As a result, our feed url has changed. The old feed url has been deleted and is currently being redirected. If you are subscribed to my FeedBurner feed, then please update your feed reader.

The URL to subscribe to is http://ajaydsouza.com/feed/. Subscribing to this URL will ensure that any updates at our end will not affect you.

If you prefer to receive feed updates via email then please use the following form:

I decided to give Yahoo! Pipes a shot as I originally intended to. The interface is easy to use but it doesn’t look at all welcoming. I haven’t let a single interface to this date benumb and I don’t intend to let Yahoo! Pipes be the first!

Got down to understanding how Yahoo! Pipes actually works and I was shocked to realize that it was actually really really easy to mix my feeds together!

All you need is a single Fetch module into which you feed in the locations of all your feeds. The output of this module is then sent to your Output module. You save and publish your pipe and you’re done!

I next got the RSS for the pipe and modified the Feedburner feed to point to this new RSS feed.

The result is a faster and possibly more reliable interface. Easy customization in case I wish to add or remove feeds. I’m sure I can do a lot more like limiting the number of articles and so on, but will take a bit more trial.

Have you tried out Yahoo! Pipes so far?

Planet Ajay

I’ve been searching for services that offer this but will confess I’ve been largely unsuccessful. I ran across Feedblendr which aims at establishing just that.

I’ve combined the following feeds:

• Main Blog Feed
• Comments Feed
• Podcast
• Ajay on WordPress
• Support Forum

The new feed is served by Feedburner as usual and I’ve chosen to call it Planet Ajay. It’s also set to auto-discovery, so you’re browser or feed reader can pick it up.

Planet Ajay is perfect for readers who are subscribed to all my feeds. This eliminates the need for you to track several feeds.

I’m still looking for a better option than Feedblendr, because its refresh rate is slow. Do you have any suggestions for a better service?

Bye Bye MBL widget

I’ve also knocked off the MyBlogLog recent visitors widget for my community. I really like the widget, but MBL has become a lot slower than the early days and the widget has been really slowing down the loading of the page.

I may add the widget back in the future, but as of now it is knocked off. I’ve still maintained the code that will display the MBL Avatar next to your comment as that wasn’t too much of a problem (yet).

Suggest

I’m still looking for suggestions to improve visitor experience on the site. I’ve cut down on images to speed up the site, made more feeds available and have also ensured your comments count!

What is it that you find missing out here?
Do you have any suggestions for improvement? What can I do to make your visit here more memorable (in the good way) and what do I do to keep you coming back?

Waiting to hear your comments.

I’ve removed the redirect from the .htaccess and it hasn’t solved the problem as well.

So, if you are subscribed to http://ajaydsouza.com/feed/ then you should continue to see this site normally.

If you are subscribed via the direct feedburner link, I request you to change the same to http://ajaydsouza.com/feed/.

Once, things are resolved with Feedburner, I will put back the redirect.

Update: Seems to have resolved itself. I’ve put the updates back. Do let me know if you face a problem again.

Feed Changes

Feed Redirection

Began first by redirecting my blog feed /feed/ to the Feedburner one. So even if you have been subscribing to /feed/ you will be redirected correctly and I have better ways of keeping a count of everyone subscribed. Read how I did it.

Feed Flare

Next customization was with the Feedburner Feed itself. Have utilized FeedFlare. You can now digg the post and/or view the number of diggs.
Also choose to track the comments with co.mments. Also Add to del.icio.us or email your friend
What other flares would you like to see?

Link Splicer

I have also incorporated the Link Splicer in my feed. My feed subscribers will see an additional feed item (actually seven) which summarizes the links that I have added during the day.
Not subscribed to this feed? Why aren’t you?

The Whole New Look

The Theme

Have finally got down to customizing this theme as you can see. Have converted it to a 3-column layout with two sidebars to the right. The inner sidebar directly relates to the post, while the outer sidebar gives you things you can do on the site!
I plan on releasing this theme as Connections Revolutions. However, I have a few things I want to add to this theme before I do that.

Now XHTML 1.1 Compliant

Have been meaning to this for quite a while. This site is now XHTML 1.1 compliant!
This does mean that all links now will open in this window itself. While I prefer opening offsite links in new windows, XHTML 1.1 changed that behavior.
Besides this, I sure had to do a great deal of editting on a lot of posts and pages! It’s done now. If you find anything amiss, please do comment below.

Google Search integrated

I have integrated Google Adsense search into the site. If you can’t find what you are looking for with the inbuilt search, you have the option of using Google. Alternatively, use Google Search directly.
I still plan on a few more tweaks like choosing which search you want from the box to the right and better display on the results page. But that’s later.

Easy Browsing

You can now browse from post to post. When you are one one post, you can view links above it leading to the previous and next posts.

New Pages

A few more pages have been added to this site.

In view to encourage comments, you will now find a Comment Policy and Privacy Policy in addition to the Rules.

Are you interested in advertising on this site. Then this page will tell you more.

That’s it for now. Do comment and let me know what you like / don’t like (no abuses please) about this blog. Keep the suggestions coming. What would you like to see?

He has been using a software by Elliot Back for this purpose.

I got a notification from a visitor that John is now trying to sell off CrazyFactor on SitePoint Auctions.

Being stuck in India and I am absolutely sure I can’t do much, I got down to writing to Feedburner support, many of the authors whose content is being stolen (including Robert Scoble), the host Bitesites (whose support is so crappy I am sure I won’t even think of hosting with them) and Sitepoint (where the auction is being held).

I didn’t receive a reply from any of the authors, though I did find a post by Robert Scoble (not sure if he found out because of my email or just otherwise).

I haven’t received a reply from SitePoint. I guess they don’t even bother looking at emails from small folks like me, even if illegal sites are being sold on their Auctions. A bid has for $50 has been received for the auction. Guess there are buyers for illegal sites as well!

As for the host, I received one reply and after that none. CrazyFactor continues run even today and I guess not only will it run, but it will also be sold!

From what I notice about John Comokaz, his entire business deals in scams and splogs. By using RSS Scraping software he builds sites and then sells them off.

I would like to compliment Feedburner support for their quick and helpful response. They have even gone to the extent of offering to give me any kind of log data to help prevent the theft. However, my latest posts haven’t been appearing on CrazyFactor (possible because I banned the host servers in my .htaccess).

I’m hoping Robert succeeds in doing something. You need people with more influence to work their magic!

Any suggestions on what should I do? (Legal action isn’t really an option)

Update 1: I have also written to Google Adsense. But, I don’t know how much they will do since the ads have been removed from the site.

Update 2: I received a reply from Sitepoint Marketplace Support saying that they can do absolutely nothing about this!

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us about this.

Unfortunately, SitePoint is unable to offer assistance when a dispute such as this arises between two members. We don’t act as an intermediate party in any transactions and therefore cannot vouch for the reliability of any member or items for sale. We encourage participants in our Marketplace to do as much research as possible before conducting any transaction.

While I would like to follow this up for you, we really don’t have the resources to do so or the qualifications to make judgements about what is and what isn’t stolen content.

Our Marketplace does not currently have a feature allowing members to leave negative feedback about other members. Since leaving negative feedback in a comment is not allowed, this is an issue we are currently looking into.

Best regards,

I am extremely surprised to receive such a response from the Sitepoint team. Then again, aren’t they getting a cut from every sale? X(

Maybe if they understood that it wasn’t a dispute between just two members and that I wasn’t giving negative feedback they would understand the gravity of the situation.

They may probably sit up when a similar splog steals the content of their articles and publishes it as its own.

Update 3: The site and the other blogs in the account that scrapped content have been suspended. Thanks to Tailor Made Servers for their prompt action.
And this wouldn’t have been possible without Duncan’s help.

FeedBurner provides an excellent feed service that lets you track how many users are subscribed to your feed and more.

Users can still bypass your FeedBurner feed and continue to subscribe to your original blog feed.

While this is not a problem, your stats may not give you slightly inaccurate number of your feed subscribers.

A good option is the WordPress FeedBurner Plugin, which will redirect all your feeds to Feedburner.

If you do not wish to use another plugin or if, like me, you are redirecting a category feed, (I got one for Connections Reloaded), then you can redirect your users by adding the following code to your .htaccess file. Replace AAAAAA by that of your feedburner feed.


# Redirect /feed/ to Feedburner (if not Feedburner bot)
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !FeedBurner
RewriteRule ^feed/?([_0-9a-z-]+)?/?$ http://feeds.feedburner.com/AAAAAA [R,L]
</IfModule>

Make sure you add this code before the section of the code added by WordPress. Otherwise your feed won’t be redirected.

The code explained:

The first line of the code is a comment.
The second line checks if mod_rewrite is installed. This is to ensure that your site doesn’t break.
The third line turns the RewriteEngine on. This is required before any rules are used.
The fourth line is extremely important. It ensures that the FeedBurner Bot is excluded from the redirection. If this line is missing your feed fetching will result in an infinite loop.
The fifth line redirects the /feed/ to your feedburner feed.
The last line is just a closing tag for the mod_rewrite check.

I was going through my Feedburner stats and found the counter (at the bottom of this page) saying 50923! :O

On checking my stats I find that it was infact true. Of this 50866 are from Netvibes

Will have to keep a watch on this and check tomorrow.

50000+ subscribers is a dream. How many are actually reading this blog?

As a test I have activated Feed Flare for the feed of this site. I have still not done so for my Connections Reloaded feed.
Am going to monitor the performance of this over a few days before I do so.

You currently have the following options available to you:
- Email the post
- See number of incoming links,
- Add to del.icio.us and view del.icio.us tags
- view number of comments

I have a feeling that many posts may have to be redownloaded, but I can’t confirm this for sure. If you have any comments about this addtion, please do email me.

Read the post from Burning Questions about Feed Flare.