Category: Technology

Now that Google has officially killed Google Reader, I’ve decided to make sure my feed here doesn’t get borked in a similar fashion when Google decides to kill Feedburner.

So, my RSS feed is back home at http://samharrelson.com/feed. I’ve got about 800 people who are subscribed to the RSS feed, so if you’re seeing that through the old link, you’ll need to resubscribe to get updates. Sorry. Pull the band-aid and all.

It’s only a matter of time before Google kills Feedburner now that it has officially divorced RSS.

Some folks on Twitter have asked what RSS reader I’m going to be switching to now that Reader is dead (dying quickly) and if I’m using Feedly.

I’m not using Feedly although it looks pretty nice. I’ve actually switched back to Fever. I’ve been an on-again-off-again user of the service for years since it launched and have it installed on this service. It’s fantastic and all but definitely not something for everyone (or most). For one, it’s a server side install and for two it’s not something that looks anything like Google Reader or a snappy web app in 2013 and for three it’s not being heavily developed.

That being said, it’s located on my server, does a great job and delivers an awesome experience whether I’m on my Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Chromebook or Macbook. So, for those things and more, it’s perfect for me. If you’re geeky, go try it out.

All that to say, RSS is insanely important to me. Google Reader has been the hub of my web experience over the past six or so years since I decided to invest myself in it as my main feed-reading platform over the likes of Bloglines or NetNewsWire or Netvibes. I’m sad to see it go and I fear the worst for the once-beloved and under-developed Feedburner platform as well.

I need a solid and reliable RSS reader to navigate the 256 sites I currently subscribe to and try to religiously read through each day. It’s something I do that is evidently old fashioned and antiquated now, but oh so incredibly valuable nonetheless.

I have to solidly disagree with this:

RSS still matters a great deal.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ (even Tumblr)…these social gardens with their nice walls are fantastic but social “curation” isn’t the right path ahead for establishing a real presence on the web because you’re always serving a master that could go away.

There’s nothing like having a namespace that identifies and/or reflects you.

It’s something I try to get through to students, clients, friends and family.

That’s why I like the idea of dogfooding the open web and encouraging others to do so. Eventually after the social web bubble pops, we’ll get back to the realization that having yourname.com or some iteration thereof is insanely powerful and needed.

Now that Google Reader is dead, I’m switching back to Fever for my RSS reading. I literally live in my RSS reader and it’s a beyond-valuable piece of technology that drives everything from my business to my research to my studies to my obsessions to my love of history etc. Having a reliable, synced and powerful RSS reader capable of handling the 500 or so feeds I (try to) read on a daily basis is important.

Yes, Fever is a pesky self-installed piece of software that is definitely not for everyone. I’d suggest something like Feedly or Pulse or Flipboard for 99% of people.

However, for those of us who were there when blogging was The Social Network and RSS feed reading was the Newsfeed back in 2004, something like Flipboard just doesn’t cut it.

Fever is fantastic for my needs. Again, it’s a self-install and has minimal amounts of developer involvement, but it’s a fantastic program. The fact that it is self-hosted on my server that I pay for and have to keep up makes me like it even more for some Google-Reader-backlash-lizard-brain reason.

Since I’m mostly on my Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 these days when I’m not using my Chromebook or this Macbook Pro Retina, I’ve been testing out Meltdown app as my mobile interface for Fever. It seems to be doing the job just fine at the moment and is a great Android experience for Fever. It’s a no-frills and minimalistic take on feed reading, but that’s exactly what I was looking for.

Maybe Marco is right and it is excellent news for the RSS reader industry (and RSS in general) that Google Reader is shutting down.

Regardless, this is just painful to watch now.

For once, I’m glad that I wasn’t at a major tech product release and could watch the debacle unfold via a YouTube livestream from the comfort of home:

Robert Scoble – Google+ – Samsung really screwed up with its Galaxy S4 presentation.…

My five year old daughter saw my Galaxy S3 on the kitchen table this afternoon and asked:

“Daddy, what is that?”

“It’s a mobile, why?”

“It’s not an iPhone?”

“Nope, here’s my iPhone.”

“Oh, I thought all phones were iPhones.”

I keep forgetting that she was born in the same year the first iPhone was announced and then released.

“Now for as long as you live, you’ll never forget these words.”

Can’t argue there…

via good.is

Great piece from a mainstream publication about an open web hero:

Why We Should Remember Aaron Swartz – Businessweek: “Swartz wasn’t an anarchist. He came to believe that copyright law had been abused, and was being used to close off what, by law, should be open. It is hard to find fault with his logic, and there is much to admire in a man who, rather than become a small god of the valley, was willing to court punishment to prove a point. The world will have no trouble remembering Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, and this is as it should be. But it should remember, too, people like Aaron Swartz, the ones who make those empires possible.”

Such grand thoughts by a passionate person who has been taken from us…

Look at yourself objectively (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought): “In moments of great emotional stress, we revert to our worst habits: we dig in and fight harder. The real trick is not to get better at fighting — it’s to get better at stopping ourselves: at taking a deep breath, calming down, and letting our better natures take over from our worst instincts.”

Despite my frustrations over a lack of a TweetBot style app for Android, my current experiment with Android via a Galaxy S3 has been going pretty well.

I’ve had an iPhone since 2007 and constantly turned my nose up at Android all the while hoping that the platform could mature into an iOS rival that would fulfill my wishes for a more “open” and dare-I-say geeky user experience with a portable computer (or phone). That same wish makes me keep a copy of Debian installed along side my 15″ Retina Macbook Pro in hopes that one day Linux will find the right balance for me.

Apps like SwiftKey (and their insanely amazing new Flow app) make me realize why I started loving computers in the first place. The ability to tinker and get my hands dirty in (sometimes useless but nevertheless enjoyable) settings toggles.

Android isn’t for everyone. iOS is a cleaner and more user friendly operating environment. Things are prettier in Apple’s garden of eden, for sure. However, I like to tinker. I like to break things and have to figure out where I went wrong. To put it in middle school teacher language, I like to have the ability to tinker without voiding a warranty.

AirDroid is yet another example of why I’m liking Android these days:

AirDroid: The free app every Android owner should install in 2013 — Mobile Technology News: “Once connected, the computer browser shows a desktop-like interface to the Android smartphone or tablet. There are numerous icons for different activities and data: Files opens up a file manager for the phone, for example. Music, Videos, Messages and Call Logs all show their respective Android data as well. Or, if your device is rooted, you can click the Screenshot icon to snap an image of the Android device remotely.”

Imagine doing something like that with an iPhone. True, most people wouldn’t want to, and there’s no real reason to given iTunes, iCloud etc. However, rather than my data traveling over wires to Maiden, NC where iCloud lives, I feel like I have the permission to DIY if I want to try.

I’m really impressed with Android in 2012. I’m hoping 2013 brings even more enjoyment.

As Cory Doctorow wrote in his 2011 piece “Android and iOS both fail, but Android fails better”:

I prefer Android because it’s relative openness means more people can and do inspect its workings to ensure it is doing what Google claims it is doing. I prefer Android because when Google decides to leave out a feature that users might want – such as tethering – the people making alternative OSes for the platform stick that feature in, and shame Google into adding it in subsequent versions.

My mobile phone can track where I go. It can record my voice and image, and the voices and images of those around me. It can leak email, voicemail, texts, and passwords. In the time since I’ve gotten a mobile phone, each passing year has meant that I rely on my phone for more things, and I don’t expect that will change.

Android and iOS will both fail their users in the years to come. Not a lot, but often enough, and dramatically enough, that it’s worth ensuring that those failures are as minimal as possible.

That’s exactly how I’m feeling lately. I still love and use my iPhone 5. It is a much better experience than my Galaxy S3 when I want a stock, smooth, out-of-the-box experience.

Trouble is (as I’ve figured out after 34 go-rounds the sun), I normally don’t want that type of an experience in the long run.