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RSSOwl 1.2 Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the if-rss-is-wrong-i-don't-wanna-be-right dept.

Benjamin Pasero over at RSSOwl.org wrote to tell us that they have released version 1.2 for their RSS/RDF/Atom newsfeed viewer. It looks like a lot of work has gone into this version. Some of the new features are; a fully customizable toolbar with new elements like 'History', new search scopes allow for more detailed searches, a new 'Linked Mode' to update selection in your favorites automatically, support for Atom 1.0 format, and quite a few others.

114 comments

  1. Honest question - please hear me out. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is an honest question and not an attempt to troll or bait. (Posted AC because I fear gettting moded to hell)

    What can an RSS/Atom reader do for me?

    I have no problem browsing my favorite sites once or twice a day, and enjoy doing so. What am I missing out on?

    1. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by trollable · · Score: 5, Informative

      I have no problem browsing my favorite sites once or twice a day, and enjoy doing so. What am I missing out on?

      Nothing if you have only two or three favorite sites. But if you have fifty of them? Basicaly a RSS reader lets you see all the new entries of the blogs and websites you track. And you can quickly go the articles of interest. Now if you're a pure slashdoter (someone with no post outside), then it is not for you.

      --
      Million Dollar Screenshot
    2. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by QuantumG · · Score: 1

      Imagine Google Home with more control over how fast you fetch feeds.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    3. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine Google Home with more control over how fast you fetch feeds.

      More control over how fast I fetch feeds? Fetch faster! Faster! No, not that fast! Yes, slowly now...

    4. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use it because it gives me the content of web sites without the crap.

      An entry in an RSS feed is basically: title, date, body (I don't even bother with sites that don't put content in the feed, I prefer not to visit web sites at all if I can help it).

      So you get all these (title, date, body) entries from all your favorite web sites, and you can read them all in the same format, in the same font, in the same layout, and (if you want and your newsreader allows) you can see them all in one list, sorted by date. I really like that last feature. For instance in NetNewsWire, you can group your feeds into folders. Click on the "topmost" folder, and you see all available articles in chronological order. Click on the "News" folder, and see articles from CNN, Yahoo, whatever, mixed together in chronological order. Drill down to the individual feed only when you want to.

      I know this sounds like marketing copy, but the RSS concept really helps you "take control" of what you read by supplying it in a well-defined format. Sites without good RSS feeds don't exist to me.

      Once you get into it, you can find other uses as well: for instance, many feeds include "enclosures" (newspeak for "attachment") which lets you get video, audio, or new versions of your favorite applications (this last one is being called "appcasting" and hasn't really taken off yet, I think it's an interesting idea though). You can set your reader to automatically download these attachments. RSS is also great for web comics by the way.

      In the old days I used to write scripts and cron entries to download stuff like that, but RSS is better.

      It's also great for automated monitoring. I've got about 50 servers I keep an eye on in one capacity or another, and I have a script that goes through the logs and generates an RSS feed of "interesting but not urgent" entries.

      My RSS reader is as useful a tool as my email program. Yeah, XML sucks, and no two feeds seem to be using the same version of RSS (and god, now we've got Atom which just confuses everything and offers nothing), but for casual reading, I couldn't live without it.

    5. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by shokk · · Score: 1

      Be honest. Are you looking at more than one or two sites per day? I don't think so. If you go to one of these favorite sites, and the page hasn't changed since the last time you visited, you've wasted time. How many times do you refresh each site to see if anything new has come in? If you've done so just once, you're still wasting time and an RSS reader can help you save time.

      Think about whose time you're using up... your employers', your family's, your own. That's one resource nobody can replenish, so make the best of it. In the end, the browsing philosophy becomes "if it's not in my reader, there's no news." You'll save so much time that you'll be able to add more sites to that "favorites" list you speak of and digest more of it. Generally, the RSS reader checks once an hour - at least that's the minimum time sites want you to wait between updates. The Internet really doesn't move so fast in an hour that you are going to miss out by waiting for the next update. Do something else with that dead time.

      --
      "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
    6. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by g0qi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have no problem browsing my favorite sites once or twice a day, and enjoy doing so. What am I missing out on?

      Most other replies missed one of the advantages most important to me- separation of the data and presentation layer.

      There's a great amount of inconsistency on how all these billion sites are designed- CNN, Slashdot, Digg, Washington Post, myriad blogs and so forth. As I jump from one site to the next, it's hard for me to adjust to how they think I should view the data. RSS provides me an easy way to do this. Check out RSS Bandit. They have a common stylesheet for every single RSS feed and you can consume all the data anyway you like it.

      Of course, add to that the billion things you can do with just having raw data- like searching, automatically sorting stories by what you consider is relevant and so forth. It takes me half the time to get through my every day digest of information through RSS, than when I used to use the browser. Try it out, you won't be dissapointed.

      --
      Yea. I know.
    7. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by Seumas · · Score: 1

      I like RSS readers. I've only been using them for awhile. It works really well for many sites. I don't have to hit up each site individually and I can get my listing of new books at O'Reilly's online service, JWZ's latest lazyweb postings, the latest gadget stuff from gizmodo and stuff from boingoing, the one or two blogs I actually read (one is about cooking for engineers), Slashdot and a bunch of other stuff. And it makes it all uniform and easily accessible and quick to read/skim/inform myself without going to each site one by one and going through their advertisements and menuing systems and all that crap.

      The only thing I'd really like to see at this point is a way to filter out certain people or topics or other grep-able elements. Even better - a way to deal with redundant feeds. So much content is inbred that I don't need to see it in my feed from Gizmodo, boingboing, engadget, slashdot, and three or four other sites. Just consolidate it or automagically keep one and get rid of the others.

      If I didn't use my RSS reader, there'd be a lot of information I'd just go without having. EVen if it's not very important information.

    8. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In addition to letting you conveniently keep up-to-date on your 50 favorite sites, an RSS reader enables you to even have 50 favorite sites in the first place. In other words, it allows you to distract yourself more easily.

    9. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by NanoGator · · Score: 1

      "What can an RSS/Atom reader do for me?"

      At work I have a 'sidebar' installed that has a lot of interesting little odds and ends. It cycles through today's comics, etc. One of the features is that it downloads RSS feeds and puts the headlines up and cycles through them. For what I do for my job, my computer often ends up busy for a few seconds at a time, so I just glance over to the right and have a peek at what's going on in the world. Kinda nice having the info I want show up without my having to seek it. Personally, I think that's a great use of RSS.

      Several years ago I wrote a sceensaver in Visual Basic that sort of did the same job. I gave it a list of websites to go to and it'd fire up the IE ActiveX control, load the page, make it full screen, and it would slowly scroll the length of the page. Then it'd move on to the next page, and so on. Fun little evening project. Kind of wish I had it now since I've got a computer sitting next to me that's idling most of the time.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    10. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by greggman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      First off, In answer to your question, a reader lets you check if your sites are updated instantly. Some of my co-workers have lists of 250 sites. Check them each day would be a PITA but an RSS reader lets them see at a glance which ones are updated. It also shows them the titles and possibly excerpts from each new entry making it easier to decide at a glance if you really want to go to that site to read the whole article or skip it.

      My question is, why do I need a desktop RSS reader? Bloglines.com works great, it's cross platform (because it's browser based) and it's up to date from no mater where I read it. In other words, site I write at work are marked as read when I get home. It's a serious question, what's the advantage to a desktop reader? Having never used one and being super happy with Bloglines.com I'd like to know if I'm missing something.

    11. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by jessu · · Score: 1

      RSS is like a Table of Contents of a long book. It allows you to see the important things without going in to deep. It gives you the freedom to just read what you want, and skip all the rest.

      It wont be a problem browsing one or two of your favourite sites daily. But imagine if you have around 100 of them. How will you keep track of each? Its here an RSS reader becomes so usefull.

      RSS readers are of two types : Desktop readers and Online rss readers. An online RSS reader (like FeedFeeds) is fast, simple and allows you to read your subscribed feeds from any where.

    12. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What, do you mean it can fetch pr0n?

    13. Re:Honest question - please hear me out. by Wiwi+Jumbo · · Score: 1

      I had trouble with it too.

      I tried various RSS readers but they all seemed like a pain. But what turned me around was this http://inforss.mozdev.org/ extention for Firefox.

      It's like a News Ticker in your browser. Something catches your eye? Mouse over it for a more detailed discription (when available) or just click on it for the page to be loaded in a new tab!

      I love it! It should come as part of the default installation!

      --
      Wiwi
      "I trust in my abilities,
      but I want more then they offer"
  2. Kudos by trollable · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great software. Pity it doesn't use Swing. But wait maybe it is the reason why it is great software.

    --
    Million Dollar Screenshot
    1. Re:Kudos by ahmetaa · · Score: 1

      Take this Bozo..
      http://www.blogbridge.com/

    2. Re:Kudos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah like swing is god's gift.

  3. RSSOwl... like something MozillaCo would make by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except... they didn't, and it's written in Java.

  4. Where am I ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Freshmeat ??

    1. Re:Where am I ? by ghoti · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nah, it's just a test of the new RSS import feature they built into the submission process ...

      --
      EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
    2. Re:Where am I ? by Famanoran · · Score: 1

      I thought exactly the same thing...

  5. It's.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's like Liferea in slo-mo :)

  6. Shades of Henry Spencer by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Those who do not understand USENET are doomed to reinvent it, poorly"

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    1. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um.

      Those who do not understand syndication are doomed to make asses of themselves in public. Apparently.

      good comeback, retard.

    2. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by Philip+K+Dickhead · · Score: 1

      Beta quality. Blows up with Java errors on simple use.

      --
      "Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
    3. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by ForumTroll · · Score: 1

      Such as? What errors are you getting? I've used RSSOwl for a long time and have never had any problems with it. Please explain the problems that you're having.

      --
      "A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing." - Alan Perlis
    4. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop using the Microsoft JVM retard....

      Or are you just trolling like you usually do?

    5. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by Philip+K+Dickhead · · Score: 1

      Just following links in Eschaton's feed - and a Java Error went 'modal" (Winders XP). Had to resort to Task Manager to kill both the Java dialog and the app. Javaw.exe was at 99% CPU, and holding.

      --
      "Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
    6. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by zaguar · · Score: 1

      "A witty quote proves nothing" - Voltaire

      --
      "Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
    7. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice comeback, dumbass

    8. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by puddpunk · · Score: 1

      Nice sarcasm, shitcock.

    9. Re:Shades of Henry Spencer by toofast · · Score: 1

      Applause.

  7. Archiving/Search/Filtering by Noksagt · · Score: 5, Informative

    I agree with your points, but would also add that an aggregator also gives you some things that a web browser doesn't.

    For one, you can save locally-cached copies of posts. Yes, a web browser also has a cache, but you can't typically have both easy and fine-grained control of the content you keep or throw away. Some sites that have feeds have mediocre connectivity (and feeds were originally promoted partly as a bandwidth saver--you don't download as much content at once). Some authors have a nasty habit of deleting the best content. By archiving it in an aggregator, you can save the best stuff.

    Aggregators also let you search over all relevant feeds and only those feeds. No more dealing with separate search engines, with their separate "advanced search" syntax (or, worse, very basic or non-existent searches).

    Finally, an aggregator lets you apply filters so that the best, most relevant content sees your eyes & bad/spammy content doesn't. I keep my feeds in Thunderbird, and treat some blogs as email--I apply Bayesian filters to particularly noise-filled feeds (such as comment feeds), and sort content topically. Some aggregators eliminate or group related posts that come from different feeds. Some let you push these posts (which have the most "buzz") to the top, so you don't miss it.

    1. Re:Archiving/Search/Filtering by Southpaw018 · · Score: 1

      Problem: RSSOwl doesn't support autoarchiving of feeds. That's like selling a car with a 1-gallon gas tank. Not only do you have to stop and constantly refill, it's frustrating to the point of exclusion. I'll stick with FeedReader despite is bugs.

      --
      ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
  8. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Pardon my French, but who the fuck cares? Why do I need to read about RSSOwl on Slashdot? I can understand reading about a new release of KDE or Gnome or the kernel or something, but a NEWS reader?

    Yawn.

    1. Re:Why? by Phwoar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, I mean, after all, this isn't a news site.

    2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Yeah, I mean, after all, this isn't a news site.

      This isn't freshmeat.net though. Slashdot used to really have some damn good articles coming out all the time, but these days it's very hit-or-miss. I'm lucky if I find 1 or 2 interesting articles to read a day.

    3. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, I would like you to repeat the same drivel when I post pictures of my last turd.

      Don't like it? Well fuck you, its news.

    4. Re:Why? by whoop · · Score: 1

      The point is, why is this program so special to get a headline? Freshmeat is full of millions of programs that have new versions every hour.

    5. Re:Why? by Zeph · · Score: 1

      Don't be ridiculous, the OP is quite right. I've got a few hours to kill, I'll go ahead and submit a story for each and every updated bit of open source software released in the last 24 hours. I'm sure the "editors" will be appreciative.

  9. O Rly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ya, Rly!

    1. Re:O Rly? by wobedraggled · · Score: 1

      No wai!

      --
      Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
    2. Re:O Rly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's exactly what I was going to say. Fark you.

    3. Re:O Rly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Buttsecks!

    4. Re:O Rly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ye rly!

  10. This or bloglines? by l0rd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've just recently discovered bloglines after using firefox & sage to keep up with my many RSS feeds.

    Can anyone enlighten me as to if (and if so why) one should be using this instead of bloglines? This is not bashing, I'm just interested into what people use and why.

    1. Re:This or bloglines? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't know what's best for linux... But on windows, the answer is FeedDemon, hands down!

    2. Re:This or bloglines? by Seumas · · Score: 1

      Well, I don't know what bloglines is, but it sounds like it's blog oriented. So... if you're not into blogs, then I would say bloglines might not be what you want?

      I have abbout 80 RSS feeds in my reader. Only two are blogs. Only one is a blog about or by an individual.

    3. Re:This or bloglines? by snafu109 · · Score: 1

      I tried a couple of readers, and settled on RSS Owl because it was OS independent, which a scant few readers are (to the best of my knowledge). The problem with this was when when dual-booting, I couldn't see which feeds I'd already checked and which I hadn't, as this was organised client-side. Also, when I was at uni and had some time to kill, I had to check sites the "old-fashioned" way. So I switched to Bloglines. It constantly monitors feeds, and this is important for those feeds that only show the last 10 updated items; on a high volume site (such as Slashdot) this isn't enough. I ended up missing news items this way, which is not optimal.

    4. Re:This or bloglines? by l0rd · · Score: 1

      Bloglines is a web based reader that works well in my opinion. The great advantage is that I can check my feeds from anywhere in the world with my smartphone.

  11. Why a whole seperate program? by jacoplane · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why do I need a seperate program to view this type of content? Doesn't it make more sense to implement such an implementation in a browser? Personally, I have been using Bloglines for a long time (and more recently netvibes). Google and Microsoft also seem to be going this way.

    Of course, as long as an application supports the importing and exporting of OPML it doesn't matter what you use, because switching is easy. However, I can't really justify running a whole seperate application that seems to do little other than launching Firefox anyway.

    1. Re:Why a whole seperate program? by okpgreg · · Score: 1

      There's obviously going to be a rift in rss reading that's similiar to email reading. Some people are going to love web-based mail, and some people are going to like the benefits of a seperate mail app. It's pretty much preference.

    2. Re:Why a whole seperate program? by jacoplane · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To answer my own question, I guess privacy issues could play a role here. If I am subscribing to controversial feeds, I might not want some big corporation to know about that. Still, I think I'd rather run some sort of server-based system on my own box than run this application. Does anyone know if such a system exists?

    3. Re:Why a whole seperate program? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because web based interfaces suck for almost everything that isn't incredibly simplistic. I hate having to wait for pages to load for every single little action you want to take, and yes I know about Ajax but it can only be used to a degree and can still be much slower than a client side alternative. Why not use a few MBs of space and have every action performed hundreds of times faster and have the entire client much richer. For example, even Gmail has loading times which I find unacceptable when I can use a client that is much faster, has more features and looks better.

      Using a web browser for everything is not necessary and is not practical unless you're doing nothing more than basic operations.

    4. Re:Why a whole seperate program? by jacoplane · · Score: 1

      Fine, usually I would agree with you, but in my experience it is usually necessary to launch firefox anyway since most feeds only include an excerpt. Which totally defeats the purpose of running the app.

    5. Re:Why a whole seperate program? by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      It doesn't apply to this program, but one reason to use an RSS reader would be to get a different interface. For example, I like ticker-style RSS readers, like KNewsTicker.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    6. Re:Why a whole seperate program? by pomo+monster · · Score: 1

      There's always Safari RSS, the best of both worlds. Firefox is poky and sort of ugly, anyway.

    7. Re:Why a whole seperate program? by jpkunst · · Score: 1
      Still, I think I'd rather run some sort of server-based system on my own box than run this application. Does anyone know if such a system exists?

      Yes: Feed on Feeds.

      JP

    8. Re:Why a whole seperate program? by jschrod · · Score: 1

      Try Urchin.

      --

      Joachim

      People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]

  12. Is it any faster by wormeyman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problems i've had with a lot of rss readers is that they're SLOW because they use an xml database (opml file) the reader i use uses sql-lite or someother sql database for it's storage and while that causes problems when you shutdown the process without exiting properly it makes for an extermely fast rss reader.

    1. Re:Is it any faster by jZnat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have you tried Liferea? My favourite feed aggregator and viewer of them all. Fast, lightweight, and sexy.

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    2. Re:Is it any faster by ForumTroll · · Score: 1

      I use RSSOwl and it seems very fast for my needs. It launches almost instantly and loads approximately 150 feeds within seconds. However, I'm running this on a fairly fast computer (3.0 GHz, 2GB of RAM etc.), so if you have a much slower computer the results may not be the same for you. My only gripe is that it uses SWT which IMO, for reasons I won't get into here, is just an unnecessary hack with a multitude of problems. If I found a similar feature rich client that was using Swing I would switch in a heart beat. I've been thinking about porting RSSOwl to Swing however I simply have not had the time to do so.

      --
      "A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing." - Alan Perlis
    3. Re:Is it any faster by Peganthyrus · · Score: 2

      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

      I installed Privoxy on my boyfriend's computer. And I interrupt his browsing now and then for (half-)naked cuddles.

      I'd say that some women are much greater than Firefox.

      --
      egypt urnash minimal art.
    4. Re:Is it any faster by jZnat · · Score: 1

      Oh but you obviously haven't tried out the "Woman Replacement" extension! It even services women who would otherwise never experiment with other women. For Firefox 1.5 only. :P

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    5. Re:Is it any faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fast and lightweight maybe, but Sexy?? That GUI looks like it was made twenty years ago. I've seen programmers who are twelve years old make more impressive GUIs than that.

    6. Re:Is it any faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hold it right there. You're a man!

    7. Re:Is it any faster by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 1

      Somehow I think your theory is still safe from "Mrs." Garrison...

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
    8. Re:Is it any faster by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1
      How many hundreds of thousands of sites do you follow that searching an XML file is observably faster than SQLite?

      Basically, for the relatively very small amount of data that an aggregator would be processing, any human-visible differences are due to algorithm choice or GUI design, and not the backend.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    9. Re:Is it any faster by teprrr · · Score: 1

      Well, at least Akregator uses Metakit as a storage in KDE 3.5 which is much faster than XML storage it used to use...

  13. What would you use it for ? by Pop69 · · Score: 1

    In all honesty with Mozilla Thunderbird having RSS and Mozilla Firefox having live bookmarks, why would I want a seperate programme on my machine just to deal with RSS feeds when I already have two capable programmes to do it ?

  14. I agree. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just don't see the usefulness of RSS/etc unless you are following 50+ websites that update frequently. I have about 20 websites at most that I frequent daily, and many of them are updated only once a day, so RSS really doesn't offer me anything. For some people it might be useful, or maybe they just prefer having access to everything from one application, but it just doesn't make sense for me. I think new technologies like RSS, and especially AJAX, are recieving more hype than they deserve. They aren't really revolutionary in any way; they just make things easier.

    1. Re:I agree. by IpalindromeI · · Score: 1

      They aren't really revolutionary in any way; they just make things easier.

      That is exactly the reason, right there. People like it when things are easier.

      --

      --
      Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
  15. Thank Goodness! by Dr.+Photo · · Score: 4, Funny

    With RSSOwl, I can watch for software releases on Freshmeat, so no one will ever, ever again need to post software release announcements to Slashdot!

    Thanks, RSSOwl!

  16. Cyclical trends by threedognit3 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    In 1970 I use to get 180 column print outs the thickest was about an eighth of an inch. By 1975 I was getting several that were about half inch thick. In 1980 they averaged inch and a half and had grown from four reports to twenty. In 1985 I was getting print outs that average two inches in thickness and the count was up to approximately 30. By 1995 I was getting about 30 daily reports that I would say averaged 2 3/4 inches in thickness. I used about five of them for information. No matter what I did I kept getting those reports. I stored all these reports in an unused room over time. In 2000 we went to desktops and multiple spreadsheets.

    In 2003 I got a 'dashboard' that was one screen in size. Within a year it had grown to ten pages.

    In 2005 we got RSS and now Atom. I went from 5 websites to numerous.

    In all these situations I got lost in the information. after about ten minutes of study I became hopelessly lost and forgot what it was I was trying to understand. A lot of the time the data contradicted itself. In 1999 they removed 1.5 tons of scrap computer print out reports from that storage room (I only used it). At least that's what the guy said who took it.

    We call this cyclical trends. In all these years the only thing I've gotten from this is conflicting, confusing and useless information. I got the best information from talking to people.

    I really enjoy the simple life.

    1. Re:Cyclical trends by ICA · · Score: 1

      You say all of this as you sit writing a comment on Slashdot. Unplug dude, there is a real world out there. It is your decision to get lost in the information.

    2. Re:Cyclical trends by threedognit3 · · Score: 1

      Oh s**taaat...

      The 'real world'.....MTV'ers. There is no real world...it's only data input processed by neurons...Conscientious Conscience is only a theory. Getting unplugged is like becoming unconscience. Yeah dude...factsimiles included.

      memory dump...core data memory

      not found ** disk AA06 is corrupted ** dismount -- VM dismount...file unknown FF4 memory default sequence Core fault-- EE9908E4 > code 44X3CX
  17. Is there any advantage over a web service? by peeping_Thomist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've been using Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/ for about a year, and find it does a great job of aggregating rss, xml, atom and other kinds of feeds. I can move from machine to machine without a problem.

    Would there be any advantage in switching to something like rssowl or liferea?

    --
    Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
  18. Understand the motivation, not the implementation by burnttoy · · Score: 1

    I personally produced a RSS->HTML feed. Instead of implementing the solution as an application I wrote a PHP script using the XML parser to convert RSS feeds to HTML. Customisation of the output is often as simple as a CSS file, more "complex" arrangements can be made by modifying the PHP code.

    There really isn't very much more to it than that, the page auto-updates every 30minutes. The only feature missing are the user configurable persistent storage of your favourite rss lists, but for the environment it was needed this was no major problem.

    Maybe I'm wrong. It's just that I didn't see the point in creating a seperate app + GUI when all the portability I needed was already present on the host machines. I doubt there are many places where there is access to RSS but not to an HTML browser.

    For an example go to... http://www.burnttoys.co.uk/rss.html and cut n' paste this into the box.

    http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot
    http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition /front_page/rss.xml
    http://www.juno.co.uk/all/feeds/rss
    http://www.spacedaily.com/spacedaily.xml
    http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer.rss

    then hit "feed". Yes, it's not very pretty and the one major disadvantage is being able to get a user click on an RSS feed to auto open in the webpage. This I have never discovered how to do and this sort of feature could be considered a security flaw IMNSHO. I wanted to implement user storage with the ability to maintain a global list of all RSS feeds, typed and rated.

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    Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
  19. Why is this on slashdot? by 55555+Manbabies! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    RSS is nice, but this software product is not really anything special or unique.

  20. Interesting icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone else find the icon quite similar to another popular icon?

    1. Re:Interesting icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it is intentional.

    2. Re:Interesting icon... by Tthermin · · Score: 1

      No, this is not intentional. The theme and icon of the program are clearly to fit together with these popular programs. As a designer I must honestly say that I was impressed by mister Hicks' designs. But not as much so to shamelessly mimic his style. Nice icon though!

    3. Re:Interesting icon... by stevejobsjr · · Score: 1

      Yeah, except this one looks crappier.

  21. gmail + reader by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i really just wish google would integrate https://mail.google.com/ with http://reader.google.com/

    1. Re:gmail + reader by IpalindromeI · · Score: 2, Interesting

      RssFwd or R-Mail forwarding to your Gmail account. Done and done.

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      Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
  22. Looks ok, but on Windows try this by Daath · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It looks ok. If you're on windows, though, you should try RSS Bandit - An excellent open source .NET feed reader!

    --
    Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
    1. Re:Looks ok, but on Windows try this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .NET, need I say more? RSSOwl is far superior and works on multiple platforms flawlessly.

    2. Re:Looks ok, but on Windows try this by spasticus74 · · Score: 2, Funny

      who the hell would name their software "arse-bandit" ?!

      --
      "I'd like to think oysters transcend national barriers Adrian"
    3. Re:Looks ok, but on Windows try this by Daath · · Score: 1

      hahha good one, but is "Arse Owl" any better? :-D

      --
      Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
    4. Re:Looks ok, but on Windows try this by spasticus74 · · Score: 1

      :) well maybe. "Arse bandit" is a pretty common Australian slang for a homosexual man tho.

      --
      "I'd like to think oysters transcend national barriers Adrian"
  23. RSS-OWL - Web Ontologies? by viksit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, am I the *only* on on /. who even thought about the semantic web and the Web Ontology language (OWL) when this post was announced? I for one assumed this had something to do with RSS and OWL - in my opinion, a name with double entendre.. Vik

    --
    If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...oh, wait a minute - he already does.
  24. Owl != Web Ontology Language in this Case by Tetravus · · Score: 1

    Even though it's got Owl in the name, and works on XML based files... the project has nothing to do with Web Ontology Language or the semantic web. :-(

    It's just a Java based newsreader (although the site associated with the project does have really pretty design).

  25. One thing.... by Chickenofbristol55 · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    W00t

    I'm sorry, that was corny

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    public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
  26. OT: API for web based feed readers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where the hell is a *proper* API for web based RSS aggregators? A proper API being one that someone can use to make useful apps? Specifically, who has an API that let's me create an app that syncs with my web based news aggregator (think PDA - offline reader)?

    Bloglines API is garbage. If I have to mark all items as read/unread when retrieving items it is useless to me (Items should be marked read once they are actually read. Syncing does not mean I have read all the articles).

    This seems like the most fundamental application of the API. Why does no one have it? Please , please, correct me if I'm wrong.

    (Gregarius I'm holding out hope for you).

  27. Blox0r is the best! by G3ORG3 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I've been using Blox0r for months and indeed it is the best aggregator evah! http://www.bloxor.com/

    1. Re:Blox0r is the best! by hoyhoy · · Score: 1

      The only thing that RSSOwl has going for it over bloxor is the fact that you can drag and drop. A big downside is the fact that it is bound to a single machine (bloxor isn't) and single clicking on a feed doesn't open it (huh?).

  28. So... Why not a web-based RSS reader instead? by Pichu0102 · · Score: 1

    I mean, why download a program when there are readers that work well on the web such as Google Reader?

    1. Re:So... Why not a web-based RSS reader instead? by Raimondas · · Score: 1

      Google Reader is not that good: it does not show how many news items are in different newsfeeds, it does not follow the customary mail reader (Outlook :)) interface, where the threads (feeds) are in a column on the left hand side and the items themselves in the pane on the right. I am using SharpReader right now and like it a lot - it has very nice user interface.

      However, you are right, I hate being tied to a single machine, so web-based reader would be preferable. Any recommendations of web based readers that follow the e-mail client UI metaphor? MyYahoo and Google Reader don't work for me.

      Another problem with web readers is that they don't handle Intranet feeds. This is a deal breaker for me, since my most important blog feeds are on the Intranet.

  29. sage+firefox by thelost · · Score: 1

    I currently use sage for my feeds, as I don't see the necessity of using an extra program when I can do everything in firefox. Is there any substantial reason I would toss sage and use this?

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  30. While this is nice and all... by mizidymizark · · Score: 2, Interesting

    maybe this belongs in an Ask Slashdot thread about which RSS reader works best for me. I am sure that RSSOwl is a nice little program, but I would actually prefer a topic to discuss RSS readers in general, such as local client vs. web, feature set, reading web pages in the program versus in the browser, etc.

  31. Installation fails miserably by bataras · · Score: 1

    Downloaded, ran install. All looked happy. Run the app, instant dialog comes up saying something about can not run, refer to install.txt.

    Look at install.txt, bunch of jibberish in there about installing java and dlls being in the same directory.

    I'm running Windows XP.
    I have Java installed.
    I write Java code with Eclipse all the time.

    Uninstall. Try again people when they have it right.

  32. Re:Understand the motivation, not the implementati by heanol · · Score: 1

    XSLT seems to be appropiate to do what you're doing..

  33. RSS Feeders going to get bloated. by EddyPearson · · Score: 1

    RSS feeders are going to end up getting far to bloated. I use the one built into firefox, and the Personalized Google RSS aggregator and i find them very useful, but i have never felt the need to waste CPU with some full blown groupware-RSS-magikal-argagator, which in reality, takes a text file, and cuts it into smaller bit of text.

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  34. Re:Understand the motivation, not the implementati by burnttoy · · Score: 1

    I thought about that but the problem was that by the time I had got a book, found some source, done some reading I would have had the job done in PHP already!

    Funny old game this computer malarky.

    --
    Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
  35. Better newsfeed program by Kleevah · · Score: 1

    Ive been using RSS-NEWS as my main newsfeed program for a very long time now. It has however always been quite bugged, and since last update was last january i think its time to move on and get a new one.

    The only thing that kept me using RSS-News for so long is the EXELLENT layout. While these new readers keep insisting on the outlook-style with lotsa bloat toolbars and menues, RSS-News keep it very simple, feeds on the left, browser/viewing area on the right. Here is a Screenshot. Now here is my question, is there a better reader with the same layout as this? It doesnt matter if i have to tweak it a bit etc, but i just cant stand the outlook-style, and i want as much screen space for the actual news as possible...

    1. Re:Better newsfeed program by FinalCut · · Score: 1

      feedDemon has customizable layouts so you can have an outlook style layout or one just like you showed in the screenshot.

      feedDemon, however, costs $$ - it's not expensive but it isn't free. It also synchornizes with bloglines (I think) so you can have feedDemon installed at home and work and know that your info will be synchronized between the two.

      I tried feedDemon out during one of its earlier beta's and it was really nice. Very easy to use and peppy. However, I wasn't willing to spend any $$ for something like a feedreader.

      It's why I use Sage (a firefox plugin) that loads as a sidebar (feeds on the left) and uses the main browsing area on the right to show me the content of the feeds. So Sage+Firefox might be perfect for you.

  36. Re:Understand the motivation, not the implementati by heanol · · Score: 1

    True, but the time spent on learning to use XSLT is time well-spent imho. It's really useful for these sort of things

  37. Where Are The "Java Sucks!" Posts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, what's the deal? How come I haven't seen any Java-bashing this far into a Java thread on Slashdot? It's even a Swing app, folks-you should be foaming at the mouths by now!

  38. yay! by Safirul.Alredha · · Score: 1

    Cool. No more crashing.

  39. More Java bloatware by NightEyez · · Score: 0

    Yuck. I already have to deal with the Azereus bloat. Please stop coding clients in Java.

  40. Firefox has excellent tools for working with RSS by badevlad · · Score: 1

    I think, it is natural - to include RSS reading ability in browser instead of having additional software.

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