For whatever reason - go ask Feedburner Help (although I think that's actually an oxymoron - "Feedburner" and "Help") if you're looking for an answer - they simply have stuffed this great product. Why Google had to go and buy these guys out in the first place, I'm not sure either, but it has certainly created a ton of problems in the blogosphere.

Why are your feeds not showing up? I don't know. When will they show again? Again, I don't know. Why are other aggregators able to access your feeds using Feedburner urls? Still, I have no answers. All I know is that I'm tired of losing sleep over this pathetic situation and until Feedburner can get their act together I'm going to can using their links altogether.

This is deplorable and I apologise profusely to those who have invested so much time and heart-ache into trying to get their feeds on the Picks lists.

When I've had some time to think through the situation, I'll try and offer a few more suggestions. For the time being I'm off to throw a few hard-ones on the punching bag (I've renamed it "Feedburner").

While it has been a tumultuous month, the lessons learned will become valuable experiences for Blotanical's journey ahead. The learning curve has been exponential.

Needless to say, now we can move on and start working on some of your wonderful suggestions and ideas. Thanks all for your patience and I look forward to the continuing journey.

These two awards deserve the most accolades for they demonstrate the respect given by their Blotanical peers. Amongst nearly 1000 other blogs, Faire Garden (a relative new-comer on the garden blogging scene) stood-out amongst the blogging faithful as a blog of distinction. Whether it's the photos, writing, enigmatic style of owner, Frances - or a culmination of all three - Faire Garden is a worthy recipient of this inaugural title.

And, if Carol from May Dreams Gardens needed any introduction then you possibly haven't been around long enough. The creator of Garden Blogger's Bloom Day and the most sought after hoe specialist also took out the Best Blog Writing category.

Without taking anything away from Carol's win, it was a little devastating to see that Crafty Gardener missed out on the Blotanist of the Year, as I was sure that she would clearly take it. Crafty Gardener has been a stalwart of Blotanical since its inception and the fact that she is still miles ahead of anybody in points clearly illustrates her commitment and devotion to the site. Kudos Crafty and all the best for next year's awards.

As for the rest of the winners, place-getters and nominated finalists you can view them all here.

While this has been the first Blotanical Awards it is certainly not going to be the last and I'm still keen to hear your feedback about anything to do with the Blotanical Awards. BTW - it pays to suggest a category. Mr Subjunctive from Plant's are the Strangest People complained bitterly...lol :-)...that we introduced a Best Indoor Gardening Blog category which he she later went on and won - it pays to ask.

PS. I'm planning to get some banners out to the winners during the course of this week.

Blogger blogs
1. In your Blogger settings click the Site Feed tab.
2. Remove anything that is within the Post Feed Redirect URL field. It should now be completely EMPTY.
3. Click Save Settings.
4. Go to the SimpliePie Demo page and in the blue field type your URL and then click Read.
5. If successful, it should display your posts.
6. You will notice that where you typed your URL it has now changed to another URL. Copy this.
7. Now go to your Plot in Blotanical.
8. Click the myBlogs tab.
9. Click the Edit button under your blog details.
10. In the Blog Feed field paste the URL that you copied at Step 6.
11. Click Update.
12. Take two Panadol, wait for an hour and then write your next post. They should begin showing up again.

Non-Blogger blogs
1. Go to your blog and in your browser's menu bar click View > Page Source.
2. Towards the top of your page you should see a meta tag that looks like this - .
3. Copy the link within the href tag.
4. Go to the SimpliePie Demo page and in the blue field paste the link you copied in step 3 and then click Read.
5. If successful, it should display your posts.
6. You will notice that where you typed your URL it may have changed to another URL. Copy this or retain the link that you copied in Step 3.
7. Now go to your Plot in Blotanical.
8. Click the myBlogs tab.
9. Click the Edit button under your blog details.
10. In the Blog Feed field paste the URL that you copied at Step 6.
11. Click Update.
12. Take two Panadol, wait for an hour and then write your next post. They should begin showing up again.

Let me know if this still doesn't work for you.

For those who are still suffering with the Feedburner issue, can I offer my most sincerest apologies. The issue is in the hands of the Feedburner Team and we have been trialling solutions - to no avail - for the past week and a half. The issue is obviously fairly complex as even this team of gurus are unable to provide any satisfactory resolution.

So, it is time to take some control back and put some more options into your own hands. Here is a possible workaround that should fix those with Feedburner feeds.

Step 1
Login to Feedburner.com and go to the Edit Feed Details section.

Copy the url that you initially entered into the Original Feed field. In this example, mine would be - http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/index.xml.

Step 2
Then, enter it into the blue highlighted field at this address and push the Read button. If the link is successful then it should display your feed below all the links. If not, then you will just have to sit and wait until Feedburner can solve the problem.

Step 3
If it was successful then paste that Original Feed url into your Plot in the My Blogs section. You will need to click the Edit button and then paste the url into the Blog Feed field.

Click the Update button and your next post should start filtering in again.

If you have changed over to a Wordpress blog I will need to work with you individually to reconcile these as the archiving structure for Wordpress is a little different.

Have a great day.

No. The award goes to Feedburner, directed and produced by Google Inc., and starring every sadistic programmer this side of the Silicon Valley. I really should get some sleep!

In their wisdom, and lack of being accountable to anyone who may utilise any of their services (ie. you and me), they decided to change their feed urls to a new feed protocol. Are you ready for it? Instead of their feeds listing as http://feeds.feedburner.com/[Blog Title Goes Here] they are now being served via http://feedproxy.feedburner.com/[Blog Title Goes Here]. Did you notice the change? All that for nearly 2 weeks of frustration!!!!

One might have hoped that Google, in its ultimate aim to increase online users experience, might have shared that little snippet perhaps a week or two earlier.

Sorry...end of rant...for those who have feedburner feeds I hope you enjoy being public again.

There are x variables that could have caused the problem and I have been systematically calculating each one as to whether they were responsible. They are;

1. Feedburner - While this is a state of the art application, and still the preferred option for cleaning and publishing feeds, the publishers decided that it would now block aggregators from accessing their feeds. Why? I'm not sure but in their wisdom they have decided that this is a good thing.

   Therefore, aggregators such as our Picks list, have had to adjust our code to "pretend" that we are a browser picking up the feed rather than an aggregator. Needless to say, it's been a fairly worthless exercise on Google's behalf, and one that's caused a fair amount of angst amongst the online community.

2. My own code - this is always a possibility as I'm only human and as we all know human's make mistakes. However, in this case the problems occurred without any intervention on my behalf. The code has remained unchanged for the past few months and even though some have thought that it may be related to the Blotanical Awards I can assure you their code sets have nothing to do with each other. It was mere coincidence.


3. cURL and SimplePie - for many blotanists you can just switch off now or scoot down the page for solutions. But for those who are interested, the code we use to pick up your feeds utilises the SimplePie and cURL libraries. While I did initially assume that they were at fault, after much testing and discussion with their 'gurus' they have to be ruled out as possibilities.


4. My hosting service - the final option in this mess is my hosting service. After all the testing that went on it seems that the problem may actually fall in their laps. As they haven't gotten back to me with a response within the last 24 hours (they're usually very good at sorting out problems) my confidence that this is the case is growing. My guess is that they have made some changes within their structures that block certain applications and Feedburner is one such application.

So, where to from here?

I see that some of you have had enough with Google products, abandoning Blogger and Feedburner and relying on Wordpress instead. While this may be a short term fix, it may produce other problems in the long term and doesn't insulate you completely from further issues. Having said that, if I were to start blogging now I would certainly opt for Wordpress over Google products. But then again I use Movable Type which I think is far superior but is still suffering from a few issues itself at the moment.

For those with Feedburner feeds and Blogger blogs, I have included an alternate url that picks up your default blogspot feed. In most cases this seems to be working well but some are still producing errors for which I cannot correct.

Those who have Feedburner feeds but don't have a Blogger blog, I suggest that you comment below or email me and I shall update you with an alternate feed as well - where possible - until this mess is sorted out.

I truly apologise to those who have been pulling their hair out because of these issues. I am fully committed to fixing these problems and hopefully we can get through this as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.

Entries close on the last day of September and they must be original works. I will inform you of the winners via the News and also produce a list of all the entries.

Have fun with it.

I have been trialling some work-arounds, discussing with 'experts' and frequenting many forums in order to get some assistance but at the moment, this is to no avail. Many others have been noticing similar problems with their sites that display multiple feeds and some have even discussed issues with their feeds and Google Reader.

The problem that is occurring now and is not too dissimilar to the one we experienced several months ago with Blogger feeds. Interestingly, both applications are owned by Google. Coincidence? The jury is still out on that one.

Needless to say, until I can get some answers and possible ways forward Feedburner feeds won't be showing up on Blotanical for a little while. I would like to think that this might be fixed within a day or two but I am reliant on people answering my questions before I can proceed.

So while this may be extremely frustrating, both for you and for myself, please be assured that I am spending every spare minute trying to source a solution.

PS. Please no more messages on the Help Desk about this. I shall keep you informed along the way.

Thanks all for the heads up and hopefully we will have it back on track within the next few hours.

PS. For those who are noticing that the site is taking longer to load - the problem is inter-related.

Anyway, the inaugural Blotanical Awards are up and running. For the next 3 weeks - until Sunday 21, September (Busselton Standard Time) - the nomination form will be available for you. You don't have to complete it all in one sitting. You can leave and return at your leisure provided you click the "CONFIRM MY SELECTIONS" button (located at the bottom of the form) after each update. You can even come back and change some of your selections during the nominations stage.

Once the nomination period has expired, the voting phase commences and will last for only 1 week concluding on Sunday 28, September (Busselton Standard Time).

RULES

1. Your own blog(s), and member aliases, will be missing from the lists. This is to force everyone to vote for someone else's blog or membership rather than their own. Some of the network blogs may be available for some of the contributing bloggers but if these are nominated by them they will be discounted before final voting commences.


2. Apart from the Best Blog Post category which will have 10 finalists, all the other award categories will offer 5 finalists. In the event of a tie for 5th place, the blog or member who has been listed on Blotanical the longest will be awarded the voting spot.


3. For those bloggers who have more than one membership only one (randomly selected by me) shall be counted. Therefore, if you don't want me to choose which one should stay then it may be in your best interests to just nominate with the one membership rather than your multiples.


4. In the event that the timer expires before the subsequent pages are removed from further nomination or voting, any selections made after the final time shall be void and therefore deducted.


5. Gardening Tips 'n Ideas does not show in any of the lists to ensure the fairness of the competition

For this year, and perhaps future years, no prizes will be granted to recipients of these awards. I shall consider this for future awards but for the time-being I'm keen to 'walk' before we start 'running'. Award recipients will receive a banner for their blog, and possibly for their Plot, which they may or may not choose to exhibit.

I wish you all the best and look forward to finally awarding our very first Blotanicals. If you have comments or questions about these awards please leave them here rather than at the Help desk. I will endeavour to respond as soon as is possible.

So, I've been thinking; one feature that could be offered here is a feed that picks up all Plurks or Twitters or both. It would read much like the Current 200 List in the picks section with the name of the Blotanist and their Plurk/Twitter. All it would take to set up - from a members point of view - is to add your Plurk/Twitter nickname to your profile.

Or, we could start our own micro-blogging service that was just available to Blotanist members.

Opinions? Thoughts? Do you Plurk or Twitter currently? Keen to know your ideas on this possible feature.

While there are still many tweaks and bugs to fix, the feature is working adequately to handle most of your needs in its present state. The Guru's have had quite a bit of time to explore and make suggestions and I've even allowed it to function for others without officially declaring it open - in other words, those that have found it have also had a look behind the curtain.

Like most features on Blotanical it will evolve predominantly from your feedback, suggestions and ongoing discussion so I'm keen to hear from you. You can be as candid as you like as I'm as keen as you to see this area of the site move forward and become a helpful addition.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with forums I will explain the ins and outs in a moment but first let me take the opportunity to list some of the key features of Blotanical's forums as opposed to others;

1. As your security is a high priority of ours we have closed off any commenting by Members who have not yet reached the Patron Blotanist level (500+ points). This should dissuade those who enjoy signing up to forums and then spamming or abusing other members. While it can't stop it, we can certainly make it hard for those who partake in these activities.

   Therefore, these boards should be a relatively safe place to frequent.

   PS. For those who haven't yet earned 500+ points then all I can suggest is to get out and mingle. It shouldn't take you too long to rack them up.
   



2. Our boards, apart from a few "House-Boards" are created by Guru Blotanists. Therefore, if you want a specific board created you have two options available to you - (1) become a Guru (10,000+ points) and create it yourself, or (2) you could ask a Guru to create one for you.
3. Boards can be hidden completely. If you find certain boards that just have no interest at all for you these can be hidden and retrieved later if desired.
4. Boards move up the ranking order in relation to the amount of activity that occurs within them. This ranking system is based on multiple people so one person can't 'game' the rankings and send their board to the top of the list.

These are the key features and there are more in the pipelines, so stick around and enjoy your time here.

How do Forums work?

Great question and I'm glad you asked. If you've never participated in online forums before they can seem a bit daunting but once you get the terminology right they seem to make sense and using them becomes a little less bewildering. So let's start with the glossary - we'll use this image as our example;

Board: A board is a collection of forums, threads and posts around a particular category. In this example the board's name is SEEDS and so it offers discussions about anything to do with seeds.

Forum: A forum is a topic that encapsulates a more specific discussion point than the board's title. In this case there are 3 forums; (a) Seed Swap, (b) Seed Saving and (c) When to Plant. You can click on any of the forum titles to view any threads that have been started within them.

Thread: A thread is a discussion that someone has started and others have contributed to. Basically it could be termed "the discussion" and then everyone talks about and the discussion becomes bigger. Most discussions have a finite life and end when they drop off the first page. But others may continue infinitely based on how lively the discussion is and whether it can be easily resolved or not.

Sometimes threads are questions where members are seeking out others for suggestions, advice or even identification. Threads can also be statements or opinions and these usually have longevity if they capture the imagination of members.

Post: A post is your response to a thread. If you want to participate within the discussion then you respond via a post. The post shows the person who made the response, when they made it and what the response was.

Navigating your way around the forums?

Board Buttons: The Sun button hides the current board while the Tree button is a quick method of adding a new forum to the board.

Last Post: This will depend where you are viewing this zone. If you are within the forum boards it will display the most recent post that has been published within that board, who wrote it and when it was written. Clicking on the click-able title will take you directly to that post.

If you view the last post from within the Threads page it will be more specific to the thread than for the board overall.

Backwards Direction:

As you move through the forums you will notice some click-able links and buttons towards the top of the page. These are to help you navigate back to the board you started with or even the forum and possibly even the thread (depending on where you are). Clicking these links takes you directly back to those positions.

The buttons underneath that zone are for starting a new thread or adding a new post to the discussion.

Conclusion

This is probably a good start for now and I shall post more as it evolves and adapts with the community.