Solving more computer issues, RSS Client edition

So way back when, when Google killed off Google Reader, I wound up flipping about a lot in search of an RSS reader solution that’d let me get the links I wanted to follow in all the places I wanted to follow them.

I finally settled on a solution that didn’t exactly satisfy me: using a Feedly account, plus two different RSS clients. I needed one RSS client to pull stuff down from Feedly, and it’s an RSS client I do like–but unfortunately it doesn’t support authenticated feeds. So I also had to install a second client to get at the feeds I wanted to read from Dreamwidth (and at least until everybody seriously bailed on LJ, LJ as well).

But I had to also keep the first client, because the second one didn’t talk to Feedly.

In other words: stupidly complicated.

(And this is also stupidly long for a post, so here’s a More/cut tag for y’all.)

Continue reading “Solving more computer issues, RSS Client edition”

It has come to my attention that LJ actually FIXED something

Namely, Bandcamp embeds! So here, have a couple! (Does this also work on Dreamwidth? LET’S FIND OUT.)
Like “Manteau d’hiver” by Le Vent du Nord!
Tromper le temps by Le Vent du Nord
And “La déroutée” by Yves “Most Badass Accordion Player in Quebec” Lambert and his trio! A song which rattles me around every time I hear it. I LOVE the repeated chorus.
Le monde à Lambert (Yves Lambert & le Bébert orchestra) by La prûche libre
And last but MOST ASSUREDLY not least, Dara’s got some tasty previews up for the WE SWEAR TO ODIN IS ACTUALLY FORTHCOMING Bone Walker Soundtrack!
Bone Walker (Preview Tracks) by Crime and the Forces of Evil

Another year, another round of LJ fail

For those of you who may not have seen this yet, this story started going around last night. I saw the LJ Twitter account link to it, so one presumes this is indeed legit. The article’s talking about future plans for LJ, and it’s looking like the ongoing trend of not giving a damn about the old-school LJ user base isn’t stopping for the foreseeable future. The money quote is this one:

LiveJournal’s leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service’s current small-but-loyal membership. The challenge for Petrochenko and other executives at LiveJournal will be redefining the brand’s identity in a crowded media marketplace.

The ONTD_political community is not amused. Neither is JF’s fandom_lounge.

I am not abandoning LJ quite yet. But I HAVE shifted a lot of my primary reading over to Dreamwidth–so if you’re on both sites, and if you are actively posting to DW, I’ll be reading and replying to you on DW. So if you plan to make the jump and you’re on my LJ friends list, let me know so I can add you on DW.

LJ->DW commenting shift

FYI, all: if I know you have an active journal over on Dreamwidth, and I know you’re clearly crossposting over to here, I’ll be shifting commenting traffic there unless you have LJ content that isn’t actually on Dreamwidth. In which case you’ll still get my comment traffic on LJ. (My beloved userinfosolarbird, I’m looking at you. <3) I am not, repeat, not bailing on LJ for general reasons of remaining available to the widest potential number of people who might be interested in my writing; this is simply an effort on my part to support Dreamwidth traffic and the fact that I do have a paid account over there. So as I mentioned in an earlier post, if you're there and we've already Friended each other on LJ, feel free to pick me up on Dreamwidth too. Or, keep following me on LJ, or even via WordPress. Whatever your heart desires; it's all good!

LJ’s latest PrivacyFail

I’ve seen a lot of news going around about this, but for those of you who haven’t, LJ has just turned on new functionality to crosspost to Facebook and Twitter.

On the face of it this seems fine. I crosspost regularly, as y’all probably know; all my posts these days originate from my WordPress blogs, but from there they head out to LJ, Dreamwidth, Facebook, and Twitter all at the same time. I’m fine with LJ allowing that to happen for stuff that originates on LJ.

What I’m not fine with is that you can apparently now also crosspost comments. Including comments on locked posts, or posts which are set to screen all comments. The crossposted comments will include a link back to the original post–and if that post is locked, sure, only the people who are authorized to see it will still see it. But there’s no way of knowing if those crossposted comments might quote bits of the original post.

So there’s big privacy fail here. There’s also just general fail of manners, because seriously, it’s just rude to link back to locked posts that people on other sites can’t read.

I wouldn’t have been turning on this functionality anyway since my crossposting originates off of LJ and I therefore do not need it. But I’m leaving it off also on general principle just because of this big gaping security hole. I encourage you all to do the same. Also, while I don’t often post locked posts or posts with screened comments, I do ask that if I do, please don’t crosspost any comments off of them.

The FAQ post about the new functionality is here. The new news post that mentions it is here.

If you feel passionately about this, I encourage you to submit feedback to LJ about it.

If you feel really passionately about this, enough to bail on LJ, I have Dreamwidth invite codes. Let me know if you want one.

Heads up, LJ peeps

For several days now, LJ’s feed of custom styles has been broken–which has meant that the custom style I set up to let it download a feed of my Friends list into my mail client hasn’t worked, so I’m totally behind on keeping up with all of you!

If anybody posted anything addressed specifically at me, can you link me up in a comment? Thanks! *^_^*;;

LJ about to make Gender field mandatory

Just saw this on userinfocelandineb‘s journal: apparently LJ is about to make the Gender field a mandatory setting on new account creation, and word has it that you’ll have to set it to Male or Female. “Unspecified” will no longer be allowed. Details on this can be found over here.

Since I have several transgendered and genderqueer friends, I find this generally displeasing, especially when coupled with the likelihood that this’ll lead to gender-targeted ads for non-paying users of the system. As per [personal profile] synecdochic‘s post, I’ll be sending in some feedback on this to (politely) express my displeasure. I recommend any of y’all who feel likewise do the same.

ETA 12/15/09 6:24am: As has been noted elsewhere, LJ’s support team has been replying to feedback that’s gone in saying that this was apparently beta code and a screw up. I’ve gotten this same support reply, so that seems to be that. Good.

To anyone following my Livejournal

Please go check this post that I just made over there. I apparently got dinged by the LJ exploit that was going around this morning, so anybody on my Friends list who may have read me during the time in question may have been affected as well.

Some quick praise

I must sing the praises of JournalPress, a WordPress plugin that not only crossposts to LJ, it lets you crosspost to multiple LJ-type sites at once. So I’ve got it set up to dump posts out to both LJ and my JF account. Works like a charm.

If you’ve got a need to crosspost to multiple LJ-style sites off of WordPress, you might check the plugin out. And if you do, be sure to thank the author for her hard work!

*tap tap tap* Is this thing on?

So yeah, if you’re reading this, you’re either visiting my shiny new official writer-type page at angelakorrati.com, or else you’re seeing a mirrored post over to my Livejournal and JournalFen accounts. Either way, hiya. This is the inaugural post to break in my actual writer site.

Not too much to report here yet and probably won’t be until Faerie Blood comes out. I’m still awaiting the proposed cover art and requested edits from my editor, which will hopefully come in soon. We’re tentatively aiming to have FB ready to come out by March.

In the meantime, for those of you who haven’t already, I invite you to go around to Drollerie Press in general, and in particular, check out the first official Drollerie Authors Blog Tour.

If you’re already reading my LJ, you don’t also have to follow angelakorrati.com; I’ll be mirroring its posts over to Livejournal. Angelakorrati.com’s posts will be exclusively about writing news and interesting things happening with the books.

But regardless of how you read me, glad to see you doing so. Watch this space, whatever space that might be, for more!