[stinkblog]

TubeSock for Mac 2.0.2 is here! This release fixes the disappearing preview bug (caused by last week’s Apple Security Update 2007-006). Also, the vocal minority who complained about our use of brushed metal will be pleased to learn that the fix involved moving to a “unified” interface look. Yessir, we’re Leopard-ready! Well, at least from a GUI perspective.

Also, support for recently-introduced “international” YouTube URLs (such as http://uk.youtube.com) has been added. This should solve the “too many redirects” error that some users have been seeing.

And finally, we haven’t finished figuring out the new DailyMotion system, but we’ve improved the error handling. If TubeSock runs into trouble, we now display a nice message explaining the situation.

Download your copy now!

It’s true — videos converted with TubeSock are working fine on the iPhone. The blind guess about format and bitrate we made back in January seems to have panned out! If you encounter any problems, let us know.

If you’re outside the US and using the international YouTube URLs, this new 2.0.2 alpha version of TubeSock for Mac fixes the URL issue.

It looks like TubeSock for Mac’s URL scanners don’t recognize the new international flavors of YouTube. We’re on it.

(TubeSock for Windows seems to like them just fine. So in the past two days, the Mac and Windows versions each dodge a bullet the other caught. Perhaps there’s finally one benefit to a non-shared codebase?)

We’ve received reports that the Safari 3 beta interferes with TubeSock previews (Mac only). This happens because TubeSock uses WebKit to display the preview Flash movie, and Safari 3 includes a new build of WebKit that apparently blows. We’ve tried a number of WebKit nightly builds without trouble, so we don’t know what went wrong with the build they stuck into Safari. We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, we recommend not using the Safari 3 beta.

Today we discovered that DailyMotion has changed their atom syndication file format. I’ve sent an email to DailyMotion’s CTO asking for more info. Previously, DailyMotion published direct download links to pre-converted files in their atom file. For TubeSock, it was painless to find and download pre-converted videos. (And by the way, DailyMotion gave us this info, and encouraged us to add support for them to TubeSock, which was super-nice. BFF!)

If this is a permanent change, and if DailyMotion is no longer our BFF, we’ll have to figure out how their new system works and make a new release for everyone. We’ll know in a couple of days. My apologies in advance for the trouble.

Yesterday we released a new build of TubeSock for Windows, 1.0.6, that fixes a crash caused by changes YouTube made two days ago. Please download the new installer here. In case you’re wondering, the Mac and Windows versions actually use different methods for downloading files; and the Mac version was unaffected (so far) by the change.

The littlest member of the Stinkbot team has just joined us: meet Marshall, born Thursday at 3:11 pm.

We just got him home, we’re trying to figure out a new routine, and I’m trying to get to all my back emails. My apologies in advance for anyone who’s sent an email recently — I will respond to all emails this weekend. Even sooner if we can get the new baby trained to reply to them, too.

TubeSock for Windows 1.0.2 has been released. Bug fixes included in TubeSock for Windows 1.0.2:

• Registrations that include an email address with a number in it fail.
• When saving as “Video for Windows Media Player” sometimes a conversion error would occur.

You can download it right here.

TubeSock for Mac 2.0.1 is now beta 3. There were reports of crashes upon registration with earlier versions. Thanks to everyone who sent in a crash log! Also, a few minor fixes were made, i.e. it now removes quote marks (”) in filenames.

Now that TubeSock supports three video services (YouTube, DailyMotion, and Porkolt) the test plan has gotten bigger. And it takes a lot longer to run. Hopefully we’ll get this release QA’d and released very soon, so it can appear in the auto-update system.