Choosing a replacement for Google Reader

This post tells the story of my choosing a replacement for Google reader.

Every so often, I do a post here on Blogger-HAT which is a little "different".

Today, I'm starting the quest to choose a replacement for Google Reader (yes, the turn-off was announced back in March, but there's no point in starting these things too soon - I expect that a few options have improved considerably since then.

One way that this post is different is that I'm going to hit publish very soon, with the post just started not just finished.    So if you're a subscriber and want to see what I end up with, you might like to sign up on Facebook or somewhere, so you get a notification when I've finished.

So let's get started:

First stop:  google.com   [google reader replacement]
A cool 66-million results.   Yeah, I'll zip through those in no time.

Scanning down the list, I don't recognise some of the top placegetters:

The first three are from Google News.   No, don't want to check them - I want comparative reviews, no press-releases.

A post from "howtogeek" - nah, I don't want to be a geek.

One from "workflowing.net" - sounds like a sponsored listing, even though it's not.  But the summary does say "Note: This post is a running list and will continue to be updated with new options and " - let's take a look.   They have five options:
Feedly
Feedbin
Feed Wrangler
Fever

Feedly is the only free one.   They're making the usual mutterings about "look what happened to the last free option" - but I remember Picnik:   it wasn't free, but it still got shut down.    So I'm not hung up about free = no control.

Not enough to compare yet, need to check another list or two.

6 June update:   

Saw this comment on another site.

Looked atThe Old Reader - Clicked on the sign-in with Google and see that The Old Reader is requesting permission to: View and manage your Google Contacts - That's a NO
Looked at Feedly - Clicked on the Get Feedly for Chrome and it states it can Access your data on all websites and Access your tabs & browsing activity - That's a NO

I'm not so fussed about whether something accesses my tabs and browsing activity - but I don't want a Chrome app:   I need something that works in whatever browser I happen to use, be it IE in the office or Firefox or Chrome at home.

12 June:

I found a reference to Rolio somewhere.    Signed up - even though the screen looked rather bare and pale ( = trendy, but harder to read).   Then I subscribed to one feed, and got an email confirming that I'd subscribed.   Ahh ... no, that's going to get wayyy too painful.

16 June:

I'm starting to get concerned about the number of de-recommendations I'm seeing.   There seem to be lots of reasons not to use tools, and no compelling replacement.

So I decided to try The Old Reader.

The bit about it wanting to access your Google Contacts may be true - but it's not necessary.    I decided to keep the two services separate, and signed up with a totally new account, no Google Contacts requests involved.

It looked a bit odd to start with, but once I realized that it doesn't actually work with IE8, and switched to Chrome, it worked ok.   Personally I think the design is a little ugly - but the basics of Google Reader are there.  

Reading their blog, it's still a very young product - three developers, now getting help from the wider community, but still working out a sustainable model for their product.    So it could start charging subscriptions (I'm not keen) or showing ads (doesn't worry me, provided they're not too intrusive) or get bought of by a large player (I'm guessing that won't be Google :-)  ), and I might be searching again.   But it's worth the risk for a while I think.

25 July Update

I was quite happy - until the last few days when TheOldReader has been unavailable due to a hardware upgrade that went wrong.   It's back now, on Friday morning - but it's got me wondering when it might go down next.

So I went looking for other web-browser based feed readers - and was disappointed in how few there seem to be.    One option I've tried is the Digg reader.  For this, I had to sign in with my Google account - though discovered upon later logins that it's possible to log in with either Facebook or Twitter, too.  It won't work with IE8, but is ok on Chrome.   It imported my Google Reader subscriptions ok.   The top-level interface is fine - although the list of feeds doesn't show which ones have new items in them.   The display of individual items in feeds is a little ugly, though.

So at this stage, I'm not sure which option I'll stick with.

29 July

It looks like the decision is being made for me:   I just logged in to The Old Reader, and say the following banner message at the top of the screen:

We have disabled user registration at The Old Reader, and we might be making the website private. If we do, unfortunately your account will not be transferred to the private site, so you might want to export your subscriptions as OPML and start looking for an alternative solution. More details are in available in our blog: http://blog.theoldreader.com

Having read their blog-post:   the plan is to make the site private in two weeks time, unless someone else steps in with a way to make it work.

Not a good week for me - a lot on at the day job.   So I won't be moving anywhere quickly ... but am definitely looking for alternative web-delivered, browser-agnostic RSS-reader options.

Criteria for choosing:

The classic approach to choosing software is to determine your requirements, then evaluate options against how well they meet them.    But I've found it hard to distil my requirements.

Bottom line - it must let import and let me read the RSS feeds I have now, and let me add new ones.

Pretty important:

Not a stream:  I want to catch up with everything in each feed every so often - not just a stream of what's recent.

Must read RSS feeds - not tweets or other stuff.

Nice to have:

Browser independent

Used my Google account (maybe)

Tell Google more about the posts in your blog with Webmaster Central's Data Highlighter - now supporting more data types

This QuickTip is about the new types of "things" which the Data Highlighter tool knows about.

In December 2012, Google introduced the Data Highlighter (DH) - this is a tool that lets you point to items in your blog posts LINK and use them to teach Google how you write about certain things.

Now they have announced that this tool has been extended to cover schema.org definitions of seven new types of things:

• Products
• Local businesses
• Articles
• Software applications
• Movies
• Restaurants
• TV episodes

The basic instructions for using the DH tool have not changed: visit Webmaster Tools, select your site, click the "Optimization" link in the left sidebar, and click "Data Highlighter".

Google now advise that "The tagging process takes about 5 minutes for a single page, or about 15 minutes for a pattern of consistently formatted pages."

After you have done some tagging, you can verify Google's understanding of your structured data. If Google has understood your work correctly, and you "publish" it to Google, then, when your site is displayed in search results, Google will use enhanced displays of information "like prices, reviews, and ratings".

It will take time for this to happen: Google needs to re-index your blog-posts before it takes effect.

Note:  schema.org is a markup language that this tool is based on.    However not all item types are covered by the tool at the moment.   So, for example, we can only use the Data Highlighter tool to show Google how articles, products, TV-show episodes etc are represented on our blogs.    It doesn't go into more detail for things like blog-posts which schema.org does have definitions for.

How to access your Google Custom Maps after migrating to the new Google Maps

This QuickTip is about how to access your existing Google Custom Maps, once you have started using the new Google Maps interface being introduced in mid 2013.

Google is now offering the opportunity to migrate to new Google maps.  (ref: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-new-google-maps-now-available.html)

However one disadvantage is that "My Places", which includes Google Custom Maps, is not part of the new Google Maps interface.

At the moment, you can temporarily switch to the old interface by clicking the "options" icon in the black navigation bar and

• Selecting "My Places" OR
• Clicking the "classic maps" link.

Or you can get to them by navigating to https://www.google.com/maps/myplaces

From here you can see and edit your existing Google Custom Maps, but you cannot create new ones. To do that, you need to use Google Maps Engine Lite - which was announced recently.

How to keep your Blogger password safe

This QuickTip introduces a useful post about password management from Google.

Giving computer or password-management advice to people who don't have lot of experience with IT has always been challenging: there is a lot of background information that you need to know before it all starts to make sense.

And eaching colleagues to use a mouse back in the 1990s was a lot easier than explaining on-line services and security is in the twenty-teens!  I know that I'm not the only person who struggled to explain the difference between email and gmail to someone who just didn't understand "gmail is one type of software for doing emails" - he just kept asking "so what does fmail do?"

To help with this challenge, Google have released a very carefully written article with advice about managing passwords. My guess is that lots of research went into working out exactly how much someone who uses a few on-line services needs to know, and how to explain it simply.

They key points they cover are:

1. Use a different password for each important service
2. Make your password hard to guess
3. Keep a copy of your password somewhere safe (and yes, it's ok to write it down, provided you write it somewhere safe)
4. Set a recovery option.

And of course the article has plenty of useful links to show you how to do these things for your Google account.

There are a couple of things that I would like to say a little more about.

How to identify your important on-line services

This is a very personal process, and may vary over time.

Google, of course, think that your Google account is important. But that may not be true for everyone. For most people, the important services are:

• Ones to do with money (on-line banking, AdSense, AdWords, other affiliate accounts, Amazon and others that you have your credit card listed with)
• Their primary email account - the one that you set as the password-recovery email for other online services.

After that, it's very individual. For some people, Facebook is important, while other people don't use it at all. Ditto Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube etc. Job-hunting websites may be very important at certain times in your life, and of no importance at all in-between times.

Personally, I started deciding if passwords were "important" or not years ago: ones that are vital always get a unique passphrase, while lower-priority ones usually get an obvious variation on one password that I use in lots of places.

Keeping your passwords somewhere safe

The issues you need to consider here are probably wider than you think.

Most people plan to deter hackers and other malicious people. Keeping passwords in a paper notebook in your bedside table, not beside your computer, is probably enough to keep things safe from them. (Unless of course you are so famous that hackers might break into your house looking for your password - and if that's the case, you probably don't need to read this post!)

But it might not keep them safe from obsolescence - for example from becoming out-of-date when you change a password or set up a new account on your computer but don't immediately walk upstairs to update your notebook.

And it most certainly won't work if there's a fire in your house: your passwords will be safe, but totally inaccessible too.  And while it's easy to say that if your house burns down you've got more important things to worry about, for people who make their living on-line, losing access to their accounts could make things a lot worse.

Personally, I haven't worked out a good solution for this yet: it seems to me that it's some kind of balance between keeping password in safe on-line services (as much as any electronic "vault" is every really secure), and using a range of off-line options.

What worries you about managing your passwords?

How to find best apps for my smart phone | Android | Iphone | Ipad

Now a day millions of app available to download in free, but some of them are same in functionality and design. But you never decide without follow the below prevent steps before to install and buy from thousands of sites.

Find best apps

You fill more confusion as android users to finding the best apps in particular category. Because now a day’s android market becomes a very large day by day.

Where we look to chose the best apps:

User’s reviews :

For the entire new product in new market, values covering with the user’s reviews, because users give your personal opinion after giving the best experience in any mode of usage.
Now generally star widget putting in front of the all the apps.
Don’t miss to read comment by the users.

Description

Description shows the advance features and motto of this application. Generally description is written by the developers. The entire question submitting like: why we create, how different from the others. What is the best tag, and plus point of the apps.

Design – Screen Shots

If you are not ready to read description then you can also understand after see all screen
With available required option.

Here we are dispalying to try best apps coming easily

1.The official Android site
This site helps to download best app for all time. Its official site maintain by the android. That’s always updating.
2.Androlib
Android apps searchable with the category, stars from the users, number of downloads, QR codes for download.
3.Cyrket
4.AndroidZoom
5.App Store HQ
6.AndBot
7.AppBrain

If you find more then put your suggestion in below comment box. Thanks for sharing.
For more mobile coverage, follow knowledgekites Mobile on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

How to block unknown friend request in facebook

facebook give the users privacy to protect nuisance from unknown people in the form of sent request time to time. Most of the users are attacking on your account through fake account and send request to become a friend any of the person who is in or out of circle.

Stop facebook friend request with block

The unknown friend request is the violence again facebook terms and service.

Why we have to stop friend request?

Some of the users have a fake account also so, this kind of people have to more fun to create a relationship with the unknown friend.

Second reason is that some of the users are become a popularity using this group, so at the end of the result users can add friends in his/her friend directly in group.

Now a days facebook deleting this types account in each days. Millions of the account blocked by facebook in past week. Cause is that its violence agin the facebook terms and conditions.

Once your account has been blocked : facebook gives best option at the login time to select your right friends and it will works fine. If you are failing in this process then you have to wait for two are three days. Again you have to complete the option to select your friends with the name.

How to block friend request in my account by unknown – Step by Step guide

Solution 1

Step 1

Please find the privacy setting(lock icon on top ribbon) and side of the home option. Tap that’s icon and you will get in third option “how do I stop someone from bothering me?”
Than your screen will be look like in below screens.

Step 1, Select Top privacy option

Step 2

Enter your unknown friend request or email address in text box and hit the block button.

Step 2, Enter email or name as block user

Step 3

You can also see all the block users in list with tapping “View all Blocked users”.
You can unblock with the unblock option in front of the name of the friend.

Step 3, Unblock the block users from the list of blocked users

Solution 2

All time solution : its latest features by facebook
You can set option for friend request : people can send only who are friends of friends,
You can set from the below option , see the screen

Step 1, to stop friend request pevently

if you like then share with your friends.
stay touch with facebook, twitter, and google+..

Thanks for sharing..All the best

How to stop tag in facebook pictures by unknown

Facebook on of the most favorite social sites to share something: like photo, video, post, text ect. With your friends and groups easily.

Facebook photo tagging by unknown

What is tag?

Facebook allow sharing something using the friends name called tagging.
In this tagging only owner of photo can remove your name with “remove tag” option available under the photo after enlarge on your screen.
But we can solve this with this best solution : “option 2”

How to know I am tagging or not by other friends?

One of the simplest way is that see your notification. That’s disply all the other update apart from the tagging notification.

How can I see? Who tag me?

Just click on notification message in your notification popup.
That’s available in side of the message and friend request in a single bar.

How to stop tagging to me on other photo?

Option 1
In this case facebook give best option to stop your friend with block option. Unfriend your friend and block that friend.

Option 2
Select option for privacy setting under the top right wheel icon. See below screen

Image 1 - Facebbok Photo Tag Prevent Option
Select timeline and tagging from right side menu. After tap, you can see three option to set your own decision and option.

Tagging Option Under the Account

Now you will set privacy setting from 2nd and 3rd option, with selecting “Friends of Friends to Only Me”option.

aption

With selecting this option you can stop tagging nuisance on photo, video, Text post with your name.

Choose option

My upcoming post : how to block my friend request from unknown people
How to block unknown friend request. Step by step guide.

If you like then share with your friends and comment below if any query


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