The uber geeks

Sage potential

I’ve been playing with Sage for a few weeks, and I really like having my Web browser and RSS feed reader combined. I can only imagine those who use Thunderbird’s RSS features feel the same way about having their E-mail application and RSS feed reader combined.

In asking myself where RSS feed reading belongs more A) Stand alone application B) the Browser or C) E-mail application I’ve found out that it matters what the content being provided is.

RSS, which has been made extremely popular by Weblogs, can be used for any type of content syndication. Although the RSS specification is geared towards syndicating Weblog-type content, it can be utilized to syndicate much more than that. For example, Flickr offers an RSS feed for almost every type of query on their site. Although this content is very similiar in structure to a Weblog post, really your syndicating photos and not necessarily just text, etc.

So, to get on with what I was saying, if you had a Flickr feed that you were interested in, that feed might be better utilized inside of a photo cataloging software (like iPhoto). Think about having the ease-of-use of having an RSS feed for your family contacts on Flickr, readable and useable inside of iPhoto (or similar Windows solution) which would automatically collect your family’s photos each time they posted. Obviously there are major copyright issues here if this wasn’t limited in some way via some type of authentication control, but you get my point.

Surely, for keeping up with Weblogs, the Browser is the place for a good way to read, search and categorize RSS feeds. Especially considering that the ability to comment on each post is on the Web page itself. Building a browser into an RSS feed reader is an utter waste of time, in my opinion. Developers of these applications will realize this overtime, but they are scratching around trying to find a feature or two to get themselves above the others.

This brings me to Sage, which I won’t spend tons of time reviewing, but I wanted to point out that its potential isn’t in its simplicity (because it could use a little more complexity), but rather in its synergy. Yes, I like synergy.

Sage also has a really nice “newspaper” type viewing for each RSS feeds most up-to-date items, which is something I miss from my days using FeedDemon on Windows.

I can’t wait to see better integration between RSS and the Browser. However, for now I’ll stick to NetNewsWire simply for its ability for grouping and such. But I’d love to see the ability to quickly add a feed to NetNewsWire from within Mozilla, Firefox, Safari and various other OS X compatible browsers.

Recent features

• Coheed and Cambria - The Velorium Camper II: Backend Of Forever
• The Format - Give It Up
• Leah Andreone - Break Your Fall

Song of the week

Sara Bareilles - Between the Lines
Sara Bareilles' "Between the Lines" is the Song of the Week for April 20 to 26.

Warning: main(images/faq.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/.eastwood/cdevroe/theubergeeks.net/wp-content/themes/clockworkorange/sidebar.php on line 119

Warning: main(images/faq.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/.eastwood/cdevroe/theubergeeks.net/wp-content/themes/clockworkorange/sidebar.php on line 119

Warning: main() [function.include]: Failed opening 'images/faq.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/.eastwood/cdevroe/theubergeeks.net/wp-content/themes/clockworkorange/sidebar.php on line 119