I started reading more blogs lately. Now my IE F)avorites menu is getting mangy (Version 6.0...and it still is such a primitive tool).
Roger is always bragging about his Ranchero NetNewsWire to syndicate blog feeds. Unfortunately it's MAC-only software.
Six months ago I tried out Amphetadesk, but I didn't like it. It's functional, but isn't very nice to look at and there wasn't much you could configure without hacking their PERL/HTML hybrid templates.
Today I dug around for alternatives.
NewsGator
Having "Gator" in the name immediately alarmed me, but I realized it was more like 'gator as in aggregator.
Sounds nice to have an outlook-style viewing environment. Amphetadesk is nothing but a local server that you browse to in IE.
However, it talks about "Free Trials", so I didn't even bother. No interest in CrippledWare.
New Version of AmphetaDesk
Practically the same thing I tried six months ago. No thanks.
SharpReader
Home page was almost as terse as ZOE, though not as aloof. Didn't work at when I first downloaded it, and almost didn't try to debug it. Checked and found that it requires the latest version (1.1) of the .NET framework. Then it worked.
Turns out SharpReader is teriffic. It works just like I want it to. A left pane of folders full of blog feeds, a top pane of blog items in the currently selected feed, and a lower window with the body of the blog.
Recommended.
Posted by Nils Blutig at November 8, 2003 11:45 AM | TrackBack