Traditional PDFs are back! Sort of.

Hey! Look! All the missed traditional PDFs are coming through my feed already!

It depends what reader I'm using. In NetNewsWireLite, I can see the author; in NetVibes I can't. I think a while back the author was often wrong, mind you, but for now it seems ok.

Sometimes this site does a great job at hiding useful information! Thanks for the tip. On a similar note, are my RSS feeds still supposed to be messed up? Because they are. (I seem to be getting all the comments, but under a different podcast-name, and then when I follow the link it takes me to a blank lesson template page.)

AuntySue, We're happy you're happy. :) LostinAsia, This will be called to everyone's attention in the next Product Update on the Praxis Language blog (Monday).

Any update on the RSS feed problem. Mine are still messed up after reporting the problem on 23rd Nov.

The Product Update I was talking about is online. Feel free to go read it.

Uh... I can't see anything about RSS feeds in that posting. What I'm talking about, and I think what Phil's talking about, is how the RSS feeds no longer link properly to the site. For example, today is the "Dice Game" lesson. However, in my RSS feed in NetVibes, comments for the "Dice Game" instead appear under a lesson called "#1", which takes me to... http://chinesepod.com/lessons/1 ... and of course there's nothing there. Although I can apparently post comments to a non-existent lesson, and those comments appear in the All Conversations page under the name "#1"... I'm curious what name it'll show up under when it appears in NetVibes. (I'm getting the same problem through both NetVibes, whether in Firefox on a PC or in Safari on a Mac, and through NetNewsWireLite on a Mac.)

I couldn't see anything about RSS feeds on the Praxis blog either. However, in my RSS feedreader (Bloglines) the posts for the Dice Game lesson are appearing under: ""Thinking" in Chinese: 觉得 (juéde), 认为 (rènwéi) and 以为 (yǐwéi)" rather than under "#1" as seen by LostInAsia. Example below. "Thinking" in Chinese: 觉得 (juéde), 认为 (rènwéi) and 以为 (yǐwéi) by Juriaan My dictionaries (Oxford concise and New Age concise) use the character 色 in 色子 (shai3zi) dice. Are Chinese dice coloured?

Further to above, I do have lesson "#1" post in my Bloglines which links to a blank lesson template but the comment is actually under the intermediate lesson "Dorm Life" #1 by jennyzhu I giggled like a ticklish baby listening to the dialogue. And spammed all my friends with link to today's audio.

LostinAsia, That does indeed sound like a problem. We fixed the other RSS issues we heard about over the past few weeks. I will look into this specific issue for us. (Phil, I messaged you about this, but I guess you didn't see it...)

Thanks for pointing it out. I probably would have gone for months before noticing.

Phil and LostinAsia, I did a bunch of testing to get to the bottom of this. This is what I found: Our feeds work in iTunes. They also work in Google Reader. I signed up for Bloglines today just to test this issue, and they worked fine there too. I tested the ChinesePod public feed, my own private feed, and even LostInAsia's and Phil's feed. All worked fine. Please send me screenshots, browser and computer specs, and any other relevant details that might help us figure this out, because I can't replicate the issue here.

John, I am using a Fujitsu Lifebook notebook, Windows Vista Ultimate and Firefox 2.0.0.11. What is the best way to send you some screen shots? You mention iTunes feeds above. Just in case there is a misunderstanding, my lesson feeds are working fine with iTunes and Bloglines. The problem is with the "All Conversations" feed and the lesson comments that appear in this feed.

John, Sent you an email with screen shots

Thanks, Phil. Phil's screenshot made the problem clear. All this time I thought you guys were talking about lesson comments turning up in your own personal feeds rather than lesson content, but all this time you just meant the Comments Feed itself! Sorry for the misunderstanding... I am on it.

What Phil said... there's nothing wrong with the lessons. The problem is the comments feeds aren't working. For now, if I want to track comments, the only way seems to be clicking on every page, whereas before I could just scroll through NetVibes or NetNewsWireLite. Sorry about not making that clear before.

No problem. It would have been worse if you were reporting problems we couldn't replicate. We're on it.

(It looks like this thread has become totally hijacked by the RSS issues, but what the heck...) John, the RSS comments feeds are looking much better. Everything seems totally fine within NetVibes. Things are still a little odd in NetNewsWireLite--many of the posts on my watchlist are dated January 3rd, which seems unlikely since it's 6:45pm January 2nd Taiwan, and it's not yet January 3rd ANYWHERE. Not a big deal, but it may indicate a bug-to-be-one-day-addressed for those at ChinesePod. Thanks for taking care of this!

Since we've morphed into RSS discussions, I have a question. In my RSS reader, the feed for the Conversations does not tell me who the author of each comment is. The other feeds, such as the blogs, do tell me. Actually I like trying to guess who is saying something and then go check, but I'm still curious. Is it just my RSS setup, or do other people not see the authors in the Conversations feed too?

John, messages and comments crossing! I sent a reply a few minutes ago.