Check the GayZette online

Please come out to the website and check for the articles that were not sent out during Feedburners downtime this past week.  There are 9 that were not sent.  Whenever you don't hear from me for a few days, it never hurts to check the calendar as I keep it updated and it is a great resource for what to do.  As with all technical programs they don't work 100% of the time.  Drives me absolutely nuts as I try to fix stuff that sometimes is beyond my technical fixing ability.  Thank you all for being such a great audience!  Ms T

Blogger is acting naughty...

I am not so happy with blogger as she has not been minding me this last week.  Instead of sending out my posts to you as they are scheduled, they have not been delayed for days!  It is most frustrating as by the time you got the Friday MLK day notice the event has passed.  The way it works is I select a two hour time frame for when blogger sends the GayZette to you.  Unfortunately, blogger hasn't been sending you anything on schedule so I have manually picked the next time period or have resynced the blog to attempt to 'force' a send,  It has not worked, much to my frustration. 

This is a game I play for hours each day and I have begun to feel like blogger is the toddler throwing a toy on the ground and I am the mommy picking it up.  The good news is that the events ARE placed on the Seattle Announcements Calendar so if you have a habit of looking at it you will miss nothing.  I know that blogger eventually self corrects as it does have glitches from time to time.  Ah ha, I even have a label for 'feedburner issues' and that is my story and I am sticking to it. 

Back on the e-horse, emails ride again

Yes, you may have missed me over the last week and I did miss you.  Our relationship being a bit odd and at times feeling a wee bit one-sided.  I know you are there but a silent partner to my information and one woman rants often written long past the time I should be asleep but am not.  I feel obligated to bring you information and when I cannot I do freak-a-bit.  I hate to disappoint.

I must share with you why I disappeared but was not really gone.  I lay the blame on the evil internet.  Ok, not the entire internet but Feedburner specifically.  Feedburner quit burning my feeds on Tuesday the 17th which meant you my beloved readers quit getting the GayZette updates via email.  This consumed my time and energy from posting new and interesting things as I was researching answers to the problem but found there is not any support available for situations such as this. 

I found and tried to fix the problems that Feedburner mentioned that were in the offending posts.  Each time I fixed one problem they found another!  It felt like an argument that I would never win.  I HATE admitting defeat but finally gave up after pulling 3 all nighters and began the process of burning another feed and setting up a new account.

I was left with the question...why do feeds go bad?  For multiple reasons as simple as adding quotes or copying other peoples text in a post.  I have taken precautions so it will hopefully not happen again.  I will be Safe Blogging from this point on.  Yes, I am looking for a software solution to assist me and test my posts before they get to you.  Mind you...YOU are in no danger, this is a disagreement between HTML and the new XML format.  They do NOT play well together. 

What does this goobly goop mean to you?  For all you fabulous folks that have been receiving the GayZette by email, you will receive a NEW subscription email.  My new feed is working as I have tested it.  We have a new simplier feed address and the text you receive in the feeds will be a little bit different than before.

Now...I am off to send you all your new email invitations and start posting the important stuff again. 

Kindest regards,

Ms T

PS...for those scratching your heads saying -what is a feed?  Simply...a feed is a data format so that information can be updated immediately and in a standard format that is recognized and can be read in a Feed Reader.  We can subscribe to services to receive the feed via email or via a feed reader.  More info can be found  here.