Meryl's Notes Blog

• Tweet
• email

• Tweet
• email

* Note: Click on images to see bigger image. Image will open in a new window. Click on _ in upper left corner to close the window.

AmphetaDesk 0.93 Alpha has just gotten easier to use from its earlier release. You don’t have to be a computer guru to figure it out how to use this nifty RSS reader.

Before we get into it, let me quickly answer the “What the heck is RSS? What is the big deal?” questions for those who haven’t had a chance to read up on it.

Quick RSS Introduction

Where do you go for news and updates? Which sites do you regularly read each time its updated? To stay on top of all these places, you hop from site to site getting your feed.

RSS (Rich Site Summary, if you really wanted to know) aggregators do it for you. No schlepping required. It’s similar to having Moreover right in your browser on your PC. Quickly scan the headlines and see what you want to read.

Until recently, RSS aggregators were centralized and have taken a shift to becoming decentralized. Sorry for the big words. In English, in centralized, you go to a Web site and select the channels you wish to receive and that’s where you get your updates. One example is My Netscape. Decentralized just means you get it without going anywhere. Right from your PC. Load the RSS aggregator and that’s it.

PC on Speed

I don’t condone the use of drugs, but AmphetaDesk is a good kind of drug and it’s addicting. Installing it only takes one step — unzipping the file. Being the neat freak that I am, I put it in its own folder in the right place.

Click on AmphetaDesk.exe and you’re there. The pop up screen runs the aggregator to fetch the latest news from resources already loaded into the software to give you a place to start.

Set the Settings

When I use AmphetaDesk or any news aggregator, I prefer the news item to open in a new window. After I finish reading the news item, I close the window and go back to the list looking for another item to read. Not everyone likes new windows. Never fear, you can change this setting and others.

Clicking My Settings takes you to the screen for these options:

• How should links operate? Open a new window or within the same window.
• How often to check channels? Enter the number of minutes to get news updates.
• Full path to browser? Prefer Opera or some other browser? Enter the path here to have AmphetaDesk open it.
• How long before giving up? Channels (news sources) do go down and here you indicate when it should give up looking for the server in seconds.

Easy peasy, eh? AmphetaDesk is user-friendly and doesn’t make you think when trying to figure out what everything does.

Your Remote Control

No fighting over the remote. Make other household members use their own AmphetaDesk. Adding a new of your choice channel is quick. Let’s think of a channel to add. Of course, Meryl’s Notes. Click on Add a Channel or My Channels and enter: http://www.meryl.net/blog/index.xml into the box and hit Add This Channel.

Anytime you see an orange XML icon or blue RSS icon on a Web site that you’d like to track, click on the icon and copy the URL. Paste the URL into this page. Ta-da! Now, you know the secret behind those icons. Oh. You already knew? Darn.

The difference between Add a Channel and My Channels is that My Channels lists all your subscribed channels. Click on the box to the left of a channel and hit Remove the Checked Channels button to dump it. Add a Channel lists channels for discovering a new one to add to your listing. It’s how I find some of the off-beat places like Ananova’s Quirkies.

The Channels Home link displays the latest news. The little blue globe? That’s becoming a standard icon for going to the resource’s main Web site. The envelope icon sends an email to the resource’s Webmaster or whomever is destinated to receive emails. Orange XML icon displays the raw code. Most of you won’t use it. The X deletes the resource from the list and you’ll never see its headlines again unless you subscribe.

Duh Moment

I emailed Morbus, the author of this awesome program, suggesting the ability to minimize the small screen since I didn’t need it cluttering my space (neat freak, remember?). He quickly wrote back and said to try minimizing. Duh! I thought I had tried that already. *blush* To hide the mini-screen, click on the _ button in the upper left corner of Windows. It worked on the XP. Minimize doesn’t work in all operating systems (Linux is one), so it’s not a guaranteed capability.

The software gets high fives all around. Morbus plans a few more features to give users more options. He has done a lot and deserves a break.

Subscribe to this here blog: RSS or E-mail