Slashdot Mirror

• Feedreader (collapsed) - these two feeds came with Feedreader, and I just didn't delete them.
• • Feedreader Developer Blog
  • Feedreader news and announcements
• Games
• • Deus Ex Projects - two projects for my favorite game of all time that both move one inch toward completion every 6 months.
  • • Deus Ex HTDP - high-definition texture pack. Text feed, news and announcements.
    • Project 2027 - new levels and story for Deus Ex. Text feed, news and announcements.
  • The Escapist: Zero Punctuation - if you're not watching these game reviews, you should be. Feed is links to the weekly ZP posts.
  • Valve Steam news and updates - Steam is Valve's content delivery system. This feed includes game updates and general news. Text only.
• News/aggregator
• • CNN top stories - this feed can be annoying because it sometimes contains a story summary in the item, but more often it just contains a link to the story. I wish it had summaries more often.
  • Fark - Fark is a news aggregator site that, like /., combines user submission with a little editorial control (as opposed to the Digg method). This feed is of the mainpage stories and contains only the headlines and a link. Sophomoric and dark humor are mainstays.
  • MSNBC - this is the top stories feed, editorially selected. They also have a "most viewed" feed if you're into celeb news and dogs in funny poses.
  • MSNBC - Coundown - feed of Countdown with Keith Olbermann video clips, updated nightly, with the first two stories usually posted before the show is over. Feed is links to the clips.
  • Slashdot - log in, your feed is personalized to your mainpage prefs. /.'s own feed contains headlines and story summaries.
• Politics
• • Crooks and Liars - This is a blog that supports more liberal ideals than the party line. Feed is of front page stories and contains attachments of any items referenced in the stories (usually QT files, sometimes PDFs)
  • Daily Kos - The largest liberal log/community on the net, this one is much more toward party line. Text only.
  • Electoral-vote.com - election news and coverage with a map that updates the electoral college count by poll average. Contains the site's daily upd

I tried several RSS aggregators (RSS Bandit, SharpReader) and they were all slow and dificult to work with, but FeedReader is great.

There are a lot more applications that work from a USB key that don't advertise that fact. I will share with you what I currently use on my 1gb USB key and the locations you can download them. Most of these are freeware or relatively cheap shareware. Please help the authors continue their work if you use any of these and make a small donation at their sites if available.

Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
This one will run from your key, but it does write to the registry which portable apps should not do. Then again, they don't advertise this as a portable app. Once you use it on a machine and configure it, it will remember your settings on that machine of course. Handy if you are locked down at work from installing software but you need it occasionally.

Bulk Rename Utility - http://www.jimwillsher.co.uk/Site/Software/Softwar e_Intro.php
a utility which allows the rapid renaming of files and folders, based upon flexible selection criteria. Download the zip version for portability.

FeedReader - http://www.feedreader.com/
This project is currently dead, but it works from USB wonderfully.

FoxitReader - http://www.foxitsoftware.com/bbs/index.php
A PDF reader that works very quickly (kind of like Adobe used to about 6 years ago).

Miranda - http://www.miranda-im.org/
A powerful and flexible multiprotocol IM client with loads of plugins. Download the zip version for portability.

mIRC - http://www.mirc.com/
Everyones favorite IRC app. Has always been portable.

PortableFileZilla - http://portableapps.com/
Portable FileZilla is the popular FileZilla FTP client packaged as a portable app, so you can take your server list and settings with you.

PortableFirefox - http://portableapps.com/
Portable Firefox is the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser packaged as a portable app, so you can take your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords with you.

PortableNVU - http://portableapps.com/
Portable NVU is the easy-to-use NVU web editor packaged as a portable app, so you can edit your website on the go.

PortableOpenOffice - http://portableapps.com/
Portable OpenOffice.org is the popular OpenOffice.org office suite -- including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, drawing package and database -- packaged as a portable app

PortableSunbird - http://portableapps.com/
Portable Sunbird is the handy Mozilla Sunbird calendar and task manager packaged as a portable app, so you can take your calendar and to do list with you.

PortableThunderbird - http://portableapps.com/
Portable Thunderbird is the popular Mozilla Thunderbird email client packaged as a portable app, so you can take your email, address book and account settings with you.

Snippy - http://www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy/
Snippy is a small utility that captures an area of your screen to your clipboard to paste into other applications.

AleJenJes Countdown Timer - http://www.gonebowlin.com/freeware.html
It is a simple countdown timer where you enter the starting time in hours, minutes & seconds and it counts down to zero. Not needed often, but handy as can be for those few instances you do need one.

Unit Conversion Utility - http://www.jimwillsher.co.uk/Site/Software/UCU_Int ro.html
Unit Conversion U

The news reader I used to read /. news (RSS reader) is written in Delphi Pascal.

FeedReader (windows) does this.
Anyway, you can easily find this kind of PHP script.

FeedReader is my current favorite. Open souce and light, no .NET overhead.
I have tried RSSOwl Open source, cross-platform, so OSX also, but Java, so a little topheavy;
There's also Abilon, Pluck (both are Non-Open Source, but free).

I've yeat to find one with all the features I like, but Feedreader has been working for me quite well.

I started blogging to keep in touch with friends I made in college, it's easier than email, at least for me (you don't have to respond if you don't want to, I don't clog the inboxes of others, ect...)

I have about 30 or so blogs in my rss reader most of them are people I know.

SharpReader requires the .NET Framework. I would recommend FeedReader.