Always after a big and hectic release, such as Feeder 1.2 at the end of last month, there is tons to be done. I always say to myself that I’ll try to take a few days off to restore sanity and I’m lucky if I get a single day of a weekend. Of course time is spent promoting the new release and there is Real Life, where I need to catch up with all those things that have needed doing, but I couldn’t find time or inclination. I also have to reacquaint myself with friends and make time with my family – not that it’s work, but sometimes you need total downtime.

So, immediately after a release is actually the worst time to consider a break, no matter if you think you need one. Inevitably support emails and other feedback floods in – a lot of this can be positive comment, which is fantastic and I always try to respond. While most of the rest can be dealt with quickly requiring no fixes, two things persist in being big issues with Feeder.

FTP remains the thing that needs the most support due to the myriad differences between various systems, configurations and user understanding. That is hotly followed by people needing help with their feeds, almost always malformed or invalid feeds from other applications. I do my best to make these things easier and Feeder has a host of features to filter out crap. There are improvements I can make to the way Feeder works with different FTP configurations, but I doubt the invalid RSS issues will go away in a hurry. Top tip: if you have a feed on your site, check it out with FeedValidator. You’d be surprised at the applications and systems that have problems.

I should mention that the people who write in with support queries can’t be more helpful. They’re always willing to answer questions and try stuff out. I simply don’t have the resources to test every configuration of every FTP server, for example, so in the world of Indieware it is these people who help make products and life better for everyone. Whether it’s questions on how something should work or positive feedback, it all helps developers to know what’s good and where improvements could be made. I think all good developers agree with this. Here’s to you, Mac-using community!

I released Feeder 1.2 with the new iTunes podcasting features last Friday, a little earlier than planned but it couldn’t come soon enough for most people. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

For the beta testing, I needed the help of people already listed in the iTunes Music Store both to test that the XML was working and to test Feeder’s cool iTunes Preview feature matched iTunes itself. As such I’d like to thank those people who put their listings on the line (I didn’t quite put it like that at the time, did I?) to test out Feeder, namely:

• Adam Christianson of the MacCast
• Dan Klass of The Bitterest Pill
• DJ Freak of Beathustler Radio
• Mark Reid of The Mac Report
• Timm Hacket of the English 1100 Podcast
• Paul Figgiani of The.Point Podcast

All the links above are to their listings in the iTMS so you can see Feeder’s work in situ, subscribe, enjoy, etc. 😀

Also thanks to Björk for keeping me awake for the last 30-hour stint <rolleyes>. I needed some music that I hadn’t heard in ages and even more I’d never heard at all.

It also should be noted that Sam Ruby and Mark Pilgrim’s work on FeedValidator, posts on Intertwingly and the new Apple Syndication Dev mailing list has been incredibly useful. We know Apple has the questions, all we need now are answers.

Now that mad dash to the finish line is over, I no longer need to obsess over the minutiae of the iTunes RSS specification and I’ve caught up with my sleep, I’m going to be able to post more interesting things on this blog.

Stay tuned!

Feeder has been getting quite a bit of attention lately (can’t think why!), and there’s more coming in the near future…

Oliver Bredenback at Boinx Software has published an excellent article (biased, moi?) on How to Create Podcasts with .Mac.

Paul Figgiani mentions Feeder on ThePoint Podcast No. 38.

Mark Reid talks about Feeder on show No. 2 of The Mac Report podcast.

Jason O’Grady writes about Feeder on O’Grady’s PowerPage as he prepares for his podcast.

In Sweden, on MacPro’s website (thought I’m not really sure what it says, it looks innocuous enough!).

Feeder is was mentioned in the Cool Mac Picks segment of Inside Mac Radio on July 23rd.

Thank you, everybody!

A much more clear, consistent and readable specification for the iTunes RSS Specification is now available, dated 7/7/2005:

http://phobos.apple.com/static/iTunesRSS.html

I had a sneak preview of this the other day and it’s certainly a lot better than the last one. I’m still not entirely sure how the tag should work, but with Feeder I’m now working on the assumption that it’s empty and that its presence blocks a channel or item from appearing in the music store. E.g.:

<itunes :block />

Tags: iTunes, Feeder, Podcasting

Feeder got a mention on the July 9th show of the MacCast podcast in a section about creating RSS feeds for podcasting. The show’s presenter, Adam Christianson, is a Feeder user and it’s great to see the MacCast is frequently in the iTunes Podcasts Top 20 and Podcast Alley‘s Top 10.

Cheers Adam and well done!