somefoolwitha.com ...since 2002

Mobile web browsers have come a long way since we first introduced an XHTML version of Reader back in 2006. For example, iPhone and iPod Touch owners know how powerful having a full-featured browser is. We on the Reader team are heavy mobile Safari users. Sometimes we use it to kill time, other times for answering important questions that come up during brunch: What is Tyrol's first name? How is maple butter made? How do you sweeten rhubarb for sangria? What is John Gruber saying now? For questions like the last one, we of course use Reader to keep up with our subscriptions. #

I can confirm that the new iPhone Google reader interface is indeed rather awesome.

When I had a look at various online feed readers about 8 months ago I dont think Google's Reader even existed - it's certainly not been particularly useable up until a few weeks ago.

Google Reader is far more user friendly now, with a clear layout and a clever AJAX (Im guessing) trick where it marks posts as read as you scroll through them. Theres also a neat little bookmark bar 'Next »' button which Ive been using a lot lately. It steps you through your unread posts from post to post in the actual web browser, viewing the original site, rather than formatted by and in the feed reader - which is nice.

I just wish I could use it in combination with NetNewsWire in the same way that I do with NewsGator, as I dont think I could move entirely away from NetNewsWire. I tried it with FeedLounge and whilst that is, Id wager, the best web based reader out there, it does cost money and I still had to go back to NetNewsWire after a few months using FeedLounge.

So come on Google and NetNewsWire developers - work together.

Original image on Flickr.

I have spent the last couple of days playing with a few web based news readers/aggregators. My reason for this? Well, I use NetNewsWire and am very happy with it, but Id like to be able to read my subscriptions anywhere and not have to deal with re-reading stories. To that end, what follows are my potted reviews and experiences with some of the options I found, in no particular order. All feeds were imported from an OPML file created by exporting my feeds from NetNewsWire with groups entact.

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All fixed now! :-D

In addition to comments and my other tests, all the side items apart from Author now use the script.aculo.us' Ajax.Updater to import a file dynamically and display it when you click on the + to expand. Sadly this doesnt seem to be consistent. In my tests on my PowerBook last night, it worked in Safari but not in Firefox, whereas now on my work G5 its working in Firefox :? (and its stopped again)

In other tests on the Mac this morning its not working in Opera, OmniWeb or Camino (Err, now it works). In my Windows test, it doesnt work in Internet Explorer (no biggie as I stopped supporting IE ages ago despite 59% of my visitors using it according to google) or Firefox.

To be clear about what is and isnt working, the divs (or ols actually) show and hide, but it doesnt seem to load the page. This is very odd as Ive even saved the source from the rendered page, tested that and it works fine.

Actually, Im tempted to just going back to showing and hiding the ols. My reasons for dynamically loading the ols where that firstly it would save bandwidth as you only have to load what you want to see and secondly so that your seeing the latest state of the site, but to be honest, I dont think I get enough hits for that to be a valid reason.

Still, i would like to get it to work as itll be a useful ability Im sure.

So, any ideas?

Ah, got it! DOH! because Ive hardcoded the url as www.somefoolwitha.com into the page, it will only work if youre on that domain. Sans the www or sflwa.com wont work. Right stage 2.

Next stage, draggable boxes

I fixed it

by changing the hardcoded URL to
new Ajax.Updater({success:'div_id'}, 'http:// ?php echo $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] ?>/path/to/page.php',{asynchronous:true}); I think it should work in all browsers now (watch out for the space there in ?php). 4 hours (!) I spent yesterday trying to debug that, then I guess it today within 30 minutes!

Im attempting AJAX comments, pretty much as described here. Its not 100% perfect by any means yet, many bugs so I may end up reverting back to non-AJAX if I cant work out the bugs. The first comment doesnt show up until you refresh the page.

Err, this post i looking pretty fucked up for some reason.

I've been playing with script.aculo.us visual AJAXy effects. Any effects you may or may not see on this site are just me playing. heh, I quite like this, and may well just alter it somewhat. What I think Id like is to allow people to drag the boxes around, and then a cookie to save that position and whether theyre expanded or minimsed for them. Id also like the first Asides post to be initially visible with "more" and "less" buttons to show and hide the others.