When Google Reader debuted, there was no question -- it was as bad as all the other web-based feed readers. No way was I going to dump NetNewWire for it.
A few days ago, somebody (someone I follow on Twitter, I think -- perhaps Michel Fortin?) commented about how they use Google Reader, so I gave it another look.
This morning, I'm trying it out. I exported my subscriptions, imported them to Google Reader...
...and noticed a problem right off the bat: no support for password protected feeds (like my Twitter friends stream).
Okay, I can deal with that. I whipped up a few scripts that use CaRP Evolution's RSS 2.0 theme to grab password protected feeds and output them in unprotected form (I've got those hosted on my secure server for maximum security). Apparently the same thing could be accomplished using FeedBurner, but I like having a self-hosted solution.
Next, I needed to learn a few keyboard shortcuts. The good news is that they're easy to find -- just type "?" when in Google Reader and it'll show you the full list. Moving through feed items is a little less intuitive than the arrow keys I used in NetNewsWire, but I'm sure I'll get used to it soon enough.
The bad news is that on Windows, I've seen the keyboard shortcuts get captured by Firefox in some cases. Not sure why. Usually they work fine.
Next I wanted to be notified of new unread items when I don't have Google Reader open, so I installed Google Reader Watcher Firefox addon. Looks like it should do they job okay. Still, it feels like pulling up my reader will be more cumbersome than it was with a desktop app. It's certainly a lot slower, but that's partly because I'm on a 400MHz G4.
The key benefit I'm looking for from using Google Reader is the ability to read my feeds from any computer and keep everything in sync. I usually read on my G4, but occasionally would like access from my Windows-based laptop.
I'd planned on giving this experiment a few days, but less than one is more than enough. Google Reader isn't going to cut it.
The biggest reason is that it's taking way too long to update some of my feeds. When I fired it up this morning, my Twitt...I'll report on how things go.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I'd planned on giving this experiment a few days, but less than one is more than enough. Google Reader isn't going to cut it.
The biggest reason is that it's taking way too long to update some of my feeds. When I fired it up this morning, my Twitter feed hadn't updated since last night. Sure, I was able to tell it to refresh the feed, but I can't be taking the time to tell it when to refresh each feed to make sure I'm staying up-to-date -- that's the feed reader's job.
The second reason is that it doesn't have a 3 pane view (subscriptions on the left, headlines on the top right, and content on the bottom right.
This is a problem because each item expands in-place on the left, which often results in it scrolling to the top so that I can't see the items above it anymore. When I scan new items in NetNewsWire, I can do it quickly by scanning headlines and quickly passing any I don't need to read in depth (like a lot of what's in my Twitter feed). With Google Reader, once a long item has scrolled to the top, I either lose that ability or have to reposition the list to get it back (I read bottom to top, since that puts Tweets in sequence).
The third reason is that not as much of each headline displays at a time in the non-expanded list (sometimes because some of it is cut off to show some of the content). This slows down scanning because I have to look inside expanded items much more often, where with NetNewsWire, I could read all I needed to read in the list section.
I'll keep Google Reader up-to-date with my subscriptions and use it when I'm on my laptop, but on my Mac, I'll be sticking with NetNewsWire.