Comments on: On to Google Reader

By: Under the Water - Scott Johnston » Sharing with Google Reader

Under the Water - Scott Johnston » Sharing with Google Reader — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 05:59:56 +0000

[...] I’m still happily using Google Reader, after switching a couple months ago. Following the lead of Greg and Rus, here is my shared page and shared feed. I was also really easy to drop the “shared items” Reader widget into my blog sidebar, but if you are using an RSS reader to read this, you won’t notice. [...]

By: Rus

Rus — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 05:16:45 +0000

Unfortunately I have learned that somewhat painful lesson from my current industry all too well.

By: Scott Johnston

Scott Johnston — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 14:53:59 +0000

I am shocked that my blog didn’t get tossed out with the likes of Boing Boing (or even before).

SharpReader is so Web 1.0. As you know, Web 2.0 apps like Google Reader are just better because they use things like AJAX and “microformats.” Plus SharpReader only works on IE. What happens if you find yourself in Peru which has adopted Linux as a national standard? Then you would be in trouble. I think you have lost sight of the fact that it isn’t how _useful_ you find an application, it is how _cool_ others think you are when you use it.

By: Rus

Rus — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 06:56:20 +0000

Sh#rpReader 4EVAR!!!!

It supports exactly the way I want to read the internet (organize the content chronologically but then let me see the original web page). It supports authentication for my SuperSekret blogs like Corp, and it has a manual refresh mode so that I can keep the floodgates closed if I don’t want to be distracted.

The browser integration is seamless for me because I ues IE6, and SharpReader’s browser module is IE. It’s fast and I can click “Open in new window” any time I want.

The only thing I’ve never mastered is being able to consume a feed in which I somehow don’t read every item— if I see articles, I must read them or else I feel like I’m a failure at Web Browsing. To defeat this issue the software would have to lie to me about what articles are available.

But as a result, the only feeds in my reader are ones that have such a good batting average that I’m willing to read every single article. As soon as I start to dread or yawn at some of one feed’s articles, I kill the whole feed. No more Jalopnik, no more BoingBoing. And I have more free time now, that I can spend over-analyzing things. Is that so bad?

(And you can take it as flattery that I still read your blog. :)

By: Scott Johnston

Scott Johnston — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 05:03:23 +0000

Technology is totally responsible for all of my personal shortcomings. I would be out exercising right now if it weren’t for this damn laptop.

Reader actually does easy of browsing and tagging better than any reader I have seen so far. They key to it is the keyboard shortcuts. Important ones are “n” and “p” for next and previous news item, “v” for viewing the full post (opens a new window), and “t” to tag something. All of this can be done without moving your hands from the keyboard.

I always head back “Home” where they have the keyboard shortcuts documented to remind myself when I forget.

By: Dave G

Dave G — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 01:03:50 +0000

Oh, man, I think newsreaders have degraded my online reading comprehension. (Always blame technology for personal shortcomings.)

No particular worries about lack of features, only the general ease of browsing through things and saving things (esp. podcasts) for later. This whole marking-things-read-as-you-scroll is creepy, but I think I might like it.

I just wish there was a good way to handle secure feeds in online readers.

Anyways, looking forward to your thoughts on calendars.

By: Scott Johnston

Scott Johnston — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:53:48 +0000

I used Bloglines for a couple weeks and found it unworkable (see the 4th paragraph above). It also had a horrible look and feel which degraded the experience further. The nice thing is giving another feedreader a try is pretty simple. Because you can easily export your opml file from Bloglines and import it into Google Reader, making the jump only takes a couple clicks. Your feeds won’t be organized in the same way but that shouldn’t take long in Reader. Are there particular features you found key in Bloglines that you worry are not in Reader?

By: Dave G

Dave G — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:46:02 +0000

Did you ever try bloglines? I’m curious about Google Reader, but switching newsreaders is scary, even if bloglines annoyances have been increasing lately.