Mat Harvard

Happy New Years!

There are a number of names for them, but they are commonly known as feed readers. A feed reader, is just a piece of software which aggregates syndicated content around the web. This content can come in an XML format, such as RSS or Atom. My knowledge of feed readers is limited, consequently my writing is opinionated, take from it what you will. I've only ever used two feed readers for an extended period of time: NewsFire, which I've used for the past two years; Fever, my new reader of choice for the last few months (it was released in June). Other feed readers I've tried include Times (the only other reader I'm discussing), Google Reader and NetNewsWire.

News, on Fire

NewsFire was one of my staple applications when I first switched to Mac. NewsFire to RSS was like TextMate to Ruby on Rails for me. It was a breeze to use, and worked great. I had no problems with it for the longest time. NewsFire worked great throughout Mac OS X Tiger, but when Leopard hit, the problems started. Clean installs, re-installs, nothing seemed to work. The only change in my use of it in Leopard was to, of course, add more feeds (I believe I was at around 30 back then) and sort them into groups.

The application routinely crashed. At least once a day, typically more. Even after a few updates were released, it still seemed to crash often. Enter NetNewsWire, Google Reader from internets. It was at this time I decided to give other feed readers a try, it honestly hurt, I was hooked on NewsFire and shunned people who used anything else (okay, not really). NetNewsWire was okay, but it just didn't feel right compared to NewsFire. Google Reader, in my honest opinion, is just horrible.

The Good 'ol Times

Times was special. I heard about it well before its release, and was really looking forward to it. The screencasts looked amazing, and I couldn't wait to get my hands (or pointer) on it. Time past, and I eventually forgot about it entirely, I'm not even sure when it was officially released. Along came MacHeist 3. While MH 1 was and still remains the best MH ever, 3 was not at all bad. The missions had come a long way, and advanced to a level far beyond that of MH 1 & 2. Back to the main point here, Times was included as part of the MH 3 bundle, which I bought.

One OPML export from NewsFire later, I was ready to give Times a try. I hit the import button, selected the file and boom! It crashed. Bad luck? No, after a couple clean installs and many attempts later, it still crashed while importing the file. Time for bed!

I got a Fever

About a week after those sketchy times, trying to switch feed readers, I got sick. Really sick. Shaun Inman had been hinting about his master piece for quite some time before. I was looking forward to it, even though I still didn't know exactly what it did... but hey, if it's Inman approved it must be good right? Sometime during June, in the heat of my sickness, I got a fever! Not just any fever, but Fever. It seemed like the answer to all my aches and panes (window panes that is). It was web based, which is where I spend majority of my time; it was designed well, Shaun doesn't miss a pixel; and it had this cool recommendation engine thingy built in! One screencast and multiple reviews later, I pitched in my $30 and got rolling. For web based software, the installation was almost as simple as installing a desktop app (okay I'm little biased here because I'm technically inclined). The first thing I did was import my OPML file from NewsFire. Boom, it worked.

Yeah, it worked... Why would this web app, written in PHP mind, work better than a desktop application? I couldn't tell you (Inman is a genius, maybe that's why). Sure it had it's quirks as any newly released piece of software does, but they were fixed within the week. It has shortcut keys, it never reloads a page (AJAXy goodness), and almost feels like a desktop app. I could keep going on about it, so I'll stop now. I must however mention one of the biggest advantages and selling points of Fever, that was the iPhone interface. It was just another web app, but it was done specifically for the iPhone, no corners, or pixels, were cut out (I <3 Inman).

Final Remarks

I'm very satisfied with Fever, and wouldn't look at changing any time soon. Since I started using it, I had a total of 50 feeds. Now, I have over 160 feeds and counting.

I just received a Google Wave invite, thanks to my friend Richard Neary. I'm looking forward to playing around with it more, and perhaps writing an extension (Ruby on Rails on Wave).

18:05 rule 1 of the tumblelogging manifesto is that every tumblelogger has to write his own software to do it

My tumblelog application is nearing completion. Currently it requires designs for each individual post type, a few tweaks here and there, and it'll be ready to go. I'm hoping to launch it this week, and I'm looking forward to writing about how I coded it (one post of which already exists).

BitTorrent, one of the most important inventions these days. It's the current best way to transfer any large file, or virtually any file. Though a lot of controversy exists as to which files are being transferred, however, that is something I won't get in to. BitTorrent is typically accessible through a client, many such clients exist, for example uTorrent, Vuze (previously Azureus) or even BitTorrent itself. I've been through a number of clients on different operating systems.

Azureus (now called “Vuze”)

I was inducted into the torrent world at a young age, at the time I knew absolutely nothing about what it was, or how it worked. It was just a faster way of downloading the latest version of Ubuntu. Back then I was running Windows XP (still my favourite version of Windows), and using a client recommended to me by a friend called, “Azureus”. It was pretty neat, lots of lines with blocks moving towards circles and dotted boxes with many shades of blue! Definitely a solid client that I'd recommend to anyone at the time. One day it upped and called itself “Vuze”, added a bunch of useless junk, advertisements, most horrible navigation, slightly nicer UI, and tried to be the all-in-one media client. Luckily for me, at about that time I switched to a Mac.

So on my fancy iMac with Mac OS X Tiger, I attempt to use Vuze, since it was multi-platform, and I had no idea about any Mac applications for torrent files. Let's just say it didn't last too long, and was in my Trash bin pretty quick.

Xtorrent

After a bit of searching, I found what was to be my torrent client for the next two years. It was Xtorrent, a Mac only torrent client. It worked great, and the search feature was amazingly good. Xtorrent lasted me through Tiger and Leopard; an iMac, a MacBook, and a MacBook Pro. Issues started to arise around late Leopard/Snow Leopard time. It routinely crashed for unknown reasons. Even when it was sitting idle, or downloading with no interaction on my part. Like NewsFire, I persevered hoping it would get better in time, but it didn't, at least not soon enough.

uTorrent

Most definitely the best torrent client on Windows made its debut on Mac OS X. It had its quirks and downsides, but overall it was great (and never crashed!). For months it was my client of choice, but there was one issue that always bugged me. Now here's where you get to call me a snob! The UI in uTorrent was dismal. And for that reason alone, I went looking for what was to become my new favourite torrent client.

Transmission

I'd heard about Transmission before, but never thought to try it. After a discussion with my friend Richard Neary about possible options other than Xtorrent, he whole heartedly recommended Transmission. After my first download, I was sold (oh did I mention it's free?). The UI was minimal yet extremely functional, it offered all the features I was looking for and more (more being a web interface). It's never crashed on me, and I have a feeling that it never well (it's a Mac thing, we've got this sixth-sense going on that tells us if an app is going to crash, aka. spinning beach ball). Transmission is and will be in the foreseeable future my torrent client of choice.

I said it once, and I'll say it again.

Happy New Years!