I’ve amassed quite a large list of RSS feeds and Google Reader just isn’t cutting it anymore. It just takes to long to read my news everyday. A few of the readers here at Keynote 2 Keynote have recommended NetNewsWire so I decided to give it a shot. I don’t know how I ever lived without NetNewsWire before… Its the best damn RSS Reader for Mac OS X hands down. Here’s a list of its features. Do yourself a favor and go download it now before you even finish reading this article! There is a 30 day trial of the full version or a stripped down free version.
OK, now that you’ve got NetNewsWire downloaded and installed you’ll appreciate this review a bit more :)
If you’ve been using an online RSS reader, like BlogLines or Google Reader, you’ll immediately notice a HUGE performance boost. This is because NetNewsWire downloads the latest headlines/descriptions on the fly. As long as you have the application open it will keep all your feeds up to date. When you sit down at your computer to read the latest and greatest you won’t have to wait for page after page to load. This is a huge time saver.
The NetNewsWire interface is similar to your typical desktop email client. All the feeds that you are subscribed to are displayed in the left column. Beside each feed is a counter that denotes how many new/unread articles there are in that feed. Select a feed to display list of all the articles. If one of those articles sounds interesting and you want to read more about it just select it and you’ll be shown a description. At this point if you’d like to read the rest of that article just click on the headline. A new tab will pop up and load the full article. Thats right… A tabbed RSS Reader! You can thank Apple’s WebKit for that feature :)
I was happy with Google Reader, but I’m VERY happy with NetNewWire. The only feature that I miss from Google Reader is having access to my subscriptions at any computer. But, I think that there is a solution to that! NetNewsWire is owned by NewsGator, which offers an online feed reader. The best part is that you can sync NetNewsWire and NewsGator :) That way you have a speedy RSS reader while at your computer AND access to your feeds while on a different machine. that will have to be the topic of another article though.
If you’re like me and like to skim through lots and lots of articles and read only a select few, then I’ve got a great time saver for you. Read the NetNewsWire Efficiency Tips article over at MacTips.org . It’ll make navigating lots of feeds and articles quick through the use of keystrokes.
Now use your awesome new RSS feed reader to subscribe to the Keynote 2 Keynote feed! I’ll give you a dollar… err wait… how about a brownie? LOL
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I guess I need to look into this RSS thing, I feel like I am running way behind on technology. I just go surf the web in a semi-random manner if I want to see the news…
I’ll try this out. Every day I read a couple of different blogs, all with RSS feeds. Maybe with this it’ll be easier to get a handle of all the news I read.
Trust me, you guys should look into an RSS reader, be it NetNewsWire or something else. (NetNewsWire is the best though, lol). I skimmed through 300 news articles last night in probably less than a half hour. Just don’t forget to visit my site to leave comments every now and then :)
I’m using NetNewsWire Lite. I like it. Maybe if I like it enough, i’ll consider the regular version.
If you liked NetNewsWire ver. 2.x, you’ll go nuts with the lateste NetNewsWire 3.0 alpha. Go get it here. Go on, I’ll wait!
Wow, thats a pretty amazing list of changes since 2.1.1. I’m not normally big on using beta software, but this looks almost too good to pass up!
although Simmons (the developer) is quick to point out that this is not evene a beta, I never had Netnewswire 3.0 to crash once for over a month I am using it. The latest beta is 3.0d64 and I love the new combined view to view all my flickr rss photos and the fullscreen mode. The UI is prettier too, what more can you wish for?
I suppose that it’s important for him to let his users know that its not finished so they don’t get upset if something breaks.
I’m glad that they are changing the way that tabs work. The overflow button that is used in version 2 is a little goofy. How do you like the new vertical tab layout?
Vertical tabs look nice on a widescreen monitor. But I prefer the original horizontal tabs, because they use less screen estate. My wife loves them though, so it’s a personal preference.