Feed Readers

Netvibes screenshot

Google Reader screenshot

Wizz RSS screenshot

After the death of Bloxor, I am testing other feed readers. Luckily, Google comes in time with its new version of Google Reader. The good of this one is that you can access your news and blogs feeds from everywhere in the planet, as long as you have [a broadband] Internet connection. Also, subscribing to feeds on the fly, while you browse the world wide web, is extremely easy: Google provides a bookmarklet that does the job for you with no typing long URLs. Alternatively you can take the type-the-xml URL route on Google Reader to get a subscription. Google Reader understands more syndication formats than any other feed aggregator/reader out there. The bad thing about Google Reader is that if the blog you are watching does not provide the full entries to online readers, you are stuck with the header and a few lines and need to jump to the source site to read the rest of the article or even to see the full sized images. But for blogs that provide full text entries, Google Reader is the best option.

To remedy the full vs part entry issue, I also am using Wizz RSS, an aggregator/reader that you need to install as a Firefox {free} extension. The good thing of this one is that your feeds open the real deal, the original article/entry you are wanting to read, and they open inside the very browser tab you are using at the moment. Also, another good point is that you can import to Wizz RSS your whole Google Reader list of feeds, exactly as they are sorted in folders (labels). If you happen to change your subscriptions on Google Reader, it's easy to delete your subscriptions on Wizz RSS and import the new list again. If you want Wizz RSS to follow you, from computer to computer, then you need to install it in each machine and repeat the import trick from Google Reader (this is what I do), or open a free account in the Wizz RSS server (I have not tried this).

Next aggregator/reader that I use is Netvibes. It is also limited to headers and few lines if the source site does not allow full entries, but is super fast in comparison with Google Reader. I don't use Netvibes for a massive reading of tons of blogs, but for the essential daily reading. I leave Google Reader for more lengthy reading sessions, when I want to explore the whole list of my subscriptions and what's new there. And if I find myself limited by Google partial entries, I go to Wizz RSS and enjoy the full entry ride: I use it most of all for photo-blogs, since I prefer to see full sized images than the little thumbnails offered, if at all, by the online readers.

So, here you have it, my take on feed readers is a bit of Netvibes, a lot of Google Reader and some quality touch of Wizz RSS.

We think the same, Cory

"I believe that we live in an era where anything that can be expressed as bits will be. I believe that bits exist to be copied. Therefore, I believe that any business-model that depends on your bits not being copied is just dumb, and that lawmakers who try to prop these up are like governments that sink fortunes into protecting people who insist on living on the sides of active volcanoes. Me, I’m looking to find ways to use copying to make more money and it’s working: enlisting my readers as evangelists for my work and giving them free ebooks to distribute sells more books. As Tim O’Reilly says, my problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity. Best of all, giving away ebooks gives me lots of key insights into how to make money without restricting the copying of bits. It’s a win-win situation." -- Cory Doctorow (site).

Beta Blogger

I moved my posts to the new version of Blogger, now with labels.
It will take me some time to add the proper labels to all my previous posts.
Keep checking!

Entries and Comments

At the moment this humble blog is visited by few people. Of course you can change that! Tell your friends about Lux Infinita, the infinite light of the Universe will reward you :-) My posting schedule is very random: sometimes I post several entries a day, some other times one in a week. I tend not to make this blog personal. I prefer to let you know of cool things that I find surfing around. It's 10 years since I started publishing on the web and some scary experiences have taught me not to tell much about myself at one single webspace. I encourage you to comment my entries, and we may correspond and have a nice conversation. Anyway, thanks for coming!

BlinkLife

BlinkLife is a very innovative free blog provider that gives you unlimited space (starting at 300 Gb), and special features like integrated one-way email and rss. When you sign up you are asked an email address; this is the address your messages will appear to be sent from when you use BlinkLife. When you compose a message, you can choose between public or private message. A public message can be viewed by anyone browsing your BlinkLife blog, while a private message will only be received and visible on your BlinkLife blog by your chosen recipients. BlinkLife also allows you to send pictures within your messages, uploaded from your drive or copied and pasted from any website. They appear inside the message, not as an attachment. It is a very attractive email-blog hybrid option for personal emailing among friends and family members.

Libro gratis: La blogosfera hispana

La blogosfera hispana: pioneros de la cultura digital, por varios autores. Editado por Fundación France Telecom España. Descarga este libro gratuitamente en formato PDF. El archivo permanecerá accesible mientras haya descargas, en caso contrario 30 días desde la última descarga.

Technorati Tags: books,, libros,, blogosfera

gVisit.com (where are you from?)

It's fascinating to know that your blog is visited from so distant places.

Here's yesterday's map of visitors.









Thanks gVisit.

Gracias, Mangas Verdes

Manuel M. Almeida, periodista y autor de Mangas Verdes, escribe una amable reseña de mi articulo Bits contra Atomos: la batalla por la creacion. ¡Muchas gracias!

Lux

Blogs, what's the fuss?

What means “blog”?. A blog is nothing else but an online notepad where you can easily add notes: texts, images, sounds or videos. What blogs have changed is the way a website can be updated. With blogging software you don’t need to open the whole file of your website and deal with it on your web editor to add a short note, now you can just upload the new portion and it gets automatically aggregated to the whole site in reverse chronological order (present to past). The blogging phenomena is all about a technical alternative to editing websites, nothing to do with website content. Blogging is trendy and cool, but only if you have interesting things to say and to show to the world.

I go Technorati