Last week’s release of FeedDemon 1.6 Beta 1 has resulted in a ton of feedback, and I’d like to thank those who have taken the time to give the beta a test drive. Due to some really bad timing on my part I needed to take some downtime towards the end of last week, so I’d also like to thank Jack Brewster for his heroic efforts in dealing with so many issues in my absence. Jack, I owe you one – again :)
Much of the feedback we’ve received has been related to a handful of problem areas in the beta, and I’d like to address a few of them here:
- As many people unfortunately discovered, we had some problems with the new activation system used by the beta. We do have a temporary fix for this available, and the fix will be rolled into a new beta later this week.
- Related to the above, it appears that a number of serial numbers are missing from our database, specifically ones generated for PayPal orders or generated manually by me for translators and others who deserved a free copy. This was my fault, so if you’re affected by this problem, my apologies – I should have all the missing serials imported before the next beta is released.
- Also related to this, there appears to be some confusion as to why the FeedDemon beta requires a NewsGator account, which is understandable given our flip-flop regarding subscription. Please understand, though, that this requirement isn’t part of some covert scheme to force you into a subscription model. Since FeedDemon is now a NewsGator product, the activation system used by the previous version of FeedDemon has been replaced with NewsGator’s activation system – that’s all.
- Although the new sync features are being well-received, we’ve received a few comments from users complaining that they don’t wish to use them. As I mentioned in the beta announcement, you can continue to use FeedDemon without the sync features – we’re not going to force you to use them, no matter how much we like them :)
- Right now my inbox is overflowing with beta questions and bug reports. As much as I appreciate the feedback, I really must ask that you use post your comments in the FeedDemon Beta Forum rather than email them to me.
- I’m going to be kinder about this than I probably should, but an over-zealous user of a competing product has been spamming our forums with FUD about FeedDemon. As a result, I’ve taken the very rare step of banning this person from our forums and deleting the offending messages (criticism is fine, spam is not). BTW, this is the same person who posted a slew of negative comments about FeedDemon in other peoples’ blogs last week.
That’s all for now – thanks again for giving the beta a spin, despite its still-buggy status.