Category: Usability and HCI

RSS OMG WTFBBQ!!!!!!111

I’ve been an avid user of Ranchero NewsGator’s NetNewsWire RSS (Lite) reader. It’s a great app and it has a huge user base. However, as of this evening that has all changed. I’ve found a kick butt replacement that’s a million times better. It’s called Vienna.

vienna

Vienna is an open source aggregator that has some cool features.

First, it allows me to archive feeds. This was one of the features lacking in NNW Lite. Feeds would fall off into the void way too quickly. Now I can horde my information FOREVER.

Second, I like the UI more so than NNW. It looks like an iApp. NNW looked very ancient, in a 10.2 vs 10.4 Finder kinda way.

Smart Folders. Holy Cow. I can now create folders with keywords like “silly string” and “brown toed shoes” and any articles that contain those phrases will instantly appear in my silly string and brown toed shoes folder*
Pretty sweet deal.

If you’re a Mac user and you’re looking for a robust and well put together RSS reader, look no further than Vienna. It’s open source (ergo free), has a great feature set, well thought out UI and is capable of importing your subscriptions from NNW. Highly recommended!

*I had to think of something I’d want to filter. Silly string and brown toed shoes were the first things to come to my mind. Kids, don’t blog late.

2nd Best Widget

Many thanks goes out to TUAW for introducing me to the App Update widget. This little guy will check all your non-Apple Applications and report back if there is an update available. How neat is that?  As they put it, it’s like Software Update for all your Apps!

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I love to be on top of the technical news and latest happenings. I have RSS feeds from around the net and I’m constantly checking them for updates. This widget now allows me to do the same for all my Applications. Muhahahhahah. It’s super easy to use, and has a super clean UI.

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Check out the TUAW post above and download this widget.  It’s the best!

Software Update

Why can’t 3rd party developers tap into Software update? Right now you can only update software from Apple directly. I would love to be able to run Software Update and see Adium, NetNewsWire, Google Earth, and the like ready for me to update. I can’t see how hard it would be.

With my limited understanding of how Software Update works I’ve devised this idea:
1. Software update is initiated, checks the .pkg’s in the Recipt folder
2. Then it connects to Apple to ask for updates, while now checking similar settings on the 3rd party websites. Developers would create a directory that hosts the updates. Software Update would pull the new .pkg from the directory listed in the Recipt folder. (Which would be created when the program was first installed.
3. Software Update lists the updates available.
4. Select the updates, read the EULA, enter your password and viola!

A receipt would have to be written, and the developers would have to have a page setup on their site in order to get this to work, but I would think it wouldn’t be that hard to actually do. There could even be a distinguishing mark next to 3rd party updates, to keep them visually seperate from Apple’s own updates.

Nanolicious

The 1gb nano is perfect. Good price, nice size, and it feels good in your hand. It still amazes me when I hold mine and think that something this small has 4gb of storage. When the first iPod came out I thought it was small! That may make me sound old, but it’s true.

Honestly, I can’t find one flaw with the current iPod line. Apple has hit the sweet spot in regards to their price point. That said, are we on the verge of total iPod saturation? Is the word “iPod” going to join the vernacular such as Kleenex and Q-Tip? (Funny how both those examples are personal hygiene items)
The educational price for the 1gb is only $129 bucks, which is cheap for such a slick piece of technology.

But then again, I’ve already drank the Kool-Aid. (another Trademarked name)