brotherS
Master of Good Ideas
Honorary Member
Posts: 2,105
To make a difference, be different.
 
|
 |
« on: March 27, 2006, 03:05:33 PM » |
|
 We believe that RSS should be usable by anyone. We also believe that RSS is not email, feeds should simply wash by, commonly called the "river of news". Alertbear takes both of these concepts and introduces The Stack:  I just installed it and it makes a great first impression already, since it's only version 1.03 yet I think it's going to get even better! Give it a try, you don't need to know anything about RSS feeds to get started after you installed it: http://www.alertbear.com/ |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Thank you.
|
|
|
|
m_s
|
|
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2006, 03:11:52 PM » |
|
I like their EULA also: Alertbear (c) Copyright Square Eight 2002-2006. All Rights Reserved. http://www.squareeight.com/http://www.alertbear.com/NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All software is supplied as is, without guarantee. The user assumes all responsibility for damages resulting from the use of this software, including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
jgpaiva
|
|
« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2006, 03:17:10 PM » |
|
and/or frogs falling from the sky. LOLOLOL |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gerome
|
|
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2006, 03:18:29 PM » |
|
Hi,
AlertBear ?
Oh... please no : it asked me to have .NET 1.1 installed... I don't want to install 80 Mb of runtimes for a simple Rss reader!
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Yours,
(¯`·._.FBSL Help file]
(¯`·._.Â
|
|
|
|
m_s
|
|
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2006, 03:21:10 PM » |
|
And I think it runs a bit heavy on its own - 35mb at the moment on my system. Nice looking - particularly like the feed history panel, which is neatly arranged and simple. But I haven't yet found a RSS reader that beats GreatNews...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
brotherS
Master of Good Ideas
Honorary Member
Posts: 2,105
To make a difference, be different.
|
|
« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2006, 03:50:37 PM » |
|
And I think it runs a bit heavy on its own - 35mb at the moment on my system.
Oh? Less than 5 MB here... Nice looking - particularly like the feed history panel, which is neatly arranged and simple. But I haven't yet found a RSS reader that beats GreatNews...
Well, I already quoted them above: "We also believe that RSS is not email" - so they are using a different approach. So far, I like it. Thanks for sharing their EULA with us!  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Thank you.
|
|
|
|
Gerome
|
|
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2006, 04:07:15 PM » |
|
Hey brotherS! Oh? Less than 5 MB here...
We were talking about the .NET framework required before executing this tool, not the sizeof the effective software. BTW, 80 Mb .net runtimes + 5 Mb software to read RSS : still too much for me, there are tiniest appz that do the same job even lighter ^^ |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Yours,
(¯`·._.FBSL Help file]
(¯`·._.Â
|
|
|
|
allen
|
|
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2006, 09:33:22 PM » |
|
Well, I already quoted them above: "We also believe that RSS is not email" - so they are using a different approach. So far, I like it.
While RSS certainly isn't e-mail, I've always preferred an email-esque approach to it -- particularly when dealing with lots and lots of feeds. Filtering is always nice, then. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
moerl
|
|
« Reply #8 on: March 28, 2006, 12:04:16 AM » |
|
And I think it runs a bit heavy on its own - 35mb at the moment on my system. Nice looking - particularly like the feed history panel, which is neatly arranged and simple. But I haven't yet found a RSS reader that beats GreatNews...
That's easy. FeedDemon  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
m_s
|
|
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2006, 03:58:54 AM » |
|
Is FeedDemon really that good? I've played with it quite a bit, but I wasn't sure at the end of all that whether it was any better than GreatNews (at many times the price!). Again, I thought it ran quite heavy, which I really don't need in a feed reader...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
brotherS
Master of Good Ideas
Honorary Member
Posts: 2,105
To make a difference, be different.
|
|
« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2006, 04:35:03 AM » |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Thank you.
|
|
|
|
moerl
|
|
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2006, 07:11:38 AM » |
|
Is FeedDemon really that good? I've played with it quite a bit, but I wasn't sure at the end of all that whether it was any better than GreatNews (at many times the price!). Again, I thought it ran quite heavy, which I really don't need in a feed reader...
I never noticed any heaviness on my end. It starts up fast, is responsive, shuts down fast... and I think it really is that good. It just has great features speaking for themselves.. Automatic Watches, Group Newspaper (by far the coolest feature), internal browser with automatic feed-detection, many different display styles for group newspaper, etc. It really makes reading RSS Feeds FAR more efficient. What may have taken you 30min before will take you less than 10min with FeedDemon There was a good discussion between brotherS and me yesterday in the IRC channel, where I explained to him the benefits of FeedDemon and he was all for AlertBear. I concluded that THE ULTIMATE NEWSREADER would be the combination and merging of AlertBear and FeedDemon. AlertBear could provide the River of News aspect by sitting in the tray and letting news flow by as the user sits on the computer, and FeedDemon would be the on-demand full-blown and excellent Feedreader, which would be used to read up on any news that were missed while you were not at the computer. That brings me to what I identified as AlertBear's main problem: if the idea behind it is to have a constantly updated river of news, what happens when you spend a whole day out? You miss all the news of the day! And even if you're thinking of being able to PAUSE the news stream in AlertBear and then press PLAY when you return, just imagine how many bubbles you would end up with with AlertBear if it had to display all the news of one day at once... on the other hand, AlertBear may really cut down the time you spend on RSS daily in general with the River of News concept. Think about it.. with an RSS Reader like FeedDemon or Greatnews, you will basically be out all day, on the job or whatever, only to then return to your machine, open up the Feedreader and be flooded with news. Then you have to go through each feed and read it all. Although this is exactly where FeedDemon EXCELS because of its Group Newspaper feature, cutting down the time it takes to read feeds this way tremendously, it still will take much longer than if you had seen the same amount of news flowing by a la AlertBear. That's why I said.. the ultimate newsreader = FD+AB , AB for while you're at the computer, FD for anything that was missed. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
brotherS
Master of Good Ideas
Honorary Member
Posts: 2,105
To make a difference, be different.
|
|
« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2006, 10:10:32 AM » |
|
That brings me to what I identified as AlertBear's main problem: if the idea behind it is to have a constantly updated river of news, what happens when you spend a whole day out? You miss all the news of the day! And even if you're thinking of being able to PAUSE the news stream in AlertBear and then press PLAY when you return, just imagine how many bubbles you would end up with with AlertBear if it had to display all the news of one day at once... on the other hand, AlertBear may really cut down the time you spend on RSS daily in general with the River of News concept.
Alertbear doesn't work like that, there's no PAUSE button. But you can bring up the stack (see screenshot in the first post above) at any time (by assigning a keyboard hotkey or by clicking the tray icon) to scroll 'back and forth in time'. The tray icon also offers a "show history" entry, which will bring you to a more standard (old-fashioned) interface where you can sort and filter the feeds. Anyone vaguely into RSS feeds should really install and try it for 3 days, then you'll get a *real* idea about it! |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Thank you.
|
|
|
|
moerl
|
|
« Reply #13 on: March 28, 2006, 10:13:35 AM » |
|
Alertbear doesn't work like that, there's no PAUSE button. But you can bring up the stack (see screenshot in the first post above) at any time (by assigning a keyboard hotkey or by clicking the tray icon) to scroll 'back and forth in time'. The tray icon also offers a "show history" entry, which will bring you to a more standard (old-fashioned) interface where you can sort and filter the feeds. Anyone vaguely into RSS feeds should really install and try it for 3 days, then you'll get a *real* idea about it! I know AlertBear doesn't have that feature. I was referring to an idea jgpaiva came up in DC's IRC channel  . You're right. While I do believe I have a good idea of how AlertBear works, I should certainly try it out first before judging it, which, admittedly, I have not done yet. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
brotherS
Master of Good Ideas
Honorary Member
Posts: 2,105
To make a difference, be different.
|
|
« Reply #14 on: March 28, 2006, 08:30:51 PM » |
|
While I do believe I have a good idea of how AlertBear works, I should certainly try it out first before judging it, which, admittedly, I have not done yet.
"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Lets see how many DC users act and try it for a few days |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Thank you.
|
|
|
|
moerl
|
|
« Reply #15 on: March 29, 2006, 06:08:51 AM » |
|
Wow.. that's awesome. Mouser and I were discussing EXACTLY what Goethe covers in his quote on IRC the other day... the difference between having an idea and making that idea a reality. We reached the same conclusion Goethe did I have one last final today and after that an essay to worry about, but I'll get to it. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
mouser
|
|
« Reply #16 on: March 31, 2006, 05:58:53 AM » |
|
"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe let me give you my 80/20 version of this that i have learned from my own personal experience and that of watching other programmers: coming up with a 80% good idea is easy and implementing 80% of the the idea is easy but that last 20 and 20 can be incredibly mind-numbingly hard. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
nevf
|
|
« Reply #17 on: March 31, 2006, 04:11:41 PM » |
|
"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe let me give you my 80/20 version of this that i have learned from my own personal experience and that of watching other programmers: coming up with a 80% good idea is easy and implementing 80% of the the idea is easy but that last 20 and 20 can be incredibly mind-numbingly hard. Amen! But you neglected to say that getting the last 10% down can border on the impossible and can take forever.  This is where most projects fail and fall by the wayside. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Neville Franks, "Save anything you see on the Web or on your PC" with Surfulater |
|
|
|
mouser
|
|
« Reply #18 on: March 31, 2006, 04:16:30 PM » |
|
great point.
any active coder will tell you that most programs create their own 10% todo list each year, so it's very rare that a program ever gets to (or at least stays) 100% complete.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
