Lee Nau

After a long time of realizing how much it sucks to back date entries in WordPress (especially if you’re using the Firefox Expandable Form Fields extension) and trying to remember the passwords of a whole bunch of different blogs that are powered by various systems, I downloaded MarsEdit 2.0.3 last night just to check it out.

Yesterday’s Evaluating RSS Readers post was authored using this software. I added 50 Words to it and played around with it last night (which resulted in my staying up a little too late).

I have no idea how I got along without it. Occasionally, posting on blogs, particularly from my on-again-off-again wifi connection at home, is slow enough that it inspires me to put an entry in a Ta-da Lists to get around to the post later. With MarsEdit, I can save things as drafts, mess around with an entry or idea on the train.

I like that I can manage multiple blogs from one interface. I enjoy the fact that I can edit all the fields from this same interface and that I can tab to the month, date, and time in the date fields. The only thing that gives me pause is that I use the Textile 2 Plugin on one of my blogs and the post list doesn’t interpret those posts.

The inline Technorati tags are nifty and the fact that it’s scriptable means that if I’m ever terribly ambitious, I could write something amusing. Fortunately, other people have beat me to the punch.

See?

Currently playing in iTunes: Friday the 13th by Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins

I’m getting really tired of Google Reader, primarily due to its slowness and the way that it reacts to my keystrokes. The v key in Firefox-based browsers opens the item in a new tab. If I fill my browser (usually Flock — which I’ll likely replace) with tabs, Google Reader will occasionally refuse to continue opening tabs and give me the whole blocked popup guff. When this happens, even when I stop close all the tabs, it continues to refuse until I quit and restart the browser.

Since I use multiple old RSS readers as well as Sage, NetNewsWire, Flock’s built-in news reader. I thought I’d update my software, try a few new things out, and look around for Mac OS X RSS Readers.

The Candidates

NetNewsWire 3.0

NetNewsWire has updated from the Lite version I’d used before. There are multiple options for posting to del.icio.us, posting to a blog, handling podcasts, and reading feeds. It’s pretty easy to add feeds and categories. I like how fast it is and the interface is clean, if basic. It costs $29.95.

endo

endo has a unique interface that, quite frankly, befuddles me. It doesn’t look anything like any RSS feed reader I’ve ever seen. There doesn’t seem to be a way to save bookmarks to social bookmarking sites. It’s $17.95.

NewsFire

NewsFire is pretty, reminiscent of other useful little Mac OS X applications, like Unison or ColorSchemer. Key commands make it easy to bookmark things on social bookmarking sites. This one is $25.00.

Shrook

Shrook has a slightly unusual interface as well, but since it has no social bookmarking functionality, which I use heavily, it’s a no go. Its strange iTunes-esque interface is not something I could see myself useing very long.

Conclusions

I think NetNewsWire 3.0 has the broadest feature set, but NewsFire is a close second. Google Reader’s only advantages are its accessibility from a mobile browser and its GMail interface. All of the Mac RSS readers outperform the browser plugin and web-based solutions, both in speed and flexibility.

I’m planning on travelling very soon. It’s been a long time since I have left the United States. So, in order to prepare myself for my future travels, I am making a list of the languages I either need to brush up or learn, so that my travel experience can go as smoothly as possible. I can’t expect everyone to be able to speak to me in English, just because I carry a US Passport.

1. French – The language of France, Monaco, Quebec, Switzerland, part of Belgium, Luxembourg, various former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.
2. Spanish – The language of all of Latin America except Brazil, as well as Spain and Andorra.
3. German – The language of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, as well as a well-studied language in other countries nearby.
4. Arabic – The lingua franca of all of North Africa, the Middle East, and Muslim countries everywhere.
5. Mandarin – The most-spoken language in the world, useful in China and in nearby countries.
6. Portuguese – The language of Portugal, Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique, as well as various former colonies.
7. Russian – The language of Russia and a second language in many places formerly behind the Iron Curtain.
8. Italian – The language of Italy, San Marino, and Switzerland.
9. Greek – The language of Greece and Cyprus.

Fortunately, I have books and I have signed up for an account on Mango, which includes all of these languages and more.