TellMeWhen | Tutorial 1 | Tutorial 2

So for a long while PowerAuras was broken for me. What was interesting about PA was that I used it only to track somewhat minor things, various buffs and debuffs on me or my target. Fed up with PA not being updated, I started seeking out alternatives and stumbled on TellMeWhen. Read the rest of this entry

Here are the 3 I tried based on recommendation: Feedly | TheOldReader.com | Tiny Tiny RSS

When I tried Feedly here’s what I liked/hated

Liked

• Imported starred items
• Relatively quick in response
• Great iPad app (very similar to Flipboard)

Hated (please note, things changed I hear since I last used this so some of these complaints may or may not be valid)

• Required extension (I hear they have a website now)
• Lack of a mark articles as read older than x days. I am a heavy heavy user of this feature

So the hated list is super short and in fact a non-issue and you would think I would have migrated to Feedly but I perhaps jumped on that ship too early and now it’s too late to win me back.

TheOldReader.com likes/hates

Liked

• Very classic Reader interface
• I enjoy seeing numbers beyond 1000 (ex. 1252 items unread)

Hated

• Update speed. There’s something about it that felt a little behind when using it side by side with Google Reader. 
• Overall speed, felt a bit sluggish. However using it now it feels a bit zippier
• Lack of a mark articles as read older than x days. I am a heavy heavy user of this feature
• No starred items imported
• While it has a very classic interface, it’s also got a lot of dead space

And finally Tiny Tiny RSS

Likes

• Full control! Will never die since I host it!
• Speedy, feels great scrolling and j/k-ing through articles
• Has mark as read over x days old
• Imported starred items
• Shows fresh articles (articles X hours old)
• Customizable look via css

Hates

• Update speed limited to either last 15 minutes or manual refresh if you’re looking at a feed
• Broken RSS feeds had to be manually fixed
  • This is not actually TTRSS’s fault. Google Reader auto-found any broken RSS feeds but in the import I had to manually fix a bunch of them

I installed it on this webserver and my regret is that I’m running off mysql instead of postgresql which I hear is much faster. I’m toying around with the idea of running a VM at home and trying out how much better it would be like that however the overhead of ensuring the security seems like a pain. Really though, what I love about TTRSS is that it has all the features I use plus more. I really didn’t have to sacrifice as much (no starred/keyboard shortcuts/marking as read) as other services plus I don’t live in fear that someone will sink and I have to migrate yet again.

I do understand that not many people have the luxury of installing and running TTRSS. Sounds like at work, the coworkers are using Feedly. I think if theoldreader let me import starred items things would be pretty different. AOL, Digg, and even Facebook are rumored to get in on the RSS bandwagon so while this is the close of the silver age of RSS, the future seems pretty good actually.

Well it’s not perfect but I’ve added a sidebar widget for my shared feed links, which can also be viewed/subscribed to here: https://www.timothyhanson.com/tt-rss/public.php?op=rss&id=-2&view-mode=all_articles&key=552b6e562929f3b0ced7ed3f60ed6fbe15e56888

In the war to win over hearts as the new Google Reader replacement, I’ve tried Feedly, theoldreader, and Tiny Tiny RSS and the winner is TTRSS. Although admittedly I still use Flipboard and Feedly on the iPad. I’ll go into more depth on those later but for now I finally have RSS articles again! I may work on getting them to be posted articles though as opposed to widget feed. Can’t decide.

Had to do some mandatory site upgrades. Seeing if this still works. Admittedly last year started out poorly and with the continued decline and destruction of my  beloved Google Reader I’ve been a bit down and out on the site. However lately I’ve been thinking about random content I could add, although still inconsistently, which might be useful.