It'll Never Fly

I’ve been looking for the perfect RSS news aggregator. One that can sort based on date of entry, uses an embedded browser, and isn’t buggy beta-ware. And I need to find one for both Mac OS X and Windows. I tried FeedDemon and NewsCrawler, but they didn’t do quite what I wanted, and they weren’t free. Being free isn’t a requirement, but if it’s not going to do what I want, I’m certainly not going to pay for it. I tried RSSBandit, and it was working out quite well, but was glitchy at best. Pages would open inconsistently in either a tab or in IE, and seemed to be a resource hog (although I can’t prove it). And it fell in a category of other programs that graft tabs on to the IE engine that cause display problems on my computer (both Crazy Browser and Maxthon cause it as well). I’m sure it’s no bug in the program, but a system level bug in Windows 2000 with dual monitors.

On the Mac OS X side, I only tried NetNewsWire, and was pretty comfortable with it. I was on the verge of purchasing NNW, but thought about usage and subscription maintenance. I do most of my reading on my Windows box, and very little on my Mac. I just couldn’t justify paying for NNW for how little I’d be using it. And maintaining my subscription across programs and platforms seemed to time consuming (even with support for OPML files).

Then I stumbled across Bloglines, and my answers were solved. It sorts the way I want, it uses an embedded browser (the opposite actually, because it’s just a web page), it quite stable, and even better: it’s free and it’s cross-platform. Also, it relieves the extra bandwidth on the servers of the places I visit by half, because it acts as a middle man, by querying the RSS feed once and supplying the results to all the people subscribed to that feed.

Update (26 Oct 2004): Feel free to look at my Bloglines subscriptions.

Today’s spam brought to you by the word Rolex.

I’m fascinated by e-mail spam. I run my own mail server through my G4 at home, and have several layers of spam filtering installed on the system. Anyone who follows spam closely will recognize different styles or tell-tale keywords that will indicate a message is spam. A lot of these can be weeded out even before they make it into bayesian filtering systems such as Spamassassin.

5 new spam messages showed up in my Spam box this morning; all of them advertising Rolex watches. It looks like Rolex is the new Vicodin.

If you’re like me and are still stuck in the world of Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2), but prefer Safari as your main browser, then you’re probably ticked off that Apple doesn’t provide all the latest Safari improvements that all those Panther people get. I could go out and buy Panther, but I’m waiting to coincide my O/S purchase with my next PC purchase (and so I know it nobody’s fault but my own for the predicament that I’m in). Plus, I’m waiting for Firefox 1.0 when the infamous middle click bug will supposedly finally be fixed.

Luckily, I no longer have to wait, or at least have something to keep me occupied while I wait. This morning, the Omni Group released OmniWeb 5.1 Beta 1 with an updated WebCore, seemingly making it as standards-compliant as Safari 1.2.3.

Find out more at The Mac Observer.

I’m not really sure this classifies as a gadget, but what the hey.

I bought a Black & Decker Leaf Hog BV2500 leaf blower for my Dad today as a Birthday present. Our 10 year old one finally broke down, and they have a new one, but I think it just blows (in the sense that its only function is as a blower). Assembly was a breeze; the pieces just slide together. Converting from blower to vacuum and back is literally done by the push of a button. Everything just screams ease-of-use compared with our old model.

Vacuum: Seems quite strong (at least as strong if not stronger than our old one). It made pretty short order of the leaves and pine cones on the patio. Sucked up some small stones, which had me worried, but the chamber of the blade seems designed to allow space around the blade to prevent such things from jamming the mechanism. With the other models I looked at, the blades were closer to the chamber wall, so I could see stones doing much more damage. The Leaf Hog seems built to just suck up debris and push it out the bottom, rather than mulch. It still mulched the leafs I picked up, but possibly not as much as others might. But, hey, if it doesn’t jam as much, the life expectancy of the Leaf Hog is probably much longer.

Blower: Haven’t tried it yet. The nozzle is flattened into a very thin oval shape, instead of a circular end like a hair dryer as on our old model. No idea, whether that’s just for aesthetics or if it actually has some practical value. One thing I do know: the nozzle end is small enough to fit in someone’s mouth. Just an observation.

Weight: The actual body of the blower is lighter than I would have expected. A little bit of extra weight is added when you add either nozzle. And of course, the weight will increase in vacuum mode as you suck stuff up. A strap is attached to the collection bag, but like all things with straps I’ve ever had in my lifetime, this one is no different. It’s too short, and I’m not freakishly tall, either.

So if the strap length is my only complaint, I’d say that’s pretty good. Apparently, there’s an accessory you can get (BV006) called the “Leaf Collection System” or something, that has an 8′ flexible hose attached to a draw-string top so you can put it over top of a garbage can or rubbermaid container. I’ll have to keep my eyes open for that one.

Update: After using for an entire evening, I have one more complaint. The collection bag is way too small and fills too quickly. Where can I get a BV006 in Canada?

Check the comments for an update to the story.

Now that I’ve got a new blog engine with more support, I thought I’d try out some swanky new software that works with it. MarsEdit by Ranchero Software is what’s called a weblog editor, a stand-alone desktop application for posting to weblogs. It’s a lot like an e-mail application or a Usenet news reader, but you’re posting to a blog service instead.

I guess the theory being it’s easier/more comfortable (arguably more natural?) for people to post using an app with a familiar GUI than using a form in a Web page. That remains to be seen, and I won’t know until I see my post frequency increase or plateau.

As for how well it works? Well, that depends. Have you just been reading this?

Update: I should also point out that I used it with Mac OS X 10.2.8, and it seems to work fine. However, I have only used the basic features.