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Sunday, February 15, 2015

Blog List Update

Long time, no post.

Hey all. While I don't really have much time for playing, developing, checking forums, etc. lately, I still really love to read Creatures blogs. It's a small but still satisfying way I can indulge myself in a hobby I don't have a lot of time for any more. So while you still shouldn't expect much from me for a while, I did go ahead and update the Blog List to make it a little easier for others to view and for me to keep updated.

This version of the list automates just about everything thanks to feeds-- all I have to do is maintain a spreadsheet with the names and feed urls for each blog while the scripts take care of the rest.

That said, I have noticed the scripts being a little quirky, so I'm not sure I've quite found the best solution yet.

Sometimes blogs and posts vanish from the feed. This happens when the feed goes to update itself and for one reason or another can't connect to those blog feeds at the moment. So far, I've only seen this happen occasionally with certain self-hosted blogs, so it may just be an issue on their end (the hosting servers might be slow or bogged down or something). Either way, it's very temporary and the next time the script goes to refresh the feed, assuming it connects just fine, the posts come right back.

The other issue is that sometimes the Blog List itself loads slowly, partially, or not at all (returns an error). So far, reloading the page once or twice seems to take care of the issue, but if any of you are having more persistent issues, please let me know. If nothing else I might just put up a backup html list in the meantime-- I do want this list to be something easily accessible to everyone.

Lastly, if you notice any blogs missing from the list, please leave a comment so I can add them. While redoing the list I did prune some blogs that have since been deactivated or removed, but there is a chance I accidentally removed something I shouldn't, so make sure all your favorites are there at least.

Thanks all. I look forward to all the nornish craziness that will cross my feed reader in the future, and I hope I have more time to add to it myself soon.