Best RSS Feed Reader for Windows?
Posted March 7, 2010 – 5:39 pmRecently, I’ve been doing a deep dive comparison of the top RSS readers for Windows.
Netvibes Wasabi RSS Reader:
The Best Feed Reader?
It all started when I became aware of the new Netvibes Wasabi edition. This version was released last fall (here and here).
Wasabi provides an alternate format for viewing feeds within Netvibes. The new Wasabi reader is more in the style of Google Reader as compared to the ’start page’ (or ‘widget’) style Netvibes reader I’ve been using for some years. You can switch back and forth between the ‘widget view’ and the ‘reader view’ with a click of a button.
While my initial reaction to Wasabi was very positive, I had some problems with my feeds. Thus began a month long re-look at all the major Windows RSS readers to see if there was something better.
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Drupal: comparison of ‘related content’ modules
Posted February 12, 2010 – 11:42 amI’ve been using two ‘related content’ modules on my Drupal websites for a while: Similar Entires module and Node Recommendation module. Now I want to trim back and use just one.
Drupal Related Content Modules
I came to use these two after trying out a whole bunch of Drupal related content modules. Check here for a good review of the related content choices – there are a lot of them. And here’s another useful, but less comprehensive review of Drupal related content modules. I suspect neither list is actually completely complete.
Most of these modules work off taxonomy terms in various ways. Some are more widely used than others and/or better supported. Interestingly, none seems to have really gained traction as the ‘go to’ module for related content.
I went with Similar Entries because it develops matches off the title and the body content vs. just taxonomy terms. In general, this seems like a good idea to me. As well, at the time I wasn’t using tagging on my sites, so Similar Entries was one of the few modules that would work at all. Now I do use taxonomy, but I’m not a prolific tagger, so I still like the idea of matching off titles and body content.
No Comments | Tags: DrupalFix missing or grayed out system icons in Windows Vista
Posted February 9, 2010 – 12:03 pmThe system icons in the notification area of my taskbar keep disappearing. It happens quite randomly – and fixes itself equally randomly.
Tray icons missing or grayed out
In my case, the missing icons are usually one or all of the volume icon, the network icon, or the power icon. The clock icon always shows up for some reason.
When I try to re-enable them, they are often grayed out and I cannot check the boxes. Sometimes, they aren’t gray.
After some googling, I found a solution to this missing tray icons problem – though apparently not a permanent one.
This page provides a recap of Microsoft’s official method for fixing the problem. It involves going into your registry keys, deleting the ‘iconstreams’ keys, and then restarting explorer.exe (which runs the taskbar / start menu). The fix works for Windows Vista and Windows 7.
I tried this method a couple of weeks ago – and it worked! — for a while. Unfortunately, here we are a couple weeks later and my icons are graying out one by one. Now back to where I started.
No Comments | Tags: using computersWindows UAC: Bye! Bye!
Posted February 2, 2010 – 3:24 pmUgh! I give up.
Windows Vista UAC Takes a Dive!
Yesterday, I disabled User Account Control (UAC) in Vista for good. Could there be a more invasive, yet ultimately useless program?
After 13 frustrating months using UAC, I still have no idea what it is supposed to be protecting me from — whatever it is, it has never, ever happened.
As part of my recent efforts to increase productivity and streamline workflows, I realized it was time for a change yesterday when, for the nth time, I tried to figure out what UAC is supposed to do — and I couldn’t.
In my search for answers, I found only techie jibberish or vague explanations, such as this from Microsoft’s website:
User Account Control (UAC) is a feature in Windows that can help prevent unauthorized changes to your computer. UAC does this by asking you for permission or an administrator password before performing actions that could potentially affect your computer’s operation or that change settings that affect other users. When you see a UAC message, read it carefully, and then make sure the name of the action or program that’s about to start is one that you intended to start.
Uh, huh. I suppose it sounds vaguely useful – until I realized that not once in the 13 months has it ever activated when I haven’t been explicitly trying to do something. Unlike my Norton Anti-virus program which is constantly (and more or less silently) picking off various threats that are invisible to me. UAC is constantly stopping me from doing things that I purposefully want to be doing. How is that helpful?
Even after trying to understand, I still don’t really quite know what the point is — or what some relevant ‘use cases’ might be. Is it to stop my cubemate from tinkering with my computer? Except I don’t have a cubemate. Is it supposed to prevent viruses that somehow get past Norton from doing more damage? Except that has never happened.
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Google Chrome browser gets even better with extensions
Posted January 25, 2010 – 1:40 pmI’ve been using the Google Chrome browser since Day One – in my book, it is the best everyday browser out there. Largely because it is lightweight and superfast loading pages.
Google Chrome launches extensions
I’ve been using the Chrome Developer version for many months – it was the only version that worked well with my dual monitor setup.
In December, Google launched an apps store for Chrome – except that they call apps ‘extensions’. I’ve been using these extensions for several weeks and LOVE them! but they haven’t been available in the general release versions of Chrome.
Today, Google unveiled a new general release version of Chrome – now extensions are available to everyone. You should definitely try them out. Quite fantastic stuff!
My favorites are:
- xmarks - manage bookmarks across browsers and/or computers located anywhere
- lastpass - manage passwords and login info across browsers and/or computers
- evernote - the official extension for the evernote note taking / web clipping service that is all the rage (and deservedly so)
- delicious - beautifully designed widget for adding bookmarks to your Delicious account. cleaner and better than the Firefox version.
- netvibes - auto-detects RSS feeds in Chrome and provides one-click button to add it to your Netvibes RSS reader (still only available for developer version, i think).
These are essential in my book.
1 Comment | Tags: cool web toolsBacktype: tracking my comments on the web
Posted January 20, 2010 – 11:48 pmFrom time to time, I write comments on the tech blogs and elsewhere. Obviously, they are deeply insightful and saturated with wisdom, so it only makes sense to want to keep track of them all.
Comment tracking & aggregation
But how? The answer: Backtype, a free comments tracking service. Backtype describes itself as a “real-time, conversational search engine” because as a result of tracking people’s comments across the web, it also includes features that allow you to search web comments in a way that you can’t with Google. I don’t have too much interest in the searching function, so the value-added function for me is having Backtype track and catalog my comments on the web.
Backtype works by scouring the web, indexing all the comments people make on blog posts. It doesn’t spider every single blog, but covers all the major ones and lots of not so major ones, too. It also seems to index blogs of any size that reside on the major hosted blogging platforms – e.g., Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, Posterous, etc. That’s why the comments on my tiny, tiny personal blog, John’s Bytes, are getting indexed.
No Comments | Tags: blogging, social mediaGiving up on Internet Explorer
Posted January 7, 2010 – 9:06 pmI am dumping Internet Explorer today! I just can’t take it anymore. Too frustrating.
So long IE!
I do this reluctantly, however, because IE is still the dominant web browser on the planet – and since I build websites, I want my sites to work properly in it.
Until now, I have always tried to do some major tasks each day in IE as well as in Firefox and Chrome. I thought that it was important to use all the major browsers regularly to stay up to the minute with how they worked.
But over time, I’ve used IE less and less because, for whatever reasons, it just seems to break an awful lot – plus it is slow and lacks the add-ons / plug-ins that have become so valuable in the other browsers.
Instead, I’ve used Chrome and Firefox more and more because they hardly ever have problems, they are both a lot, lot faster than IE, and their plug-in libraries add lots of great functionality. When, from time to time, those programs do have problems, they normally fix themselves with a quick shutdown and restart of the program.
No Comments | Tags: using computersiYogi complaint: too hard to get my refund!
Posted January 6, 2010 – 5:12 pmI’m having a helluva hard time getting a refund out of iYogi. Today, they secured $15M in follow-on funding, so maybe they’ll be able to pay up.
iYogi refund complaint
iYogi provides remote technical support to solve computer problems and whatnot. After comparing their services and prices to several other firms, I decided to give them a try. They seemed to have something that could be pretty useful.
I signed up in mid-January 2009 — but then closed the account within 2 hrs because they didn’t service 64-bit Vista machines (which they could have made clearer on their website).
I asked for a refund and received immediate confirmation email that they’d processed it. The email appeared official and definitive.
“Based on your request we have processed the refund for your subscription. This will reflect in your bank records/credit card statement within 7 business days, depending on your billing cycle.”
Silly me, I never checked my bank account. Only last week while doing year end financial tallies did I realize that no refund ever hit my account.
Spoke to them at great length on Dec 29 – routed thru about 3 people with each needing to hear the story in detail asking the same questions again and again and again. Was finally assured by a woman that they would call back within 24 hrs to confirm refund. Never heard from them.
On Jan 5, I spent about 2 hours on phone or on live chat in a series of calls trying to sort out. They seemed to have no record of the call from the prior week or much of anything else about my account.
No Comments | Tags: using computers