Feed Reader Search Topic Wavelength
In my search to find a better solution to reading my subscribed feeds in a standalone desktop client, it seems other people are thinking about reading feeds as well.
Online, Offline or Both
Just this morning David at BloggingPro, wrote about his use of feed readers and offers his opinion and habits using online services such as Bloglines and offline clients like FeedDemon. My own experience using most online tools—not just feed readers—is that they are slow and changing settings is often takes two to three times as many steps vs. a standalone application.
Folder and the River
This afternoon, Robert Scoble noted that he prefers the folder to the river as a method for reading posts. This is the way I have been reading feeds this last few months. I had tried browser extensions and then switched to the feed reading support in Thunderbird but became frustrated with a lack of control of my feed appearance.
Cautious Conversion to FeedReader
My search led me to install FeedReader. I am a cautious convert. I had no trouble installing the application but I found that its default display was too small and the contrast was too low. Fortunately, if you know Cascading Style Sheets, changing the display is quite easy using the XSL file.
NewsGator Doesn’t Make it Easy
After a comment from NewsGator regarding my complaint that I was unable to download their reader for the 30-day trial, I successfully downloaded and installed it. Too bad after importing my OPML file from FeedReader, FeedDemon kept coming up with errors. Sorry NewsGator, two failures and you’ve lost me. Seemed like it would be a good application but who has the time to debug commercial software issues. (Jack Brewster: I don’t have an hour to uninstall and reinstall and go through the process of trying to make it work. Maybe I will revisit this soon.
Tags: BloggingPro, Bloglines, FeedDemon, feed readers, rss readers, Robert Scoble, FeedReader, NewsGator
2 comments July 14th, 2006