Blogger stops FTP, I'm off to Wordpress

Blogger announced on the 22nd of January (though I don't read their blog so only found out by email today) that they're discontinuing FTP and SFTP publishing services after March 26th. Unfortunately I rely on FTP to publish here because I don't want to host my blog on Google's servers.

I've not been overly happy with Blogger's service, so this is probably going to be the catalyst for me moving to Wordpress. I'm going to have to do some reading to see how that's going to work/happen but it's likely webpages, RSS feeds and so on are going to change so if you're still interested in what I have to say watch this space for news.

Feed fixed. Again.

I moved my website between servers a while back which resulted in some slightly changed file paths. I remembered to change some Blogger details, but missed the feeds and archive paths. Because I post so regularly it's only taken me a month to notice. Whoops!

Anyway, everything should be up and running again.

Also Eegra linked this video yesterday. It's both hilarious and sweet.

Slightly less feed issues

Well, making that last post seems to have regenerated the RSS and Atom feeds (as I'd kind of hoped it would), so you can now subscribe to my updates again. Unfortunately the Blogger Reading List still isn't talking properly to Google Friend Connect:

(And yes, I did try changing it to /blog, /blog/blog.htm and /blog/atom.xml)

It's starting to look like I can't do what I want to without moving my blog over to a Blogger host. What I wanted to be one process is now looking like two...

1) Subscribe to updates using the RSS feed or the Atom feed.
2) Show that you're following by signing in to the Friend Connect window.

If people do 1) it means I have no idea whether anyone is reading this or not, and there's no motivation to do 2) (except perhaps to have another link to their blog somewhere). Also if people only do 2) it looks like they're following updates but aren't actually getting anything (unless they visit the site regularly).

I probably shouldn't complain, after all its not like anyone *has* to read this. I'm just more likely to update regularly if I know I have an audience.

* * * * *

Anyway, information about new games coming soon!

(Also I'll stop messing with the feed locations, so feel free to sign up - again if necessary)

Feed issues

I'm having one or two problems setting up an RSS (or equivalent) site feed so that people can subscribe to this blog. Okay, so there was a ready made solution set up by default, but what I really want is a 'blog followers' type box that people can sign into that will start delivering the feed directly to them. You know, like everybody else has on their Blogger blogs.

The problem is that feature can only be added by 'customising' the default Blogger design, and you can only do that if your blog is hosted on a Blogger site. I'm hosting my blog on my website because I want to tie the two together, so that option isn't open to me.

After a bit of searching I discovered that the Blogger gadget is based on a Google one called Google Friend Connect, so I've added that instead. Unfortunately while it lets people register as following my blog, and adds my blog to their Blogger reading list, it can't seem to find the RSS feed so doesn't automatically sign them up to the site feed. Then while trying to make it find the RSS I seem to have broken the feed.

Ah well.