57:16 PM ----- BODY:

When working offline, the "show in browser" button should copy the URL to a "hold" folder. When you're back online you can go to that folder to view online. After viewing, the folder should be cleaned up automatically. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Finding Attachments STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 12/31/2004 01:59:50 PM ----- BODY:

The "My Radio", "My Bloggers" and "My Podcasters" folders now have an "All Attachments and Podcasts" cabinet that contain all downloaded attachments. This will show up in the next version. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Subscription Wizard Labeling STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features DATE: 12/31/2004 08:07:23 PM ----- BODY:

The Subscription Wizard now uses more appropriate nomenclature when attempting to record radio. The labels will switch back and forth when the "Discover Radio..." button is toggled.

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Janes TITLE: Happy New Year STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 01/01/2005 10:18:02 PM ----- BODY:

Happy New Year everyone. A little news:

  • Splitting a single radio program into multiple parts works fine and will be in the next release (which will probably be late in the week for Windows and a day or two later for the Macintosh).
  • The rest of week will spent making the interface a little more consistent and adding documentation (!). The documentation will be online as HTML files and browsable directly in Sparks! as an integrated OPML directory.
  • Our goal is to make the 1.8 "official" release by the first week of February. What will be in this release is a slight mystery but it will involve fixing all current bugs, ironing out inconsistencies, improving performance and bringing some Jäger features back into Sparks! We'll have more updates on this during the week
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Non Enclosure Content STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking DATE: 01/01/2005 10:29:29 PM ----- BODY:

There needs to be a way to add content — that is, music and video files — into Sparks! even if they're not in a RSS 2 Enclosure element. For example, check out this vlogger conference blog. Why should I just be able to download this content into Sparks! for display and management?

I'll have to mull on this some more. I have a fairly hefty rewrite of the download code under way but I'm not sure if I want to integrate the code into Sparks! before the 1.8 release. There's also the consideration of the interface — probably just drag and drop onto Sparks! is the best way to go. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Recording in Segments STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking CATEGORY: Feature and Bug Tracking CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 01/02/2005 10:37:01 AM ----- BODY:

Here's a screen shot of CBC Toronto being recorded in five 1 minute segments.

Note that you won't have the option of recording in 1 minute segments — that's just for testing!

There's a number of new tags added to support naming files during segmented recording. These will be documented in the Advanced Encoding document. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Greg EMAIL: gregbd@sbishere.com IP: 68.150.60.90 URL: http://www.sbishere.com DATE: 01/16/2005 06:05:07 PM I was trying to add a stream from my iTunes i.e. cmradio.net but cvould not find an explicit link. Do you have some suggestions? ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Naming entries STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 01/02/2005 11:12:23 AM ----- BODY:

Here's the magic string that makes the entry title for radio programs. There will be no test on this! 

$blog
 - $begin0_year.$begin0_month.$begin0_day
 at $begin0_hour:$begin0_minute
 for ${if delta_hour:$(delta_hour)h }$(delta_minute)m $(delta_second)s
${if multiple_segments: ($(segment) of $(segments))}
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: Location Bar upgrades STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Features CATEGORY: Sparks DATE: 01/02/2005 06:27:26 PM ----- BODY:

The location bar (above the browser) now reflects the page you are looking at. In the image below, the item selected in the tree is not the page you are looking at — I navigated beyond it.

Also note the neat little "+" button next to the location bar. This lets you subscribe to the page you are looking at. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: David P. Janes TITLE: The Scoble (I) Project: Introduction STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Advocacy CATEGORY: Advocacy DATE: 01/03/2005 10:53:26 AM ----- BODY:

The Scoble (I) Project is a little attempt to do simulated user testing with Sparks!, in this case using Robert Scoble's blogroll. Why pick on poor Robert? Quite frankly, because he reads a ridiculous number of weblogs – about 1000 – and we want Sparks! to be able to be the most efficient blog reader possible. Ideally, we'd like Sparks! to be comfortable with 2500+ weblogs, not only because we feel sorry for some hypothetical crazy life-deprived lunatic living in their mother's basement but because they the things that will improve the software at that load-level will also improve it for the person who reads 150 blogs – which w