You should be able to change feed URLs in Luke Hutteman‘s Sharpreader without any hassle. You can’t. Here’s how you do it:

1. Close SharpReader, making sure it is completely gone and not just hiding in the SysTray.
2. Open your SharpReader data directory. On Windows XP, this will be something like “C:Documents and Settings%USER%Application DataSharpReader”, where %USER% is your username.
3. Open the file called subscriptions.xml in a text editor (Notepad will do fine). It contains the list of all your current subscriptions. Find the line which applies to the feed you want to change and change it to the new URL. Save the file and close it.
4. Open the subdirectory called “cache”. There will be a list of XML files. Their names correspond to the feed they are caching. If you updated the feed name, change it here as well. If you updated the feed’s extension, things are trickier. If it has been changed to .xml, remove the old extension from the cached file name. If it has been changed from .xml, you will need to add the new extension to the end of the file name (it will not currently have a .xml extension).
5. Restart SharpReader.

That’s what works for me, but as protection for me try this at your own risk.

There are three ways to reasonably serve up RSS, listed here in order of preference:

1. application/rss+xml
2. application/xml
3. text/xml

Since the first is the type we say we’re serving in the link tag (despite that type not being a real MIME type), that is the one we should probably pick to serve our feeds as. The problem is that browsers (rightly) refuse to display application/rss+xml. Instead, they try to download it or pass it to another viewer.

This behaviour doesn’t help someone who doesn’t know what an RSS feed does (a problem that needs addressed). They will see something they do not understand being downloaded and abort. Not good. To aid in this, it would be nice for the user to see the styled feed (my RSS 2.0 feed already has CSS styling).

Two thoughts occurred to me: “Are there any workarounds?” and “How are others serving their RSS feeds?”.

Changing the content-type to application/xml fixes the visibility problem, but means that feeds are inconsistent with the link tag. In turn, changing the link tag to suit the new content-type isn’t feasible. There are dozens of aggregators who need to see application/rss+xml in the link tag to do auto-discovery properly.

Step 2 was to see how others serve their feeds. The results were disconcerting, at best. Jacques Distler and Anne van Kesteren both use text/xml, Mark Pilgrim uses application/xml, and Sam Ruby uses application/xml for RSS 0.91 and application/rss+xml for RSS 2.0.

Ouch.

In the end, it’s probably best to settle on the middle option: application/xml. Why? It provides visibility, is the parent of the “correct” MIME type (if you see these things as hierarchical), and it is a real MIME type.

The situation is hardly ideal, but it’s the one we have.

As an aside, my RSS feeds now have a new extension (.rss, rather than .xml). I’ll be doing a transparent redirect for now, in a month or so I’ll make it explicit, and a month after that I might remove the old style entirely. Please update your subscriptions now to avoid disappointment later.

Forget the critical acclaim. Forget the well-known cast. Forget the music by Billy “I’m Deep” Corgan.

The fact of the matter is that Spun is dire, save one scene.

The cast are largely annoying, perhaps by design. However, it certainly doesn’t make them any more endearing or interesting to watch.

The most grating part of the film is the music, where horribly overt acoustic tunes abound. They detract from the film by being played along to driving sections, cutting the pace in exactly the wrong places.

If your idea of gritty realism (a phrase that is bound to appear in any review of the film) is anything with a low-grain camera, jaunty angles and some faux arthouse dialogue (in limited doses), then this might just appeal to you. To anyone expecting actual depth, go elsewhere.

A staccato review for a staccato film.

The links are coming fairly fast these days, so I’m just going to dump them as soon as I have enough (rather than post them at the end of each week):

• Endor Holocaust – Apparently, the destruction of the second Death Star would’ve wiped out Endor. Some people have far too much time,
• Caching Web Pages – I’ve been meaning to implement this stuff for literally years, but my current (internal) caching system isn’t good enough. It’s on my to-do list though,
• Accesskeys and reserved keystrokes – Thinking about making your site more accessible by adding accesskey attributes? The combinations to avoid are fairly comprehensive,
• Polytope Tetris – Ever wondered what 3D Tetris would be like? This program is your chance to experience it; along with 4D, 5D, etc. Imaginary dimensions are fun,
• An Introduction To Quantum Computing – In Quantum Mechanics, you’ve already had a good read of this,
• Top 10 Internet Fads – I remember at least some of this. All bad, all the time,
• Dilbert Hole – The rather sick reworked Dilbert comics. Very funny (via Derek).

Expect another batch within a few days (at this rate).

Given that their is a dearth of pictures of me on my site (with good reason), it’s with some trepidation that I link to a photo of me asleep in a lecture. I feel that it shows off my best features. The photo comes from Matt, who sneakily took it while I was in that particular pose.