Customer log inService news archive, 2005
This page is an archive of summary service news items for the Web Feed Generator, it will not be updated. See our news releases page for recent media announcements.
Flat rate for unlimited feeds
Web Feed Generator service charges have been simplified to a single standard rate for active feeds. The base rate for the service remains at £0.70 GBP per day, which amounts to £21.00 GBP over 30 days, but now there is no price increment when the number of feed requests gets very high. The new fixed price means customers can promote their feeds as heavily as they wish without concern that demand might push them into a higher price band.
Posted: 2005-12-20
Two-way validation improvement
The Web Feed Generator service has been upgraded over the weekend to conform to recent changes to the RSS validator. The system now uses simple date elements for the Dublin Core created and issued fields, in place of the former "rich" metadata markup. We encourage customers to validate their Web feeds and let us know if they find any problems.
The Metacentric validation module has also been relaxed so that it tolerates a number of common errors with HTML name attributes, typically found in form inputs and images. This more lenient policy means that the Web Feed Generator works with more Web pages. It allows customers to deal with Web standards issues separately from the imperative to create a news feed.
Posted: 2005-11-28
Extended support for Flash
Metacentric has extended support for Web pages that embed Flash movies. The HTML embed element is not part of the standard recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), so the Metacentric validation module has special rules to handle Flash movie markup. The Flash validation rules have been extended to support the hspace, vspace and wmode attributes.
Posted: 2005-11-11
Web spider exclusion
Metacentric has issued a "forbidden" notice to a number of rogue search engine spiders that do not follow our standard robot exlusion policy. The new "robot filter" prevents bad spiders from making unwanted requests for customers' feeds, but allows access for subscribers and news feed search engines as normal.
Posted: 2005-10-23
Improved error correction
Metacentric has upgraded its error correction module to deal with four common Web page errors. The Web Feed Generator uses the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) HTML Tidy program to correct many common errors in customers' Web pages. The latest version corrects four markup errors that can occur when Javascript code is not properly enclosed in comment tags.
Posted: 2005-09-12
Enhanced error reports
The Web Feed Generator cleans up and corrects most minor problems in source Web pages, but cannot fix all HTML errors. To help customers understand and correct these problems, our service error reports now include more detailed descriptions and line number references. Most common errors are explained by specific help pages, which include guidance on how to correct the source HTML.
Posted: 2005-07-28
System upgrade complete
The new Metacentric Web server was brought into service at 11.10 AM British Summer Time. We are monitoring the service closely and the system is clearly running more efficiently and much faster.
Posted: 2005-07-21
System upgrade underway
Metacentric has acquired a new Web server to help keep our service level above 99%. We have been monitoring the performance of our Web server since the launch of the Metacentric service on 22 June, to keep on top of the high level of interest it has sparked. Overall, the system has been very reliable, but 0.9% of requests have resulted in server errors, which we plan to overcome. A new host server has been delivered and is currently being prepared for service.
When the new Web server is brought into service, we will need to shut down the Metacentric Web site for a short period. We will email customers directly when we have the exact change-over date.
Posted: 2005-07-13
Exceptional interest in new service
There has been exceptional interest in the Metacentric news feed service in its first week and we have been flattered by the good will and encouragement shown by our visitors and new customers. The very heavy demand we have experienced has brought to light performance problems with our Web server, which has caused intermittent errors for some Web pages and news feeds. To improve our service delivery, we have placed an order to upgrade our system hardware immediately and will report progress on this page.
Posted: 2005-06-28
Current news pages
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