I just got a very quick reply from the Dutch author of that very nifty app.  RSSextender is a .NET 2.0 proxy system that grabs and scrapes RSS feeds as local OPML and XML, with the point being that you can see more of the story than you customarily get in a few-word synopsis.  What I had proposed is that there should be a Preferences option to enable viewing of the XML files in other than the default browser (which I maintain as IE). You see, Firefox and Flock users have an awesome little extension called Feedview that can render those files beautifuly.
Wim says that's already in the cards for the next version.

I just discovered that the compose box for Performancing goes dead with the Monday alpha of Flock 0.7.  So, I'm back in ver 0.5.14 for this post.

Technorati Tags: RSSextender, RSS, .NET, Firefox, Flock

I'm humbled and ashamed when I read of futuristic OPML node-running browsers envisioned by Adam Green, Alex Barnett, EirePreneur, Bela Labovitch, one MSDN guy (why do their blogs stress pix of their pubescent faces while partying?). I mean, given that the only thing I ever vaguely understood in programming was Python -- which I've now forgotten! -- what can be the point of my mutterings?
I think that my greatest talent is crashing computers, a skill I developed in the days of Quarterdeck Extended Memory Manager and Qualitas 386-to-the-Max when I tried to stuff the 640 to 1024 K region with as much as possible. My proudest acoomplishments were creating a ramdisk in there on which I put command.com, and the discovery that Windows 286 with Qualitas had preliminary support for extended memory.  That reminds me: I do so wish there could be a faithful port to Win XP of Samna Ami 1.0 -- that remains my all-time favorite word processor. You know, my recollection of the GUI makes me suspect it would work beautifully as an online AJAX app!
Yeah, perhaps that's something I'm good at -- I can spot when an app has an interface that is intuitively simple to use.  The days of big, fat three-ring binder manuals (and RTFM!) are gone, though I'll keep my old MS Excel ones as mementos. Of course, spreadsheets in general are a class of software I cannot grasp; I suppose that's something requiring an accountant's fussy, detail-oriented mentality.  As an example of an app with an immediately graspable interface I propose Stanley Huang's MediaCoder.  More remarkable still is that Stanley is in Shanghai and GUIs created by Chinese are second in opacity only to Korean, in my experience.
It is wondrous to see how these half dozen OPML/RSS/RDF gurus in Ireland, Boston, Redmond, wherever, all know one another, mostly via their blogs.  I wonder how I'd get a sets view of the intersection of the sites they all visit.
One problem I'm runnining into is that I hop between Flock and Firefox -- with umpteen profiles! -- and can't always remember which I was using when I briefly lighted somewhere that I subsequently realize was important. There'll have to be a way to integarate Places histories from different pofiles.
Also, I've got such a confusing system of multiple feed readers now. Not one can present every type of feed optimally.  Having bad-mouthed the Google Reader earlier, I now discover that it is the best for densely full essay/compositions like what Adam Green creates. Kudos to him also for good spelling, good grammar and sparkling style!
And best of all, well-informed Adam Green shares some of my ignorant opionions.  To wit: "The result was a Web of corrupt data, in which misformed tags abounded... If microcontent, meaning individual molecules of data floating free in the bloodstream of the web, is to become a viable delivery mechanism for information, then a structural equivalent of a protein is necessary to package these molecules in a consumable form. OPML is a first step towards that structure."


Technorati Tags: OPML, RSS, intertwingularity, MediaCoder