No, doing support isn’t punishment for some naughty bit of code I submitted. Everyone who joins Automattic is expected to complete three weeks of support before moving on to their new role.

The fact that Automattic expects this is one of the things that made me so interested in working with them. I love knowing I’m working alongside people who have all experienced what it’s like doing support.

I’ve written before about how developers should do tech support because it forces us to see our software through the eyes of our customers. Directly communicating with your end users is the single best way to find out what the problems in your software are and what you can do to simplify it.

I won’t claim, though, that my support stint has been easy. You’d think it’d be a breeze since I supported my own software for years, but this is the first time I’ve supported software I didn’t create and it has been truly humbling to feel like such a newb. Luckily, Automattic’s Happiness Engineers have been, well, happy to provide help when I’ve needed it (thanks, folks).

PS: Be sure to read Jason Munro’s excellent post about his initial experience at Automattic if you want to hear more about what it’s like to start here.

Monday will be my first day working at Automattic.

In the past I’ve worked on consumer software and enterprise software, but this will be my first time working on open source software. It’ll also be the first time I’ve joined a company without my existing software coming with me. FeedDemon is going away soon, and I no longer work on either Glassboard or Social Sites. I’m starting fresh with Automattic, which is a very welcome change.

When I talked with Matt Mullenweg about Automattic, he mentioned being proud of the company he helped build. At the time I didn’t know too much about the company, but the more I looked into Automattic the more I realized why it’s something to be proud of – and why I wanted to work there.

They treat their employees the same way I try to treat the end users of my software. As a developer, I’ve tried to provide a great experience to those who use my software. As a company, Automattic tries to provide a great experience to those who work there. People stick with you when you provide a great experience.

They also, of course, make great software. I’m looking forward to a chance at helping them continue to do that.

So here’s what I’m going to do: sometime before the demise of Google Reader, I’ll release a new version of FeedDemon which no longer syncs with Google Reader. This version will be free, won’t contain any ads, and will have all of the features of the Pro version. You can use it free of charge for as long as you like – but it will be the last version of FeedDemon.

It’s been impossible to respond to the many tweets asking me about open-sourcing FeedDemon, or making it sync with another service. So I’d like to address those questions here.

First, open-sourcing FeedDemon sounds nice, but I don’t see it working. I use a number of commercial third-party components which can’t be open-sourced, and some of them are older versions that I’ve modified quite a bit. Perhaps more importantly, FeedDemon was developed in Delphi 7, which is very out of date. Delphi geeks will recall that version was released before the product supported Unicode, so all the Unicode support you see in FeedDemon was added by me (using owner draw, custom string routines, etc.). Long story short: it would be easier to write a new RSS reader than it would be to upgrade FeedDemon’s code to the latest Delphi version (which would need to be done).

Second, switching to another sync service isn’t practical. It’s not as simple as just using a different set of endpoints for API calls, as some have suggested. No matter how close the new sync API is to Reader’s, there will be differences that require a lot of attention. Reliably syncing RSS feeds is a ton of work, and as I mentioned in my previous post, I already have a full-time job as an Android developer and just wouldn’t be able to devote extra time to switching sync platforms.

I don’t take the end of FeedDemon lightly – after all, it has occupied a huge chunk of my life since I created it back in 2003. But I haven’t been able to give it any attention for quite some time, and it has earned very little for the past few years. Really, it’s time for me to let it go.

PS: As expected, the end of both Google Reader and FeedDemon have brought a fresh round of articles saying “RSS is dead,” which is way off-base. Google Reader and FeedDemon represent the “old school” of RSS readers: they were designed for geeks and held little mass-market appeal as a result. There are plenty of popular “new school” feed readers with new approaches, and most of them don’t even call themselves RSS readers or even mention that they rely on RSS (which is a good thing, since most customers don’t care about the plumbing).

I've used FeedDemon every day since I created it back in 2003 – it's part of my daily workflow, the first thing I turn to after pouring myself a cup of coffee in the morning.

I've thoroughly enjoyed working on it and I'm grateful for all of the people who paid for it over the years despite free alternatives.

But it's time for FeedDemon to die.

If you're an avid FeedDemon user, you probably know that I've struggled to keep it updated. FeedDemon stopped "paying the bills" a while ago, so I took a full-time job elsewhere and haven't been able to give FeedDemon the attention it deserves.

Then today came the news that Google Reader is shutting down on July 1. FeedDemon relies on Google Reader for synchronization, and there's no decent alternative (and even if there were, it's doubtful I'd have time to integrate with it, at least not without trading time away from my family – which I won't do).

That was the nail in the coffin for me. I hate to say goodbye to FeedDemon after a decade of working on it, but it's time to say goodbye. When Google Reader shuts down on July 1, FeedDemon will also disappear.

If you're using FeedDemon without Google Reader synchronization, it will continue to work beyond July 1. You can keep using it to read your feeds for years to come. If you're synching FeedDemon with Google Reader, you can disable synching by selecting Tools > Options > Synchronization Options, then switching to the "Accounts" tab and removing your Google account.

I'm truly sad to see FeedDemon go – it's been so much fun working on it, using it, and engaging with other people that use it. For those of you that rely on FeedDemon, thank you for supporting it for so long, and my apologies for not being able to keep it going.

His insulting headline didn’t really bother me – I had done tech support for several years by then, so I was used to far worse. But I did use it as an excuse to ignore him, and I regret that. He went on to do great things, and had I reached out to him back then, perhaps I could’ve learned from him. Who knows, perhaps he could’ve learned a bit from me despite our differences over software piracy.

Now that I’m catching up on his life and his accomplishments, I’m saddened, disappointed, and just plain pissed at what we’ve lost.

Take a look at some of what’s new:

• HTML5 and CSS3 support
• CSS gradient generator
• Text shadow generator
• Use Google Chrome as the internal browser (!)
• XRAY (love this feature – here’s a screenshot)
• Secure FTP
• Image map editor
• Color contrast analyzer

…and a ton of other oft-requested, much-appreciated additions. Stop by the TopStyle download page to give it a try or buy the upgrade (it’s worth it).

Excellent work, Stefan – this is the TopStyle I never had time to create, and I’m thrilled to be using it.

Luckily, Glassboard isn’t one of them. Glassboard is now available in the Amazon App Store, and it looks great on the new Kindles. It takes advantage of the larger screen and hardware acceleration to provide a fast, fluid experience.

If you used an earlier version of Glassboard on your new tablet, chances are you were disappointed by how photos didn’t resize to fill the larger display. And if your eyes are like mine, you probably squinted to read anything. You may also have noticed that scrolling wasn’t as smooth as it should be.

The latest version changes all that. Photos are now big and bold, text is much more readable, and scrolling is buttery smooth.

If you’re one of the many folks who bought a Nexus 7 and are annoyed by how few apps take advantage of it, give the latest version of Glassboard a try. It’s a much better experience than before.

The answer is with a premium subscription, which is supported by new versions of the app that are now live in Google Play, the App Store and on the web.

For an overview of the goodies our premium version has to offer, head over to the Glassboard Blog. But I will give a shout-out to what has become my favorite premium feature: bookmarks.

At Sepia Labs, we use Glassboard to build Glassboard. Every feature, fix and improvement is discussed on Glassboard itself. Being able to bookmark messages and comments is a big help – bookmarks are my to-do list of things I need to act upon. I also bookmark photos I really like, as you can see in the screenshot below this post.

If you're a Glassboard customer and you want more out of it, I hope you'll sign up for Glassboard Premium. But even if you don't, be sure to get the latest version of the app because there are a lot of improvements for non-premium customers as well.

PS: We'll be adding some great new premium features over the next few months – there's much more to come!