FeedDemon Available at a Discount

I use FeedDemon as my default Feed Reader. It is a great reader and has some great features. I noticed that the good folks over at NewsGator have made available their entire line at a discount as a holiday special.

As of today take advantage of the special by putting the promo code NGHoliday in the shopping cart. That would make a copy of FeedDemon $19.95 US, bargain! There are also products for Mac. I can not speak for how good the Mac products are as I am not a Mac user. Please comment if you are aware of how the Mac products perform. Twenty bucks is a great deal for such great software. Definitely worth a look if you are after a great standalone (as opposed to online) RSS reader at a good price. Also check out their other products, you might find something you like.

Please note this is not an advertisment, I do not work for nor am I paid by NewsGator. I do however genuinely highly recommend their software and service.

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FeedDemon Releases a Toolbar for Firefox and IE

NewsGator have just released a toolbar for Firefox and Internet explorer. It is still in beta and from the review I have read I am not sure that I’ll be getting it just yet.

This is not an extension rather a download that is installed. I, like the reviewer don’t like the fact that it has been done this way. In addition is the fcat that it is a joint install for both Firefox and IE. I would like to think that this is a trend that has not started, please give us extensions for Firefox and a separate download for IE (if you want to subject yourself to that pain).

The toolbar does not seem to be feature rich, although it does let you know how many people are subscribing to a feed (NewsGator users only that is) and the ability to preview the feed. In addition the up and coming Firefox 2 allows you to integrate subscription to feeds for a specific feed-reader. So I am not sure where the toolbar idea is headed for FeedDemon. They had want to include some more features for me to add a toolbar to my browser as I am very protective of screen real-estate.

You can check out the original review and some screen shots on Cybernet Technology News. From the screen shot the toolbar looks to take up room and not have that much on it. Not great news considering that FeedDemon is a killer product and is feature rich in it’s own right. Then again this is a beta version and we will see what the end result is when the full version comes out, I might try it when it does.

FeedReader Now Supports Enclosures

I was talking to my brother-in-law tonight and giving him a crash course in RSS feeds and podcasting and just how great the whole thing is. I think I left him sufficiently confused but excited about what it could do for him. That aside I was recommending a feed reader for him to try and I have always recommended FeedReader. I was very surprised to see that it now supports enclosures (and that includes podcasts!).

While I have not used this version which is FeedReader 3.02, I am sure that it is as easy to use as it was for me when I used it. I have used FeedDemon for some time now, one of the main reasons that I switched to FeedDemon was the fact that it is an all-in-one solution. It supports both feeds and lots of different types of enclosures including podcasts and I liked the idea of having it all in the one place. Essentially both these programs do the same thing; in that they now both support enclosures and read news and whatever other feed you wish to subscribe to. But now when I recommend a reader I won’t have to give an explanation as to why you can not get podcasts with it and why you need a program like Juice to do that. This makes FeedReader a very nice no cost alternative for anyone wanting to give RSS a go.

Juice is a very good Podcast aggregator. However I do think that it is not the easiest piece of software to use for a person that is new to RSS or podcasting. Now having the podcasting support in FeedReader means that a user only has to learn to use one program and not two. Both having very different interfaces. The other huge bonus for the end user is that FeedReader is still open source and still free! Which is great news all round in my book. The new version of FeedReader has some other great new and improved features so check it out!

So for my mates that I put onto FeedReader, go and update it to the latest version on the Download Page and shove your podcasts and feeds into it and let me know how easy/hard it is to use. I hope it makes it a lot easier for people to utilize RSS and enjoy podcasts.

What is RSS?

What is a podcast?

What is an aggregator?

Ok, so I have the software where can I go to find some great RSS feeds and podcasts?

• TechPodcast Network
• Feedster
• Podcast Alley
• The Podcast Network (Aussie Podcast Network)
• Ask.com

That should be enough to get you going I am sure you will start to notice RSS links and feeds and podcasts everywhere now.

Don’t forget to add Rooster’s Rail to your subscriptions and Global Geek Podcast! Here are the RSS feeds for those. Right click and copy the link and paste it to your reader of choice when you have selected to make a new subscription:

• Roosters Rail Blog – https://roostersrail.wordpress.com/feed/
• Global Geek Podcast – http://globalgeek.thepodcastnetwork.com/feed/

LibSyn Player Removed!

Well the Global Geek Podcast has been going very well. The website is working great, accept for the LibSyn Player; which has been broken for nearly two weeks.

The player is just a web page application that allows people to "stream" the audio directly from the web page. It is also detachable so you can surf the net and listen to the show. About twelve days ago, after the upload of show number 004 (I think) it broke. It failed to update with the new show and the situation stayed that way. For me the player does not work at all. For others it might play any show that we have published, at random! Not good.

You might think that this is a minor thing, but you would be surprised to learn that this is the way that most people listen to the show. The majority of people appear to not know about aggregators or "podcatchers". So the fact that it is broken is really affecting our statistics, we have seen jumps in other episodes that should not have occurred and a downturn in the numbers for the most recent show. We are fairly sure that it is related to the player not working. Part of trying to combat this was to put the WordPress Podcast Widget on this blog, you can go to the streaming page and listen to the podcast from this and download the podcast with the right click "save as" command. But it was not a total solution. We have also tried to search for a decent player from somewhere else but we are having trouble finding one that us gumby people can put on the page and looks good.

So after all this and three emails to Liberated Syndication I have removed the player from the site, I just hope that people click the "POD" button to listen to the show or download it manually or preferably subscribe to the show using a podcatcher of some description. I recommend Juice as a free option, open source and it works. For a payed version of an integrated podcatcher and RSS reader I recommend FeedDemon.

Still hoping to get the player fixed and reinstated on the website but until LibSyn get back to me my hands are tied. Normally they are good with support but on this they have sucked.

FeedDemon 2.0.0.23: Update

It would seem from both the comments on the blog post and the prompt reply on email that the update of FeedDemon to 2.0.0.23 was indeed legit!

It is apparent that the silence from the usually vocal development team confused more people than myself, so I don't feel so bad about questioning it. Nick Bradbury has taken the concerns regarding this; on board and will let everybody know in the future of pending updates. Phew 🙂

But yet again NewsGator and Nick have proved, to me in any case, that they are committed to their user base and most importantly responsive to their concerns and wishes. Thanks guys.

I am just glad I was not fighting some rogue virus or spyware at this point in time… I think I would have definitely been kicking myself and asking others to do it for me when I had finished.

I just can not speak highly enough of this program and the support, I just love it for lots of reasons and this is one of them.