The George Lite Zone

Netscape’s browser has been temporarily reprieved by AOL, who are extending the support period and releasing a new update for Netscape Navigator 9. This update will apparently smooth the transition to suggested alternatives. Navigator junkies can skin up Firefox to give it the look and feel of the old war horse. Meanwhile AOL are promoting Flock as suitable alternative, with it’s media streaming, social site integrating, blogging and friend finding capabilities, Flock is a Web 2 browser fit for the 21st century. I’ve been using it for a number of weeks now and other than the occasional crash find it a most excellent product. The beta for Flock Version 1.1 is out soon and will include integration with Gmail, Yahoo and Picassa. Hopefully this release will be a bit more stable.

Blogged with Flock

RSS Feeds are a useful way of keeping tabs on changes to websites and getting information on a variety of topics of interest to your screen without the need for trawling through a myriad websites. A bit like the internet equivalent of fast food, without the fries. There are many ways of subscribing to and reading feeds. Some browsers, such as Firefox (or my browser of the moment Flock), have the ability built in. However by far and away the best way of accessing RSS Feeds is to use an aggregator (a.ka. RSS Reader or Feed Reader).

For the last couple of years my aggregator of choice has been FeedDemon. Easy to use it is widely held to be the best of breed when it comes to bringing you your daily fix of RSS Feeds. I just learned today that Newsgator who own FeedDemon are making it available as a free download. Bah humbug, if like me you already paid the piper to subscribe, whoopy doo for everyone else.

Give it a whirl. Now it’s free there’s no excuse not to.

FeedDemon can be downloaded from http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/FeedDemon/Default.aspx.

Another interesting freebie from Newsgator is Newsgator Go!. This allows you to read your feeds on your mobile phone and is synchronised with the feeds you add to feed demon. This is available for Blackberry, Java Mobile Smartphone (including my Nokia N95, huzzah) and for Windows Mobile. Windows mobile phone owners can also get it to play streaming video and audio too. To get this go to http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NewsGatorGo/Default.aspx and click on the aproprate free download link. Sign in with an existing newsgator account, or create one if you’ve not already got one. You’ll eventually get asked to accept the software license agreement. Accept this and an e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address you registered. Open this mail and get a link you can type into your phones browser. Do this and you can install the application on your phone. Enter your Newsgator username and password when asked on your phone and as though by magic your feeds will appear before your eyes in miniature. Fantastic. So now not only have you got internet fast food, you’ve got it to go to.

Blogged with Flock

This post was created using the blog editor built into the Flock browser.

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Flock is interesting in that it integrates with a lot of the Web 2 social networking sites and allows you to post directly to various blogs.

Blogged with Flock