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Bob Russell · 03-14-2005, 10:31 AM

First of all, Hacker, I'd say I'm a big believer in a variety of good tools. You and Laurens and some of the other developers like Picard are doing an incredible job of providing some awesome content tools. Even if there's an "edge" on some of the back-and-forth between you guys, it's really interesting because it shows how the priorities and goals drive the direction of the development, each with it's unique advantages.

And, gee, even a lot of the "so-so" stuff out there is nice, so when the really good stuff is produced it's all the more a great delight for us.

I'm very curious where you're headed with all this! But to stick to the question about RSS advantages/disadvantages and usage, for me...

The advantage of RSS is
* A collection of my predetermined news and blog reading that takes absolutely no per-site setup or maintenance other than maybe to pass on a feed URL.
* If things worked "nice and easy", I'd love to put the content on my PDA just like I have a list of items set up in iSiloX. I click "Convert All" and let it run while I shower. Then I walk away in the morning with all the new content I've arranged for.

The disadvantages are:
* Usually the feed doesn't show the whole article. I'd like to be able, on Windows or PDA, to not have any delays loading pages or have to go to a full "messy" screenful of stuff to read the rest of the article.
* I get the impression that RSS content is a usually subset of the web page content. This may just be an error of perception on my part because of the "packaging", or because I only get to see new content, but it seems real enough to me that I usually go to the original web site instead
* It takes more skills than I have to make RSS feeds "nice" for PDAs.
* RSS readers on a PDA take up additional memory I don't want to give up. One more program to install. In my case, I have a Toshiba e405 with 64meg RAM, 32meg internal flash, and and external memory card. Seems like plenty of space, but it's really not. I allocate the card to backups and music/video. The internal flash has some apps and my clipped content, and my eSword files. My internal memory has programs and a few ebooks that I'm currently reading. I wish I had more internal flash that I could load more programs on. The reason I don't put programs on my external gig card(s) is that I want to be able to swap out cards and not lose any "core" functionality, just music and video content. Like I said, it seems like 64meg would be plenty (even if only 32meg is allocated to program and file storage), but if you use your PDA heavily you find that you just don't have room for even some things you really wish you could install. In my case, more eSword files and Microsoft Streets and Trips and Sunrise and probably this new tool you are working on. Even smaller things like loan calculators get left out because they often require space for an app booster or runtime files or .net framework, etc.
* You can't follow links easily. Not really an RSS issue, and I can't see how it could be overcome with a software tool unless there was some new fancy way to determine what links get followed, but if I read on my (non-wifi) PDA with RSS or iSiloX clippings of a site like Slashdot, I'm stuck if I want to pursue the topic further. I can't even follow the links in the article unless I grab way too much stuff ahead of time. I have a tendency like a true addict, to check my favorite sites often through the day to get a news fix, but I still do it on an internet connected computer because it's faster and easier and I can follow those links or Google for more information. I think desktop is still easier for reading that kind of thing. BUT, PDAs are great for reading "self-contained" articles and news like from newspapers or many blogs.

But even with the disadvantages (you can tell I'm not really a fan of RSS the way it's currently implemented), I'd love something like this if I could get the full article in text form without any hassle (kind of like those feeds Alex had set up, or what you can do with Sunrise if you know what you're doing)

03-14-2005, 10:31 AM	#18
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Some ramblings intended to provide input... First of all, Hacker, I'd say I'm a big believer in a variety of good tools. You and Laurens and some of the other developers like Picard are doing an incredible job of providing some awesome content tools. Even if there's an "edge" on some of the back-and-forth between you guys, it's really interesting because it shows how the priorities and goals drive the direction of the development, each with it's unique advantages. And, gee, even a lot of the "so-so" stuff out there is nice, so when the really good stuff is produced it's all the more a great delight for us. I'm very curious where you're headed with all this! But to stick to the question about RSS advantages/disadvantages and usage, for me... The advantage of RSS is * A collection of my predetermined news and blog reading that takes absolutely no per-site setup or maintenance other than maybe to pass on a feed URL. * If things worked "nice and easy", I'd love to put the content on my PDA just like I have a list of items set up in iSiloX. I click "Convert All" and let it run while I shower. Then I walk away in the morning with all the new content I've arranged for. The disadvantages are: * Usually the feed doesn't show the whole article. I'd like to be able, on Windows or PDA, to not have any delays loading pages or have to go to a full "messy" screenful of stuff to read the rest of the article. * I get the impression that RSS content is a usually subset of the web page content. This may just be an error of perception on my part because of the "packaging", or because I only get to see new content, but it seems real enough to me that I usually go to the original web site instead * It takes more skills than I have to make RSS feeds "nice" for PDAs. * RSS readers on a PDA take up additional memory I don't want to give up. One more program to install. In my case, I have a Toshiba e405 with 64meg RAM, 32meg internal flash, and and external memory card. Seems like plenty of space, but it's really not. I allocate the card to backups and music/video. The internal flash has some apps and my clipped content, and my eSword files. My internal memory has programs and a few ebooks that I'm currently reading. I wish I had more internal flash that I could load more programs on. The reason I don't put programs on my external gig card(s) is that I want to be able to swap out cards and not lose any "core" functionality, just music and video content. Like I said, it seems like 64meg would be plenty (even if only 32meg is allocated to program and file storage), but if you use your PDA heavily you find that you just don't have room for even some things you really wish you could install. In my case, more eSword files and Microsoft Streets and Trips and Sunrise and probably this new tool you are working on. Even smaller things like loan calculators get left out because they often require space for an app booster or runtime files or .net framework, etc. * You can't follow links easily. Not really an RSS issue, and I can't see how it could be overcome with a software tool unless there was some new fancy way to determine what links get followed, but if I read on my (non-wifi) PDA with RSS or iSiloX clippings of a site like Slashdot, I'm stuck if I want to pursue the topic further. I can't even follow the links in the article unless I grab way too much stuff ahead of time. I have a tendency like a true addict, to check my favorite sites often through the day to get a news fix, but I still do it on an internet connected computer because it's faster and easier and I can follow those links or Google for more information. I think desktop is still easier for reading that kind of thing. BUT, PDAs are great for reading "self-contained" articles and news like from newspapers or many blogs. But even with the disadvantages (you can tell I'm not really a fan of RSS the way it's currently implemented), I'd love something like this if I could get the full article in text form without any hassle (kind of like those feeds Alex had set up, or what you can do with Sunrise if you know what you're doing)