I’m afraid that this sounds like database corruption. The cause of this is unknown to us at this point. Vienna’s database is located at “~/Library/Application Support/Vienna.messages.db”. If you backup your home folder frequently (which everyone should), then you can quit Vienna, delete “messages.db”, and replace it with a recent backup. If you don’t have a backup, there may also be a file “messages.db.bak” in the same folder; check the last modification date on that, and if it’s recent enough, then you can quit Vienna, delete messages.db, and remove the “.bak” extension to use your old database.

If you don’t have either of those things, then you still should be able to export your subscriptions and re-import them. Export all of your subscriptions, quit Vienna, move “messages.db” to a different folder, and re-launch Vienna. That will create a fresh database, and then you can import your subscriptions again.

Jeff Johnson, Vienna Developer on the cocoa|forge forum

Oh bother… Guess my Vienna database is corrupted. And I’m not one of those smart people making regular back ups of their home directory either.

This could be a blessing in disguise since I was not being able to keep up with my reading. I’ll take some time to clean out my messy RSS repository and start over. No doubt there will be a number of gems to links to…

The project hasn’t been updated for nearly a year now. There are some forum posts on the subject: Bartek the developer has gone through a rough patch and has been unable to work on the project.

I don’t want to speculate much about the nature of his woes, but I have always wondered about the incredible speed of the updates & upgrades of the application. I deemed it unsustainable for a single person to update an application several times a month. Guess it all became too much for him.

Perhaps it is time to set the project free and allow others to take over? In any case, I wish you well Bartek. You’ve delivered wonderful free software, but it came at a price…

Hard To Synchronize

Is it so hard to sync feeds across computers? One should think not. I found NewsGator’s online version plain ridiculous. Just like Snappy the Clam back in July 2007, I could not get this to work: my attempts at deleting a folder were unsuccessful, despite the fact that I tried six different browsers on two different platforms.

My NetNewsWire install (v3.1.1; the latest version) started throwing non-stop newsgator syncing errors. These were temporarily resolved by deleting the Web Cache.

On top of everything else, it appears there are inconsistencies in the way NewsGators’ applications sync: NetNewsWire sends the status of feeds before it downloads them while FeedDemon appears to be doing exactly the opposite. This is how I lost my 6,000+ feed items.

Beta Bait

It looks like NewsGator has released a half baked product on the market. It’s disappointing stuff: if you can’t fully support a product, please don’t release it—I’d rather not bite the beta bait. If you want to run public beta programs, please do like Opera and many others: release beta previews to whoever is daring & patient enough to help debug it. Thoroughly test the product before releasing it to the public as final, and when you do beat your drum, make sure it works the way you advertise it.

Bye NetNewsWire, Welcome Back Vienna

I’ll go back to my old system now. Two computers. Two different feed streams: one for work related feeds, the other for all else.

I will keep using FeedDemon (just like TopStyle, it’s a great Nick Bradbury application). But until others are reporting positive results after biting the beta bait, I’ll dump NetNewsWire and go back to using Vienna.

• FeedDemon
  
• NetNewsWire
• NewsGator Online

This might be one of the only ways to easily and continously synchronise feeds between a Mac and a Windows machine. I certainly shall be looking into this option (despite the fact that it would mean I’d no longer use the excellent Vienna RSS reader for the Mac).

This release sports a large number of improvements and functional additions. Based on my tests with v3 beta installations personal favourites include:

• general usability enhancements
• improvements to default forum style
• creation of subforums
• password protected forums
• admin can now set global moderators
• multiple group leaders for usergroups
• banning by IP address (previously possible by applying a hack)
• active topics search
• disallow non-registered user memberlist viewing (previously possible by applying a hack)

Further Reading

• press announcement
• feature comparison

It would have been much better to place it right underneath “Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS3…” in both modules.

Library module

Develop module

I also do not understand the logic behind calling it “Settings” in develop module, and “Develop Settings” in library module: the context menu for both of these are the same (Reset, Copy Settings, Paste Settings, etc). Hopefully, these inconsistencies will be addressed in the next Lightroom release.

To fix this, select the incorrectly labeled photos and remove them from Lightroom’s library.

After that, you can simply import them again (Import photos at their current location), and Lightroom will no longer label them as missing.

Please note that you’ll need to double check that these photos are indeed where they are supposed to be before removing them from Lightroom library. If they are truly missing, they may need to be retrieved from back up.

Also note, that if these images were previously part of a collection, they may have been deleted from these collections.

Microsoft does not easily allow multiple versions of Internet Explorer to run simultaneously on Windows, but it is possible with Manfred Staudinger’s work around. I have been using that solution for years now, but recently came across a resource that makes running them side by side a little easier.

My first impression is that the installation process is smooth and quick, even though some of the older versions do not run as well as they should. But that is fine because these days there’s little point in supporting IE3 still (other than to check whether it degrades gracefully).

For instructions on manual installation, and some background information, check out Manfred Staudinger’s article on Postiton is Everything.

Why can’t the creators of operating systems get it right when it comes to this very elementary piece of code? The basics should be quite simple. Let’s start with a comprehensive set of standard fields. This way users can add a 2nd/3rd phone number, additional email address, URIs, and so forth. Additionally users should be able to create custom fields for all their non-standard needs.

A limited list of some of the most basic requirements could look like this:

• standards based
• provide two interfaces (one simple, one advanced)
• mulitple entity types (does an address belong to an organisation or a person?)
• allow persons to be part of an organisational structure
• allow persons to be part of groups (even multiple groups)
• allow different address formats to deal with the different ways addresses are formatted around the world (this would be easily accomplished with XML schemas)
• (optionally) force users to adher to strict address formatting (again, easily accomplished with XML schemas)
• active/inactive status (friends we have not seen for years/businesses we are no longer using
• in addition to a date of birth, provide a field for “date of death” (we all die; does this mean that we are to be “deleted” from address books? of course not, at the most we should be “deactivated” so our beloved ones can still remember us)
• support LDAP protocol
• integrate with online services such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, Plaxo

Standards are of benefit to both users and vendors alike: they’re made to last, giving both users and developers peace of mind that they are not locked into one particular format. Users can depend on powerful software that integrates easily regardless of which OS, or software applications they use. Vendors may benefit from being able to build even further (online) integration and enhancements to this standards based software.

And yes, I am aware of the fact that both WAB and Address Book use the V-Card standard. But that is a grossly inadequate standard. Similar to shoppinglists that only fit 5 items (need more? better have a good memory!).

So what did I end up using? A web address book that runs on my local web server. It contains most of the features I need right now. I can export my data to WAB and Address Book (although a minor tweak was required to make the “date of birth” compatible with Apple’s Address Book).

Perhaps I should be dusting off my own XML based address book, using “my own standards.” It allows easy export to just about any format by using XML/XSL.

• web standards (I design/create/test a website on Opera first, and only then “fix” IE oddities)
• tabs (like other browsers these days–but Opera has had them for years)
• speed (it renders pages fast)
• security (it’s not IE — need I say more?)
• customisable (configure just about anything)
• content blocking (ads? what ads?)
• lightweight/small memory footprint (the usual 40+ open tabs seemingly do not affect my computer’s performance)
• if Opera (or Windows) crashes, it’ll start up with all my tabs in place
• M2 email client
• personalised search engine shortcuts (accessible from the address bar)
• mouse gestures
• trash can (deleted a tab that you still need? no problem, just look in the trash can)
• Opera’s innovative crew — frequently miles ahead of other browser manufacturers
• great UI sets made by dedicated people (thanks Moose!)

Get your own… Visit Opera to download the (free) browser.