E-Mail:
Get my new Windows 7 eBook (PDF) for $7 with 70+ Tips. Download Now!

Feed Me!

Those who know me know that I'm an RSS feed junkie. My new toy? NewsGator! It integrates with Microsoft Outlook rather nicely – and since I live in OL2k, it's a perfect match. Robert is spinning it on his machine, too. What about you? Well, here's my current set of feeds – and I'm looking to add more as I find them. Hopefully, I'll find an enterprising Windows software developer soon. I've got an idea that's burning a hole in my brain – and I wanna see it come to fruition this week. Yes, I have THAT much patience.

Imagine this: a “News” submenu sitting at the top of your Start Menu, right above the Programs submenu. It cascades out into an organized list of feeds (each feed has its own folder). The “Technology” category folder cascades into a list of subscribed feeds: Wired, CNET, etc. Each of those feeds contains the 15 (or X) most recent posts in the form of Internet Shortcuts. Tooltips contain the provided description / timestamp. You could set it to update every X minutes, archive older links on a per-feed basis, truncate file names to X characters, etc. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Know of anybody who could set something like this up? I want true shell integration here, folks.

GoDaddy Web hosting plans are now more powerful than ever. Best of all, their plans start at just $3.95/month! No matter what plan you choose, your site receives 24/7 maintenance and protection in a world-class data center. Plus, as a listener of The Chris Pirillo Show, enter code CHRIS1 when you check out, and save an additional 10% on any order. Get your piece of the internet at GoDaddy!

7 Comments

True shell integration? Like something actually “built” into the Start Menu, not just a folder? Hmm, sounds tricky, but I'll give it a shot.

Well, I have to admit that it does sound like a good idea. It would also definitely make the rest of the world aware of RSS feeds.

I think Jason could do that.

Is he doing it yet?

You should check out ranchero's news reader for OS X, NewsNetWire (ranchero.com). I think it would be a good comparison to NewsGator and your intetgrated rss reader idea.

I've had an idea like this on the back burner for a while… not exactly what you propose (true shell integration); my focus is more on something that's network-accessible.
I would like to include RSS nodes at some point. If you want to check it out I've got a java applet prototype at: http://www.mystartmenu.com/blog/ (click on the orange “my start menu” link at the top).

What Do You Think?