I spent most of Monday playing with different RSS readers. As mentioned here earlier, I was looking for a freeware tool suitable for absolute novices. In the end, the winner was a tool I used myself in years gone by.
Abilon has a lot going for it. It has the standard Outlook-style three-panel presentation, with the nice extra option of three vertical panels. Even better for me, it has a ‘newspaper’ view which presents all feed items on a single scrolling page – more familiar to web-literate novices. It has pop-up alerts in the bottom right corner of the screen. It has some nice advanced functionality, like a blogging tool and feed ‘filters’.
It’s only a few hundred K to download, and as PortableFreeware.com points out, it doesn’t actually need to be installed in the C:Program Files folder, nor does it store its settings in the user profile. So you can install it in its own folder, and then copy that folder from PC to PC. In other words, a customised installation. Perfect.
So where’s the catch? For no obvious reason, the product’s owners seem to have disappeared. Abilon.org is now a ‘free parking’ page. The original domain, activerefresh.com has disappeared completely. If Abilon has been abandoned by its creator, it’s a real shame. It’s by far the neatest RSS package I could find. You can still download it from PCWorld.com, but naturally, there’s a caveat.
Month: February 2006
Google Pages: why?
I managed to get access to the Google Pages website at the weekend, and wasted a few moments building a quick page or two. I’m not even going to quote the address to see my efforts; it’s just not worth it. Suffice to say, I’m bitterly disappointed: it doesn’t seem to be much more than PowerPoint-style authoring brought to the web.
Why is Google bothering with this, when it already owns a brilliant webpage creation tool in Blogger? Honestly, the more time goes on, the more I see blogging platforms as the solution to big organisations’ CMS headaches. There must be a hidden agenda, surely.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), I’ve just found references today to a ‘web 2.0’ site called Thumbstacks which – surprise surprise – puts PowerPoint-style presentations on the web. I really wonder why we’re pursuing this, when the guru of graphic presentation, Edward Tufte thinks PowerPoint is evil. Rather than emulating PowerPoint on the web, we should be looking to reinvent it.
Stable structures spell success
Dave Winer is right about Dion Hinchcliffe being right. The main reason why RSS is taking off is that it’s so simple. ‘For RSS to be successful for us, stability and dependability are essential features,’ Dion writes. I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say – as Dion does – that if we can maintain this stability, ‘having an RSS feed on everything gives us a world where just about anything is possible.’
Which is why I get terrified by things like the UK government’s attempt at a huge, use-is-mandatory subject taxonomy. The Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV) follows on from the Government Category List, which didn’t exactly take the world by storm. Release of a second version is due in April – yes, April 2006 – and there will be ‘regular updating’. In other words, the goalposts will be continuously moving. How people are meant to ‘tag’ their material appropriately with an ever-changing taxonomy is beyond me.
links for 2006-02-27
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Let Flickr redesign your desktop on an hourly basis.(tags: ephemeral.work)
Windows Vista brings pen computing to the masses
Delighted to see that Media Center and Tablet PC functionality will be part of the mainstream versions of Windows Vista, as opposed to separate editions (confirmed in a press release at the weekend). I used to have a Tablet PC whilst working at Microsoft, and I became quite enamoured of it. I have to say though, most people – even inside Microsoft – only used their Tablet as an ordinary laptop.
‘Tablet’ computing is definitely the way to go, especially if you’re in the creative business. I picked up a Trust wireless tablet (with mouse too) for just over £20 at Tesco’s a few weeks ago, and after a short period of adaptation, I love it to bits. The key was remembering that (ordinary) Windows XP includes an option to replace double clicks with a single click. Open up Windows Explorer, click on ‘Tools’ then ‘Folder options’ – and click on ‘Single-click to open an item’. It makes all the difference. (I also find it helpful to switch on underlining when I hover over a link.)
Once you’ve used a pen, you’ll wonder why we ever had the mouse in the first place.
links for 2006-02-24
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Mashups go mainstream: Nike uses Google Maps to create a runners’ route planner. OK, so it’s a shameless copy of gmap-pedometer.com – but you have to hand it to Nike’s RunLondon campaign. An exemplary PR campaign: and a great day out. I’ll be back in ’06.(tags: running ephemeral.work)
Anyone suggest a good RSS reader for total novices?
Does anyone have any experience with RSS reader software that:
- is freeware;
- is portable (ie. sits in its own directory only, for easy setup);
- is dead easy to use, for total novices;
- is OK with feeds published locally on an intranet; and
- doesn’t have the word ‘Blog’ in its name?
One of my current jobs is with a contact centre (telephone calls, email, letters). They’re having problems keeping track of developments in other parts of the same organisation, on other sites. When a new press release is issued by the press office, for example, they all need to know it’s there – and word doesn’t always get through. I’m seeing RSS feeds as a possible solution: quick and easy to implement, popup alerts on the desktop, etc etc.
But we’re talking about a user community who have zero experience with RSS as a technology. Giving them a full-strength three-panel tool (like Blog Navigator or RSS Bandit) will be too much for them. Web-based tools are out too, as we’ll be publishing a lot of the necessary feeds on their intranet only.
I’ll be trying a few candidates over the next few days. I like the look of Nutshell, which is a name I hadn’t come across before yesterday. Greatnews gets a very good write-up as a ‘portable app’. cRSSReader looks good, but the .NET thing could be a problem. Does anyone have any experience with these… or any better suggestions?
UPDATE: I plumped for Abilon in the end. Here’s why…
Driven to distraction
If anyone tells you that RSS is a cure for information overload, they’re lying. I spent all day yesterday at a client site, and didn’t get to clear out my daily Bloglines reading. Only 60-odd feeds… and yet when I log in this morning, I’m looking at 800 unread items. Hugh MacLeod, I’m looking at you here. Although Google didn’t help by doing this.
Incidentally, if you’re looking for UK driving directions on the web, there’s a clear winner. For the same journey from Newbury to Runcorn, MSN and Google gave me almost identical routes. MSN reckoned the 182 mile journey would take 2h 38, which basically requires you to go at 70mph the whole way. Google gave a more reasonable 3h 56.
The clear winner is – the AA. Its time estimate was the closest at 3h 37, and its results page was by far the most usable. Simple things like highlighting the road numbers in colour, and telling you where the service stations are, put it head-and-shoulders above the rest.
links for 2006-02-22
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A very interesting development: press releases beginning to adopt blogging technologies.(tags: ephemeral.work)
Press releases and blogs: the line blurs further
Steve Rubel has been talking about this for ages, and it looks like it’s coming together. He notes today that ‘Press releases became a bit more social yesterday as PRWeb added trackback functionality.’
What’s a trackback? Basically, it’s the flipside of a link. It tells you who is linking to a particular page, and in turn, lets you visit the linking page to see what’s being said about it. So in effect, trackbacks turn web pages into dialogue. (Meanwhile the inventors of the trackback, are trying to get it adopted as a web standard. This isn’t going away.)
At the moment, it’s a brave organisation which opens up its press releases like this. Imagine, letting anyone and everyone say whatever they want about your lovingly crafted press release – as a footnote on the same webpage? Not really – it’s just accepting the inevitable. The commenting will happen anyway. And you know what they say about urination and tents.