Delicious

Just a quick note about a bug fix and performance enhancement release for Pukka. Version 1.8.3 is available on the product page. The most noticeable change is slightly better performance (or, if you have thousands and thousands of bookmarks, perhaps much better performance) when selecting a bookmark search result and viewing it in your browser.

Also in this build, there is a warning if you try to head to the Delicious site to create a new account. This is because as of last month, Delicious accounts are now linked with Yahoo! IDs. While this could be convenient, for the time being, it does not work with third-party applications as private bookmarks are unavailable and as of our testing, older Delicious accounts that have been merged with Yahoo! IDs do not work with this new authentication mechanism.

For the time being, then, it is recommended that you do not merge existing Delicious accounts with Yahoo! IDs. Pukka should continue to work in this manner.

For more information and to follow the progress on this issue, please see Pukka's support forums:

http://codesorcery.net/forums/mac-os-x-products/pukka/pukka-compatibilit...

I'll be sure to keep that post updated as either Yahoo!'s policies and systems or Pukka's capabilities change.

Just wanted to take a moment to congratulate Delicious on five years! Delicious was probably the first software many of us heard of that was using the idea of tagging, and now it's everywhere. I started using Delicious myself just shy of four years ago, both with a personal account as well as a shared work account at my former employer. That's where the idea for Pukka was born, after I (and several coworkers at our Mac-only company) got tired of switching accounts on the web all the time.

While many alternative services, most notably Ma.gnolia (which also works with Pukka) have also popped up and innovated in new and different ways, Delicious remains the grandaddy of them all.

Here's to five more years!

I'm happy to report that a rather longstanding issue with posting in Pukka has been resolved -- on the del.icio.us side of things. That is to say, the version of Pukka that you are using right now will now work properly with no action required on your part.

I had been getting some reports from users of periods of inability to post for a few months now, but only very occasionally. Users would get a message like this when trying to post:

This would happen many times in a row in a short period, but then eventually go away after a few minutes. It turns out that the resolution may have been due to users finally getting a different del.icio.us backend server, one without the problem, but without knowing otherwise on the frontend of things.

Unfortunately, the condition that was producing the posting problem was indistinguishable at a network level from being offline when trying to post (which would obviously fail). So it was difficult to determine if this was a sporadic networking problem on the user side or something deeper. However, in the last week or so, the frequency of folks seeing this problem went up, so I began to hand out some debugging builds of Pukka that could supply me with more information about what exactly was happening.

Once I had this info, I posted to the del.icio.us developer Yahoo! group about the problem and within a day or two, they were able to track it down to a problem in their system.

So in review, I'm happy that this is resolved, but by all means, please do let me know if you continue to see it, especially if you are using Ma.gnolia or another non-del.icio.us service as I have never had a report of a problem under those conditions.

I'd also like to extend an apology to users of Pukka who have been dealing with this for a couple months. As I've mentioned before, it can be difficult when core functionality of your application relies on a third-party, network-based service, so it's important that if you are having a problem that seems to be related to the service to let the developer know so that they can get to the bottom of things as quickly as possible. More votes means more time with my eyes on the problem and hopefully a speedy resolution!

I said in my last post that I was behind and it shows in the number of things that I have to talk about regarding Pukka!

First up, my patch to the open source Vienna newsreader has made it into the stable version, which you can read about here. This helps with getting highlighted text out of Vienna and easily into your Pukka post.

Next, Seth Dillingham has reported on this blog that he has exceeded his fundraising goal for the Pan-Mass Challenge. I was able to donate some copies of Pukka to his effort and I'm glad to see that he reached (and exceeded) his goal!

Third, a few notes about social bookmarking in general and del.icio.us in particular. I have been testing out the preview of the next version of del.icio.us and will be keeping up on any changes that come about as a result of that. I also noticed a great video, which then ended up on the del.icio.us blog, about how to explain social bookmarking to people who are unfamiliar with it -- so check it out if you just don't get why you'd use Pukka.

Next, thanks to a post by Workshop friend Red Sweater Software, I was alerted to an app that recently added integration with Pukka. As of version 1.2.1, EagleFiler can capture post information from Pukka for better archival if you so choose. Neat!

I've also been keeping tabs on Apple's Leopard OS and to my knowledge, Pukka is doing fine on the latest build -- but please report if you find differently! I'm very excited for the Big Cat to arrive and very much looking forward to using some of its features full time next month!

And lastly, on a general business note, I wanted to report that I've been investigating how to better make Code Sorcery Workshop more green and sustainable and a better environmental citizen. I ran across a post by friend-of-the-Workshop Daniel Morrison about his efforts. Like his business, I too have minimal office needs. I also am able to take advantage of working remotely as well as DC's excellent public transportation in order to round out nearly a year now of essentially no driving for work. However, I do fly to conferences (though not many!), so that can always be reduced. I was also happy to learn last month that my webhost of eight years, pair Networks, has gone carbon neutral and is making other efforts to remain sustainable. This is a good trend! You can read more about pair's efforts here.

Whew! I think that's all for now. As I said, vacation is over and I'm back to working hard after playing hard. On a personal note, if you'd like to check out pictures from my 3,500 mile trip across the American Southwest, you can find them here. Enjoy!