Posts Tagged ‘rss’

FeedReader, in my opinion, is the best RSS reader available (and it’s free). I have used it for many years without any problems at all … until recently; I encrypted my hard-drives and everything worked as expected except FeedReader. I was getting an error like ‘internal gds software consistency check (can`t continue after bugcheck)’.

I uninstalled and then reinstalled FeedReader however I still received the error messages/popups.

Why the GDS FeedReader Error Occurs

FeedReader uses the Firebird database to house the various settings and information.  The most likely cause of the ‘GDS’ error is that the database is corrupt. The solution to the FeedReader error is to repair or replace the SQL database (i.e. the Firebird database).

How to repair FeedReader after the GDS Error

The two options for resolving the FeedReader error are to repair the database or to completely uninstall FeedReader and then reinstall:

Fix the FeedReader Database

FeedReader includes a Backup Utility which, besides backing up and restoring the database, assists with database repair and optimization. The database holds such information as which articles in feeds have been read as well as other settings (it’s therefore preferable to repair the database rather than reinstall the application).

To run the FeedReader Backup Utility:

1. Close FeedReader (you may need to go to Task Manager to do this).
2. Click the Start button on your taskbar.
3. Select All Programs.
4. Click the FeedReader folder and select ‘FeedReader Backup Utility’.
5. At the least ensure that ‘Fix possible database errors’ is checked however it is thoroughly recommended to ensure that ‘Tidy up database’ and ‘Make backup’ are also selected.
6. Click the Details tab and make a note of the ‘Backup file location’.
7. Click Start.

If a database repair doesn’t work then it will be necessary to completely uninstall and then reinstall FeedReader.

How to (completely) uninstall and reinstall FeedReader

Unfortunately, the database and/or reference information isn’t removed when FeedReader is uninstalled using the application uninstaller. If wanting to completely uninstall or reinstall FeedReader then all referenced to the database and the database itself need to be deleted.

Follow these steps to have a ‘clean’ install of FeedReader:

1. From the Windows control panel, uninstall FeedReader via ‘Program and Features’ or however else you usually uninstall software.
2. In Windows Explorer go ‘c:\users\YourLoginName\roaming’ (this location may be different depending on your Windows setup) and delete the FeedReader folder.
3. In Windows Explorer go ‘c:\Program Files’ (this location may be different depending on your Windows setup) and delete the FeedReader30 folder.
4. Install the latest version of FeedReader.

I certainly hope that this article on how to deal with the Feedreader gds error has helped!

Incoming search terms for this article:

• firebird database

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Recently one of my Websites was hacked (not this Website!). The hackers had managed to populate the WordPress site posts (Blogs) with iframes that redirected visitors to a suspicious Website. It appears that a SQL script was run on every post to replace the contents of the posts with the redirecting iframe (WordPress and all plugins were fully up-to-date with the latest patches). Fortunately my AVG security software detected the unwanted iframe which was prevalent on both the hacked Website and the Feedburner RSS feed from that Website.

I have no idea how the hackers accessed the database however I have learnt that using shared hosting (the hacked site was hosted with GoDaddy) may increased the chance of being hacked; if one of the shared Sites is hacked then it may be more simple for the hackers to gain access to the co-shared Sites.

Recovering from a hacked WordPress Website is a time-consuming task and if recent (unhacked) database backups aren’t available then, well, the trouble in recovering is multiplied significantly. There are some good articles out there describing how to recover from a hacked WordPress Site but, more than anything, preventing being hacked is far simpler than recovery. Here are six absolutely essentially tasks related to your Site and Malware:

1. Create secure passwords (for WordPress, MySQL, FTP etc.) and change them occasionally.
2. Keep WordPress, Plugins and Themes well as all software on your PC/MAC updated to the latest releases and patches.
3. Backup your WordPress files and MySQL database regularly.
4. Check every one of your Websites at least daily for any suspicious data or redirection (an easy way of doing this is subscribing to the RSS feed from your Site)
5. If your Site has been hacked immediately take action to restore it.
6. Advise the Search Engines of Malware recovery if necessary.

I am certainly looking forward to using VaultPress which should further minimise the chance of being hacked.

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The problems with Google Feedburner and the mighty Yahoo Pipes is causing many of us headaches. For over two weeks now Feedburner has not been reading RSS data from Pipes. Many people use Feedburner to parse their Pipes RSS feeds and often publish this information on websites. Since the 6th of November Pipes and Feedburner have not ‘talked’ to each other which is proving big problem for Webmasters trying to publish information from Pipes through Feedburner (if you are one of the many who use this techniques for publishing on your WordPress website through the WP-O-Matic plugin you’ll be experiencing this problem).

Take a look at the official Yahoo forum for this Feedburner/Pipes Problem.  Apparently Feedburner changed a whole lot of IP addresses which is causing this issue …

Update: 21 Nov. ’09: Pipes and Feedburner are friends again (they are working together again) – Yipee!

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Technorati has released its new Blog Authority ranking. The amount of detail provided by Technorati as to how the authority is really determined is about as deeply secret as the Coca-Cola recipe or which ‘eleven herbs and spices’ are used by KFC. As per many of us Bloggers, I have been interested in determining how the new Technorati authority is calculated as some of my blogs are getting a reasonable score whereas others are deemed as useless by Technorati (and there doesn’t seem logic in the way the authority is calculated, at this time anyway).

Technorati Indexes RSS Feeds

I do however have a theory; I believe that Technorati is using the data in RSS/Atom feeds as its source data. This means that rather than relying on a ‘bot’/spider/web-crawler, Technorati is relying on information fed to it by the likes of a Pub/Sub system such as Google Pubsubhubbub. Google uses RSS/Atom information as processed by Pubsubhubbub so that it is able to provide near real time Search Results. Have you noticed that your Blog posts are indexed by Google very quickly – this is due to the active monitoring of your RSS/Atom feed through Pubsubhubbub.

And why I think that Technorati has gone Pub/Sub…

1. The Technorati Authority is updated frequently (there is no way that Technorati is able to have a ‘bot’ to crawl billions of pages a day as well as process them a few times per day).
2. There is a heavy reliance on recent links and data.
3. Technorati has noted that Blogroll links aren’t included in Authority rankings (RSS/Atom feeds do not include Blogroll links).

Implications of Technorati using RSS/Atom Data

If Technorati is in fact using the Pub/Sub model then there are various implications for SEO in relation to Technorati. Considerations include:

1. The data your Feed contains is what is indexed i.e. if your comments aren’t available via a feed then they won’t be indexed.
2. If you don’t publish/post content frequently then you won’t have content indexed frequently (yes, this is obvious).
3. Trackbacks/Pingbacks won’t be included as an authority measure.
4. Inlinks/Backlinks are more important than ever!!!

I’m pretty sure that Technorati is using the data from RSS/Atom feeds in indexing and determining Blog authority. This may well put more SEO focus on feed content and supports those SEO experts that say that links are still the most important SEO element.

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I’m sure I read a quote somewhere saying that PubSubHubbub is like the Web on Crack (I can’t seem to find the quote). I’m not crazy enough to have tried Crack but it must be good if it’s anything like the new publish/subscribe messaging paradigm.  PubSubHubbub is the Google initiative which, in plain English, monitors RSS and Atom Feeds and distributes the content at break-neck speed. Sick of waiting hours or days for your content to be indexed then you will love PubSubHubbub!

Essentially this great new Pub/Sub paradigm means that content published by you and I via RSS or Atom is distributed to the wide world like, now! Here’s an example of how it works;

Feedburner used to check for updated site feeds every 15 minutes or so. This obviously meant a delay from the time of publishing new content until the content appeared in Feedburner. Google Search, Technorati etc. would then take further hours or days to include the new content in SERPs (Search Results Pages). As of a few days ago, if you have PingShot enabled in Feedburner, then as soon as new content appears in your Site feed it will be available in your Feedburner feed. Almost at the same time any Content system hooked up to PubSubHubbub will pick up the new content (rather than waiting hours or days for the many bots to index your site).

In the good old days before PubSubHubbub (o.k., it was only a few days ago), we’d ping the various services (ping-o-matic, Icerocket, King Ping, Yahoo etc.) when we published new or changed content to ask them to reindex our sites. PubSubHubbub should make this need redundant as it won’t be necessary for the various content systems and Search Engines to index sites for every bit of new or amended content. The content can be attained from PubSubHubbub in near real-time.

I have done a bit of surfing about PubSubHubbub and how this will affect the need to ping the various services. Unfortunately there appears very little information available as to who will attain information from PubSubHubbub and if the need for pinging still remains (I certainly won’t be ceasing pinging until more information is available about PubSubHubbub and the need for pinging).

P.S. It’s pretty awesome that as I publish this post it’ll be available on Google search for those looking for information about this topic.

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