Friday, June 08, 2007

Feed Reader recommendations wanted

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I love technology as much as the next geek, but sometimes I'm slow to jump on certain bandwagons.

For instance, I've had the same cell phone for the past six years. At the time of purchase, in early 2001, it was cutting edge, state of the art -- the first "SmartPhone" of its kind. A cell phone with an integrated Palm Pilot and wireless web and email.

These days, this brick looks like a holdover from the 1980's and weighs a ton in comparison to newer phones, but I still use it. Why not? It still works perfectly well. The battery life is phenomenal (~ 5 days between charges, if I limit lengthy calls), which comes in handy for work travel.

But there are a myriad of newer, prettier phones available now, phones whose features put my antique to shame -- phones with cameras, GPS technology, mp3 capability, picture-viewers, and much prettier and easier-to-use web, email and texting features.

So why don't I upgrade? Oh, laziness, for one. Don't really feel like researching a new phone when the current one works just fine. Also, I'm cheap. I paid a hefty price for this phone and want to get as much life out of it as possible. Thirdly, I haven't yet seen any of the newer phones that make me think I could happily live with them for the next five years. (I really like the "push" email technology of RIM Blackberries, but I haven't seen one with all the bells and whistles of other phones. That sleek new iPhone looks promising, though....) Fourth, I'm afraid if I make a switch, I'll be losing things I really like about my current phone (battery life, great geographical service coverage, etc.). Finally, there's always a slim chance I may have to go to Europe for work, so would like my next phone to be usable in both the U.S. and the E.U., which will require it to have GSM network compatibility.

And so, for the time being, I will wait. If my phone breaks, dies, or gets lost, I'll happily replace it with some new fancy one. But for now, as long as it keeps working flawlessly, I have no complaints and will hang on to it. It's like an old shoe, I guess....

So what does that have to do with the title of this post? Not much, except that, now that everyone on Blogger has upgraded to Blogger Beta, my Blogrolling alerts don't work anymore. (They never did work with TypePad blogs and other platforms.) So, now I will need to jump on the RSS Feed Aggregator bandwagon and sign up for something like Bloglines, if I want to be an efficient reader of blogs.

I wasn't real happy with Bloglines the last time I tried it, although I know that is probably what 90% of you use and will recommend. So, I'm wondering what the other 10% of you use -- anything you like better than Bloglines? I've done a little research -- this article in particular has been helpful. But I'm still torn, and am open to suggestions.

Tell me what you think....
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3 comments:

Unknown said...

Google Reader! http://www.google.com/reader/ (I think). I've been using it for about 6 months and I'm pretty satisfied. It seems to update faster than Bloglines, too, but I know that's highly variable.

You can add it to your Google Homepage, too, and see at a glance who's posted. What? You don't have a Google Homepage?

And while we're on the subject, if you could persuade our friend The Queen to allow a feed for her blog, I'd be eternally grateful! (I love you, B!)

Margaret said...

I've been happy enough with Bloglines not to be motivated to switch. I do hear NewsGator and Google mentioned occasionally but none of the others.

My husband won't give up his Motorola StarTac phone. Talk about late adopter, sheesh.

Anonymous said...

Bloglines schmoglines --------- do you need a travel partner to Europe!!!!???