stuff

50 Gmail invites!

Google must be really happy because of great earnings news... 'cause they just gave me 50 invites to give away. Want one? Post something nice -anything- and I'll hook you up with one.

BlogMatrix Jager: Almost all I need

I had written this very detailed post of what I liked and disliked about BlogMatrix Jager, but my TypePad QuickPost page decided to ignore every word I typed and send them to wherever it is electrons go to pasture.

So I'll be quick this time around. And I'll remember to copy everything before pressing "SAVE."

I switched from Bloglines to NewsGator Online because I liked the NewsGator interface better. Then a couple of days ago I decided to try NewsGator Outlook Edition, since I use Outlook 2003 a lot and recently returned to it after trying Thunderbird. Ironically, using NewsGator Outlook Edition made me realize that what I really want is an unobtrusive RSS organizer that lets me read my posts in my default browser (Firefox). Which has led me away from NewsGator Online to try (for the second time) an RSS organizer called BlogMatrix Jager.

BlogMatrix is almost perfect, but still has some very annoying quirks:

1. I've found no way to list ONLY unread posts. I get a list of about five posts, new ones in blue, read ones in gray. I'd rather not see those I've read - unless I explicitely decide to.

2. Categories show a number in parenthesis next to them. You'd think this number indicates the number of new posts for each category, but no - it indicates how many blogs are inside the category. Kind of useless if you ask me.

3. You can collapse categories, but you can't collapse blogs. And blogs don't have the number in parenthesis indicating the number of new posts.

4. The language used in the menus is very non-standard. What does "Skip After Reading" mean, for example? Well I tried... it means that after opening a post inside a blog, the blog disappears from the list even if you still had unread items in the blog.

5. It's supposed to synchronize with your Bloglines account. So far all I get are "Caught exception" messages. Whatever that means.

On the good side:

1. Import OPML works very well. Unfortunately there's no easy way to export your feeds from NewsGator Online, so I had to use my old Bloglines account for that. What is it with vendors locking users into their software? Greg Reinacker from NewsGator has kindly stopped by and shown me how to generate an OMPL list. Read the comments for more info.

2. Clicking on a category title or blog title will open a nicely formatted webpage listing all posts within said category or blog. It will even split them into several pages if too long. It'd be nice to be able to select if you want everything in one page, or each blog on its own individual page. Right now you have to live with whichever way BlogMatrix decides to split your posts.

3. Filters, Watch lists, etc. If you take your time to set this up, Blogmatrix can be very powerful.

4. Price: The price seems right. You can either not pay - and put up with some annoying pop-ups throughout the day, or pay as much as you want - from $5 to $20.

Try it... you may like it.

Duplicate Posts in NewsGator Online

I wish NewsGator Online could identify duplicate posts across several feeds. That way I wouldn't have to sift through multiple copies of the same post on, for example, The Unofficial Microsoft Weblog, The Tablet PCs Weblog, and The Office Weblog.

NewsGator Online's "Latest Buzz" buzzed

Something's wrong with NewsGator's "Latest Buzz" feature. For the past couple of days it's only showing links from Lockergnome, all with the exact same number of incoming links.

Either the guys at Lockergnome figured out a way to game the system or something's wrong with NewsGator's code. The complaint is up on the forums already, so I'm sure they'll take care of it swiftly.

(UPDATE: And just like that, the "Latest Buzz" got fixed!)

Also, I wish there was a way to manually refresh my feeds. I have no idea what their schedule is but sometimes it feels as if my feeds are not as up-to-the-minute as they could be.

NewsGator on a roll!

Ok. While I was busy posting all that I though was still wrong with NewsGator Online, it seems they were busing rolling out an upgraded version addressing pretty much all of my original comments.

1. There now is a favicon for the page, which would make it easier to pick out the page when you have several open tabs in Firefox. But so far the favicon is not showing properly on the tab's title (it does show up on the address bar and the bookmark). I'll try a restart of Firefox to see if it helps. (UPDATE: This is now working properly. Not sure if this was something on my side or theirs. I restarted Firefox and the problem persisted, but now I looked and the favicon is right there on the tab! UPDATE #2: This seems to work on-and-off. I currently have no tab favicon.).

2. Folders no longer auto-close when you're done with a subfolder. Awesome!

3. Organizing feeds into folders is now piece-of-cake easy. Too bad I already went through organizing my feeds when I moved from Bloglines.

So I guess I better keep looking through the service and see what else is new... So far, I like what I see.

Thank you NewsGator for listening.

NewsGator Online update

NewsGator Online, the online RSS service I've been trying out lately, seems to be down at the moment. I've been using it exclusively for the past week, and have pretty much stopped using Bloglines, my previous free online RSS service. Basically NewsGator has a more pleasant UI and feels a bit quicker.

They also seem to be quite good at harvesting positive comments whenever they pop-up on blogs. The more constructive criticisms, however, seem to be ignored.(*) And they better get on to fixing the user experience sooner than later - it'd much easier for Bloglines to make their website more pleasant since they already have most of the features in place.

So, NewsGator, listen up:

1. Stability - get the service running 24/7.
2. Usability - enough of the auto-collapsing folders. If I'm looking at stuff inside a folder, don't close the whole folder just because I'm done with a sub-folder.
3. Integration - look at Bloglines' integration with Firefox and shamelessly copy it.

Also, the way I use NewsGator right now is this: If I see a post I find interesting I open it in another tab (Bloglines lets you select this automatically). I have the Super DragAndGo Firefox extension, so I simply drag-and-release the post title and it open in another tab. I then go to the tab and if it's something interesting I'll e-mail to my friends using the GMailIt bookmarklet on my Firefox toolbar. This way I have complete access to my address book and keep a copy of the article.

It'd be great if Google came up with a NewsGator/Bloglines competitor that integrated with my GMail account. I know I can use NewsGator/Bloglines to send posts to my friends, but it's just not the same.

(*) UPDATE: NewsGator does listen to our suggestions and criticisms. Since the service seems to be down at the moment (I can't get any of the feeds to display on the right), I went clicking around and found they did fix the problem with organizing feeds into folders. You can now do this very easily and intuitively. Well done NewsGator! They've also added a favicon, but although it displays nicely on the address bar and the bookmark, it's not showing on the tab like all the others do.

NewsGator Online v. Bloglines

I've been trying out NewsGator Online and comparing it to Bloglines.

First, the good:

1. It looks better...
2. It loads faster...
3. It seems to be updated more frequently...

than Bloglines.

The bad:

1. No favicon makes it hard to locate when using tabbed browsers.
2. Organizing subscriptions into folders is much easier using Bloglines (select subscriptions, click on Move to folder...). In NewsGator you must move each feed individually.
3. When reading a feed within a folder, marking all items as read will close the containing folder. To read the next feed inside the folder you must click on the folder to open it and select the feed. Awkward at best.
4. When clicked, posts open in the same window. They should open in a new window/tab so you can continue to check your subscriptions.
5. No Firefox integration. Bloglines' Firefox integration is as good as it gets.
6. Folders containing subscriptions/feeds will close when you click on any feed. Why can't folders stay open for easy access to their contents?

The I don't know yet whether it's good or bad:

1. When reading a feed you must either individually delete all posts or click on "Delete All Posts on This Page". Otherwise the posts will stay there. Bloglines will consider all posts as read once you close the feed, only displaying new posts when you return to the feed. Bloglines lets you display all posts within your login session, 12 hours ago, a day ago, etc... in case you wish to see something old.

In bloglines you can click on a post to make it "sticky" so it won't go away once you close the feed. I like this approach better because it requires the least amount of work from the user. You normally look at all new posts in a feed, open those that interest you in a new tab, once in a while keep a post you find interesting, and then move on to a new feed.

I suppose I could get used to clipping whatever interests me and deleting all posts before moving on to the next feed. But it's a lot of unnecessary user input if you ask me.

All in all, NewsGator Online has lots of potential. In speed and looks it wins easily. Now if they would just address some minor UI issues... it'd rock.

NewsGator Online, now free

NewsGator Online now offers a free version. I suppose this will compete head-to-head with Bloglines, which is what I currently use.

I'll give it a try and see how good it is.

UPDATE: I set up an account at NesGator Online, exported my subscriptions from Bloglines, imported them into NewsGator Online, and recreated my folder structure (this could have been easier/automatic - and NewsGator could use larger dropdown lists to show my folders - I have a 1280x1024 screen, so why show me only 4 folders and make me scroll-select everytime I want to assign a subscription to a particular folder?).

Anyway, it seems to be much faster/responsive than Bloglines and it's definitely much better looking. (However, first one could be due to a smaller server load or user-base & second one could be due to poor taste on my behalf... so YMMV).

Bloglines, however, wins on Firefox integration. I don't see any (except a bookmarklet) for NewsGator. At least not on the NewsGator page.

Taming Your E-Mail Inbox

Michael Hyatt has a wonderful post on his Working Smart blog about dealing with your e-mail.

Working Smart: Taming Your E-Mail Inbox, Tip #2

Taming Your E-Mail Inbox, Tip #2

Read Once, Then Decide