Wizz RSS

So I was bored!

Over the last month or two I’ve been messing with a C# version of Wizz RSS News Reader. Yeah, yeah, label me a Firefox traitor. Maybe if more people developed open source stuff for Microsoft environments, it might open the eyes of the sightless

Actually, while I’ve been messing with the code, I have noticed an encouraging trend: There seem to be less people, able of slapping together a few lines of code in Visual Studio (Affectionately known as “The ugly turd”), who feel they should put a price on their efforts.

Anyway, I’ve kinda slapped together a very rough beta. It still needs loads of work and lots of bits ‘n pieces aren’t working yet, but I was hoping to get some feedback on what has been done so far. So, for what it’s worth, here it is: -

C# Version of Wizz RSS

Oh! You can ignore all of the legal sounding crap in the installer. That’s just typical Microsoft “We’ll sue your pants off” junk, which is the default wording used in a Setup and Deployment project. I’ll change the wording to something more sensible in the future.

Requirements for installation:

1) The C# version of Wizz RSS ties into msfeeds.dll (It really pisses me off that within a managed environment like Dot Net, Microsoft still forces us to tie into friggin’ COM crap!) which ships with IE 7. So you’ll need to have IE 7 installed.

2) Being a C# application, it obviously also need the Dot Net framework. It should work on Dot Net 2.0 and greater.

After installation you should end up with an icon on your desktop that looks like this: -

And here are a few screenshots (Click ‘em to view full size image) of what you can expect when it’s running (If it runs): -

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I have fixed quite a few bugs that were reported in 3.0.0.0 for both Wizz RSS and Wizz RSS Lite.

Preview of Wizz RSS 3.0.0.1 is available here - Wizz RSS 3.0.0.1

Preview of Wizz RSS Lite 3.0.0.1 is available here - Wizz RSS Lite 3.0.0.1

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This is very important, so please take careful note: If you have been using Wizz RSS News Reader with Firefox 2 and plan to migrate to Firefox 3, please ensure that you do an OPML export of your feeds BEFORE upgrading. Because of changes in the way Firefox 3 stores its bookmarks, you might lose your feeds. Doing an OPML export before upgrading is insurance against losing your feeds. If you do lose your feeds, import the OPML you exported, and all should be back to normal.

The notice shown above is displayed on the Wizz RSS home page. If you failed to read the notice, or upgraded before reading the notice, or don’t know what OPML stands for, or whatever, maybe the following will help: -

1) Click Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks…
2) Under All Bookmarks you should see a folder called Wizz RSS
3) Expand the Bookmarks Menu tree node
4) Under Bookmarks Menu you should find another folder called Wizz RSS
5) Drag and drop all of your feeds from the Wizz RSS folder under Bookmarks Menu to the Wizz RSS folder under All Bookmarks
6) If you have the Wizz RSS sidebar open, you should see your feeds poping into the Category/Feed tree as you drag and drop them.
7) That’s it!

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Here is a very basic introduction to Wizz RSS News Reader made by techbites. The video is about a year old, but I think it’s still quite informative for first time users.

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Over the years, there have been many times that I’ve been asked to compare Sage and Wizz. I’ve never really used Sage, so I’ve never been in the position to make a fair comparison. Of course there is also the question of my subjectivity. Since getting involved with the Sage-Too project, I now feel that I’m more able to offer a balanced and objective comparison. Sage-Too has already outstripped the functionality of Sage 1.3.10, so my comparison will be between Sage-Too 1.0.0 and Wizz RSS 3.0.0.

I think that more-or-less answers all of the important questions. If I’ve left out anything of importance, please let me know so that I can add it.

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I have just uploaded Wizz RSS 3.0.0.0 to AMO. 3.0.0.0 is the release version for Firefox 3 and can be obtained here - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/424

I have also uploaded Wizz RSS Lite 3.0.0.0 to AMO. Unfortunately Wizz RSS Lite doesn’t enjoy trusted status, in the same way that Wizz RSS does, so Wizz RSS Lite 3.0.0.0 is in the sandbox. Who knows how long it’ll take to get reviewed and given public status? You can get Wizz RSS Lite here (It may not be version 3.0.0.0 yet) - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6759

In both Wizz RSS and Wizz RSS Lite, the only changes that have been made are listed below: -

1. Bumped maxVersion to 3.0.*
2. The toolbar buttons will no longer be displayed on popup windows.
3. I’ve added a favicon to the feed preview page.

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I just been in touch with The Planet to find out why wizzrss.com (And all the other domains that I run on 66.98.210.43) is down.

I received the following explanation from the support staff: -

This evening at 4:55 pm CDT in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no customer servers were damaged or lost.

This is a significant outage, impacting approximately 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers. All members of our support team are in, and all vendors who supply us with data center equipment are on site. Our initial assessment, although early, points to being able to have some service restored by mid-afternoon on Sunday. Rest assured we are working around the clock.

So please be patient. As soon as they get things sorted out, I’m sure that the server will be back online.

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