Al Nyveldt

 Google Reader Shared Links?

-   Nov 30, 2006 -   Web -   feed reading, google reader

I like the idea of Google Reader's Shared Links pages. I think they are a nice way to share interesting posts with friends. So tonight I added the link to my Shared Blog Links page on the navigation to my site. I do wonder how some of the more popular bloggers feel about it. I know that Scott Hanselman puts a disclaimer in at the end of each post in his feed that reads. © 2006 Scott Hanselman. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is likely pure evil and should be stopped. On the other hand, I also read Robert Scoble's blog and he uses Google Reader's Shared Links page to share with others. I think he has gotten some flack, but for the most part it seems very accepted. Anyway, I doubt my links will ever be loaded up like Robert's links and I will try to remember never to share links to Scott or anyone else who I think might be offended, but it is out there for now. One other interesting thought on the subject, I dislike the style of the shared link page from Google. There is a feed available (of my shared feeds) and I thought I could quickly whip up a page to consume that feed and display it in a manner I prefer, but I thought that might be taking it too far. Would it? I want to be clear that I'm not trying to take ownership or rights to the works in the shared links. If I embedded them into my site somehow it would likely seem like I was.

 I'm lovin' Google Reader

-   Oct 15, 2006 -   Web -   feed reading, google reader

For about the past week or so, I've been using Google Reader as my RSS feed reader. I had read that Google upgraded the product and decided to check it out. The good... I was able to import my OPML file to load my feeds from GreatNews. The hotkeys make reading my feeds easy. Since it is web based, it easily manages which feeds I've read from anyway. (No more duplicate feeds read at work and then ready on my main feed list at home.) It has a mobile version so I can read current feeds through my phone. Starred items make it easy for me to mark articles I want to go back and read later (or again.) Shared feeds allow me to mark things to share with others. I look forward to start marking stuff to share with friend and others here. The bad... It is not as fast as I'd like. The email links function forces me to use my gmail account. It obviously can't handle my internal feeds from work. It looks a bit bland. (Not a negative for me, but it is a compliant I've read elsewhere a few times.) So moving forward, I'll be using Google Reader for most of my feed reading. I'll continue to use GreatNews for my internal work feeds, but nothing more.

 GreatNews - My new RSS reader of choice

-   May 12, 2006 -   Software -   feed reading

I had been using NetVibes.com as my main reader for the past number of months. During that time, I found that I had been actually tracking less feeds, taking longer to do it, and spending more and more time going to blog web pages to see if there was any news on something. I don’t exactly know how I slid into this work pattern, but upon realizing it, I knew I needed to switch back to a more standard reader and fast. I had tried a bunch of readers before and never really found one that I was thrilled with. With that in mind, I decided I’d try a few again and see if there was anything new (and free) to look at. Luckily for me, I remembered a post from Ryan Farley on a similar vein from a few months back. I looked it up and found GreatNews. GreatNews seems to have a lot going for it. It started on a good note as I didn’t even need to run an installation program to try it out. I just downloaded a zip file, unzipped it, and ran the program. (There is an msi available, but if I don’t need to run an installation script, I won’t.) The UI is very clean and I liked the styles and view options that were available. I was quickly able to get my feeds loaded and I was reading away. In addition, unlike when Ryan wrote his mini-review, GreatNews now supports comment tracking. GreatNews is also actively developed with new builds available frequently. The latest build offers a “Work offline” option which might be of interest to the dial up crowd. So far, I’m fairly pleased.