Posts tagged Newsgator
Followup on FeedDemon: I Love It!
0Update (7-30-09): Since I posted this, Newsgator has made some changes in how they do things. There will be a new version of FeedDemon that can sync with Google Reader, but it is not clear to me at this point whether it will still be free. More later on this.
In a previous post, I mentioned that I had started using Newsgator’s FeedDemon to track blog posts. See the May 20, 2009, post here. I described some of the basic features in that post, but I have since discovered a number of other goodies in FeedDemon. (more…)
NewsGator and FeedDemon
0In a previous post, I talked about RSS Feeds and Google Reader. See that post here. Since then, I’ve further evaluated feed readers, and I’ve decided to use NewsGator‘s desktop companion, FeedDemon, to monitor the 40-plus blog feeds I am following. Here’s a screen-shot of the FeedDemon interface.
NewsGator works pretty much like any other online feed reader. However, FeedDemon is downloaded to your computer at www.feeddemon.com. You need to be online to use FeedDemon once it’s installed, but you can also “prefetch” feeds for browsing offline if you have situations where you can’t get Internet access for a short time.
In the graphic above, you see the feeds list on the left. The next column to the right is a list of the posts on the current feed. The last column displays the content of the selected post. There’s a built-in tutorial for those just starting out. If you get so far behind reading your feeds that you just can’t catch up, just go to Tools and hit Panic Button. All your feeds will be marked as read, and you’ll have a clean slate.
FeedDemon synchronizes with NewsGator online so that, if you are away from your computer, you can still track your feeds by going to NewsGator on another computer. When you re-open FeedDemon on your own computer, it will synch with NewsGator once again.
Download it and give it a try. You can import your feeds from your former reader. FeedDemon also has a Find New Feeds feature and a Clippings folder where you can save posts you want to access later.
If you haven’t subscribed to this blog yet, let this feed be the first one you add to your FeedDemon. You can subscribe via e-mail if you prefer. See top right column.
Blogs and Feeds
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On one of the online groups I belong to, someone asked, “What are feeds and how do I learn to use them.” Not a direct quote, but close. This person had tried to find answers on the Net, but she said the information she found was too technical for her as a beginner. This post is an attempt to solve her problem.
Six Apart has a great beginners’ explanation of feeds. Click here to read the entire article, then come back for my specific recommendations on how to get started using feeds to follow other people’s blogs.
The article mentions several feed readers (or aggregators) that can be used to make following blogs efficient. Google Reader is easy to use, and there are online tutorials where you can learn how to use it. If you don’t have a Google account, you have to set one up at www.reader.google.com. Once you set up your username and password for Reader, you can use Gmail and other Google services from the same account.
For those who already have a Google account, just log in to your Gmail account. Reader appears as one of your choices at the top of the page. Click on Reader. The help section doesn’t really tell you much unless you know something about feed readers, so I suggest you go to the video tutorials at Butterscotch.com and work through all of the lessons on using RSS feeds and Google Reader. There are several, but here’s the link to the first one.
If you don’t have a Google account and don’t want to open one, you can use any one of a number of feed readers recommended in the Six Apart article. I have tried Bloglines and Newsgator myself. Both are free services, so I suggest you try them both before making your decision on which you will use. Sign up for a Bloglines account at http://www.bloglines.com/. Newsgator can we used online, or you can download FeedDemon for use on your computer. To get started with Newsgator, set up your account at http://www.newsgator.com/.
If you just want to keep it simple, Google Reader is your best bet. Once you are familiar with how the feed reader works, you can check out the others.
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