16 Oct 2013

And Then Some Reading….

Reading; or as my little nest of vipers is wont to pronounce it, leading, or as you’ll no doubt spell it if you’re a recent product of the UK education system, reedin. Reading, for the sake of this post, applies to an RSS reader is what I’m talkin’ about.

You’re probably, presuming you’re still here and haven’t sighed exasperatedly and moved on, wondering where this is leading, or as my little nest of vipers pronounces it….. oh, right. It’s leading towards my ‘on and off’ search for an RSS reader for my Android tablet after the close-down of Google's own bit o’ kit.

I do vaguely remember someone out there looking for a replacement RSS reader some time ago, but my memory isn’t what it was, and it never was much to shout about. Unlike some folk.

Over time I’ve tried all the so called top picks and highly recommended tools but, to me, they were like viewing one of those magazines that are full of the exploits of all those lowly rated, unheard of ‘celebrities’. They seemed to be ablaze with flashy photos and with more bells and whistles than your average bell and whistle super store.

Then I found FeedEx and if you like your RSS feeds presented in a simple, readable, no frills, bells or whistles manner, you’ll like it.

It’ll also import your feeds from some other programs feed folder. On the laptop I use the Sage RSS reader add-on in Firefox, another one to check out, and FeedEx told me it would import an OPML file. I made the export file from Sage, got it onto the tablet, fired up FeedEx and pointed it at the file to import. I was greeted by the message, “That aint gonna work ol’ buddy. That’s not even how you spell OPML. Operation failed and aborted.”

Oh well, we tried. I then back-tracked through the menus to the main FeedEx window and – and all the feeds were there! Simple as. So what all the failure messages were about I have no idea. Try FeedEx – it’s pretty neat. I don’t have one, but I’m assuming it’ll work on one of they smartphone lookin’ deals as well, right?

Quote;  Roger Ebert.

“Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.”

2 comments:

The Filthy Engineer said...

I use feedly which is pretty good.

Mac said...

Now I remember who was inquiring about a Google replacement some time ago!!
Yup, I like it - bare bones and just does the job. And does it very well.