RSS feed reader

Can anyone suggest an RSS feed reader that has the following features:

lean
displays messages in plain text
organises each feed as a separate database file
can save selected messages to user defined database files
searchable databases
filterable databases
can launch selected message in external browser

RSSOwl looked promising until I discovered that it uses a single
database file for EVERYTHING, including my saved messages (why ???!!!)

I'm currently using Opera 9.64. Its RSS client is OK, but Opera
organises its feeds by date rather than by group. That is, there is a
separate directory for each day of the month rather than a separate
directory for each feed. These directories contain MBS files, with
each MBS file containing a single message which can be from any feed.
I would prefer a database where each MBS file concatenates all the
messages in a particular feed, in the same way that my email client
(Eudora) and newsreader (Forte Agent) do. Furthermore, Opera uses a
single index file for the entire database -- I would prefer separate
indexes for each feed, just like Eudora and Agent.

BTW, I am reticent to upgrade Opera. The last time I did this I was
hit with a resource leak problem. Opera's developers have stated that
they do not test Opera under Windows 98 except to confirm that it
launches and runs.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Franc Zabkar wrote:

Can anyone suggest an RSS feed reader

What exactly is RSS anyways?

I mean, beyond the technical explanation, what exactly is it?

What does it do for the end-user that viewing a simple web-page doesn't
do?

How does it convey information (text, graphics, images, etc) differently
vs a web browser?

On Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:13:58 -0400, 98 Guy put finger to
keyboard and composed:

Franc Zabkar wrote:

Can anyone suggest an RSS feed reader

What exactly is RSS anyways?

I mean, beyond the technical explanation, what exactly is it?

What does it do for the end-user that viewing a simple web-page doesn't
do?

How does it convey information (text, graphics, images, etc) differently
vs a web browser?

You've essentially answered your own question. There are no "simple"
web-pages.

An RSS feed reader presents articles in a format which is very similar
to that which I consider ideal, namely the plain-text, no frills
format that I'm using right now. Contrast this to the bloated,
convoluted, ad-infested, Javascript based web forums such as
Seagate's, Western Digital's, and Tom's Hardware.

For example, to read a Seagate post and reply to it, and then see the
updated thread, I have to put up with around 1.5MB of crap. And all
this is required just to exchange a couple of paragraphs of plain
text. I remember that in the early 1990s I accessed Seagate's
Singapore BBS via a 2400bps dialup modem with a 286 PC running MS-DOS.
Today I need an octuple core CPU and a 200Mbps broadband connection to
achieve the same end. BTW Seagate's reply box requires HTML or "rich
text" input. There is no plain text option.

Here is a typical forum page:
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracu...d-p/ata_drives

Here is Google's text-only cache of the same URL:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...d-p/ata_drives

This is what is available via RSS (best viewed in an RSS feed reader):
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/rss/bo....id=ata_drives

Here is an RSSOwl screenshot:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Rssowl_big.gif

Some RSS messages only provide a short intro to the full web based
article, but Seagate's and WD's messages are complete on their own.

Another big advantage of RSS is that one can save and organise the
information in a convenient way. Contrast that to saving web pages in
your browser.

In fact my Opera RSS database has become corrupted, so I am
temporarily importing the MBS files into Eudora as a backup. They
display just like any other email message.

One other popular use of RSS feeds is to access news articles from
providers such as ABC, BBC, CNN, Engadget, etc.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Franc Zabkar wrote:

What does it do for the end-user that viewing a simple web-page
doesn't do?

How does it convey information (text, graphics, images, etc)
differently vs a web browser?

You've essentially answered your own question. There are no "simple"
web-pages.

An RSS feed reader presents articles in a format which is very similar
to that which I consider ideal, namely the plain-text, no frills
format that I'm using right now. Contrast this to the bloated,
convoluted, ad-infested, Javascript based web forums such as
Seagate's, Western Digital's, and Tom's Hardware.

When you say "articles", I would have assumed you meant media or news
stories. Items that you might read in a magazine or newspaper.

I generally don't have a problem with web-forums being overly complex or
bloated - possibly because of my very liberal use of HOSTS file entries.

Here is a typical forum page:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracu...d-p/ata_drives

I opened that page in my browser (firefox 2.0.0.20) and did a little
detective work. I then added the following lines to my hosts file:

127.0.0.1 stx.i.lithium.com
127.0.0.1 nexus.ensighten.com
127.0.0.1 metrics.seagate.com
127.0.0.1 cdn.clicktale.net

And I added "forums.seagate.com" to the list of sites that my
"YesScript" firefox add-on blocks from running scripts.

I then started "DuMeter" just to get a total bytes transfered between my
computer and the internet for a test to see how much data is involved in
rendering the above web-page. (I made sure no other processes were
running that talk to the interet during this test).

So with the above entries in my hosts file, the numbers a

Downloaded: 27.1 kb
Uploaded: 1.8 kb
Total: 28.9 kb

Next, I renamed my hosts file (so it would play no role in blocking web
requests) and re-loaded the above web-page (I did not remove the seagate
entry in YesScript, however):

Downloaded: 65.5 kb
Uploaded: 7.8 kb
Total: 73.4 kb

So I reduced by more than 50% the amount of data that was transfered to
render the above seagate web-page. There appeared to be no difference
(visually speaking) between the two versions.

Here is an RSSOwl screenshot:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Rssowl_big.gif

It sort-of makes that web-forum look like what I see with Netscape
Navigator when I'm reading / posting to usenet.

My strategy for improving my web-experience is to start with the MVPS
hosts file and then build on it by looking closely at what my most
frequented web-sites are doing as far as accessing tracking /
user-metrics and advertising servers, and then adding those machines to
my hosts file.

This works not only for web-forums, but ALL web-content that I happen to
browse to.

I've even gone beyond the hosts file by having a web-server (Abyss)
operating on my machine, serving up a selected set of script files that
I find are commonly accessed by many websites. These are mostly ajax
and jquery script files. I download these scripts, decompress them,
look for "irritating" external references (facebook, twitter, etc) and
remove them, and then serve them up to my browser as dictated by my
hosts file.

I think I have something like 20 lines in my hosts file devoted just to
blocking access to various facebook servers. Maybe a dozen for google's
various ad-servers.

So that's my solution for removing the internet crud from my
web-experience.

98 Guy wrote:
Franc Zabkar wrote:
snip

I opened that page in my browser (firefox 2.0.0.20) and did a little
detective work. I then added the following lines to my hosts file:

Just out of curiosity, why are you still using FF 2.0? You can run FF 3.5
with KernelEx (I just checked it out), and it's a bit more
capable/compatible on the various web sites nowadays (including YouTube,
provided you've updated Flash, too). Is there some great reason for
sticking with FF 2.0?

Bill in Co wrote:

Just out of curiosity, why are you still using FF 2.0? You can
run FF 3.5 with KernelEx

I tried running several versions of FF 3 about 1.5 to 2 years ago and
found that when scrolling a web-page up and down that a white line would
appear across any bit-mapped images on the page where they were cut off
by the frame before being scrolled up or down.

I think this problem is described in the following links:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477236

http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.p...ot-in-Explorer

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201198

http://www.neebar.com/2008/05/mozill...izontal-lines/

Some people have mentioned seeing it in the win-98 forum on msfn as
well.

But honestly, I find that FF 2.0.0.20 works VERY WELL on 99% of the web
sites that I browse to.

Also regarding FF 3.x, I recall problems with the menu icons doing
strange things (disappearing, turning into noise, colors of the menu
bars becoming inverted). This was back in early 2011 and I've since
changed the video card in this computer (I had Nvidia MX440, now have
Nvidia 6200) and maybe that change combined with the newer version of
KernelEx it might make a difference - but trying FF 3 is not high on my
priority list right now...

On Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:16:55 -0400, 98 Guy put finger to
keyboard and composed:

Franc Zabkar wrote:

Here is a typical forum page:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracu...d-p/ata_drives

I opened that page in my browser (firefox 2.0.0.20) and did a little
detective work. I then added the following lines to my hosts file:

127.0.0.1 stx.i.lithium.com
127.0.0.1 nexus.ensighten.com
127.0.0.1 metrics.seagate.com
127.0.0.1 cdn.clicktale.net

And I added "forums.seagate.com" to the list of sites that my
"YesScript" firefox add-on blocks from running scripts.

I then started "DuMeter" just to get a total bytes transfered between my
computer and the internet for a test to see how much data is involved in
rendering the above web-page. (I made sure no other processes were
running that talk to the interet during this test).

So with the above entries in my hosts file, the numbers a

Downloaded: 27.1 kb
Uploaded: 1.8 kb
Total: 28.9 kb

Next, I renamed my hosts file (so it would play no role in blocking web
requests) and re-loaded the above web-page (I did not remove the seagate
entry in YesScript, however):

Downloaded: 65.5 kb
Uploaded: 7.8 kb
Total: 73.4 kb

So I reduced by more than 50% the amount of data that was transfered to
render the above seagate web-page. There appeared to be no difference
(visually speaking) between the two versions.

Thanks very much for your detective work.

Your low figures left me wondering whether I was having a brain fart.
In fact the bulk of the crap is only downloaded when I hit the Reply
button in any thread. Moreover, the figure of 1.5MB, which I measured
about a year ago, has now grown to 2.2MB, as reported by Opera's byte
counter.

For example, I recently replied to the following threads:
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/forums/...ssage-id/28997
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/forums/...ssage-id/28999
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/forums/...ssage-id/29003

You need to be logged in to see the above pages, but suffice to say
that those 3 simple text-based replies necessitated downloading 6.6MB
of crap (= 3 x 2.2MB). Whatever this crap is, it is not cached.

Here is an RSSOwl screenshot:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Rssowl_big.gif

It sort-of makes that web-forum look like what I see with Netscape
Navigator when I'm reading / posting to usenet.

That's exactly why I like RSS.

My strategy for improving my web-experience is to start with the MVPS
hosts file and then build on it by looking closely at what my most
frequented web-sites are doing as far as accessing tracking /
user-metrics and advertising servers, and then adding those machines to
my hosts file.

This works not only for web-forums, but ALL web-content that I happen to
browse to.

I've done that for several other forums, but I use OffByOne (no
Javascript support) as my preferred browser for Seagate, WD, and Tom's
Hardware. However, there are complications when you need to post to
these forums. Anyway I'll do some more experimenting when I get the
chance.

I've even gone beyond the hosts file by having a web-server (Abyss)
operating on my machine, serving up a selected set of script files that
I find are commonly accessed by many websites. These are mostly ajax
and jquery script files. I download these scripts, decompress them,
look for "irritating" external references (facebook, twitter, etc) and
remove them, and then serve them up to my browser as dictated by my
hosts file.

That's very clever.

I think I have something like 20 lines in my hosts file devoted just to
blocking access to various facebook servers. Maybe a dozen for google's
various ad-servers.

Likewise.

BTW, whatever happened to *real* social networks? :-)

http://www.borowitzreport.com/2010/0...ork-phonebook/

So that's my solution for removing the internet crud from my
web-experience.

I also make extensive use of Google's text-only cache by customising
Opera's r-click menu.

Alternatively, you could implement the above as a customised search.

Just replace "%s" with your desired URL:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...h?strip=1&q=%s

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Franc Zabkar wrote in
:

I also make extensive use of Google's text-only cache by customising
Opera's r-click menu.


That's one of Google's really useful things, and as far as I know, unique,
but as Google have revoked code search and other means of getting anything
like precision and reduced noise, don't rely on something like the text
cahced versions remaining indefinitely. Our best hope of small size and high
SNR is the huge demand coming from the owners of all those tiny networked
mobile devices.

What exactly is RSS anyways?

I mean, beyond the technical explanation, what exactly is it?

What does it do for the end-user that viewing a simple web-page doesn't
do?

How does it convey information (text, graphics, images, etc) differently
vs a web browser?

I only opened this thread for grins, because I have never understood
what RSS did either.

You've essentially answered your own question. There are no "simple"
web-pages.

An RSS feed reader presents articles in a format which is very similar
to that which I consider ideal, namely the plain-text, no frills
format that I'm using right now. Contrast this to the bloated,
convoluted, ad-infested, Javascript based web forums such as
Seagate's, Western Digital's, and Tom's Hardware.

For example, to read a Seagate post and reply to it, and then see the
updated thread, I have to put up with around 1.5MB of crap. And all
this is required just to exchange a couple of paragraphs of plain
text. I remember that in the early 1990s I accessed Seagate's
Singapore BBS via a 2400bps dialup modem with a 286 PC running MS-DOS.
Today I need an octuple core CPU and a 200Mbps broadband connection to
achieve the same end. BTW Seagate's reply box requires HTML or "rich
text" input. There is no plain text option.

Here comes the BIG statement......
Why the **** do these companies have all this **** on their websites
anyhow? Why do any of us need all this crap? A website is supposed to
provide information, similarly to a newspaper. What do you see on a
newspaper? Text and some pictures. Back in the 90's we had geocities
sites. They were simply text and pictures. They got the message
across. A few had animated gifs and some midi or wav sounds. What more
was really needed?

I'm running a 56K modem on dialup. Being rural, that is my only choice
unless I want to spend close to $100 a month for satellite tv and
internet. I rarely even turn on a tv, nor will I pay that kind of
money.

Why do websites need all that **** on them these days? I have no
problem with flash videos like the ones on youtube. Some of them are
great to watch, but I can choose to watch them, and that is rare on my
dialup connection because they are slow to download. But I have the
choice. What annoys the hell out of me are web pages that are actually
created out of flash. Try budweiser.com for example. If you dont load
their annoying flash page, you cant even get to their site. What's the
point? If anything, they are losing customers who dont want to ****
around with all their nonsense **** content on their sites. The media
sites, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, and all the local tv stations are just as
bad. Their pages are filled with flash ads, flash headlines, flash
****, and much of the time they wont even show a simple photo of a car
crash anymore, you have to watch a goddamn video.

Wasn't the original reasoning for the internet to provide an electronic
newspaper/magazine format, along with a means to contact others online
(email and usenet)?

Somewhere along the line, we've lost the whole purpose of simple
communication in favor of all kinds of gizmos, gadgets, jumping,
flashing, annoying scrollarounds, popups and other irritating worthless
things on our screens.

Stop just a minute, and answer this. Do we HAVE to put up with this
****? What if all of us got together and started telling these
companies to either provide a simple easy to use website, or we'll hit
them in the pocketbook...... If enough people did this, they would
listen.

One last thing. Why is RSS different from a PDF file?

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 04:29:45 -0500, put
finger to keyboard and composed:

Somewhere along the line, we've lost the whole purpose of simple
communication in favor of all kinds of gizmos, gadgets, jumping,
flashing, annoying scrollarounds, popups and other irritating worthless
things on our screens.

I hear you. That's why I use RSS, OffByOne, and Google's text-only
cache.

Why is RSS different from a PDF file?

That's like asking, why is Forte Agent (or Usenet) different from a
Microsoft DOC file.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.