NewsBreak Reviewed

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=3594">http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=3594</a><br /><br />Geekzone has reviewed Ilium Software's new RSS reader <i>NewsBreak.</i> <br /><img src="http://www.ehansberry.com/pages/pocketpc/NewsBreak.gif" /><br />I've been using this app for a few weeks and it has now become the RSS reader of choice on my Pocket PC. I've even modified my <a href="http://www.ehansberry.com/pages/rss.xml"><img src="http://www.ehansberry.com/pages/images/rss.gif" /></a> feed to include an image in the header since NewsBreak accommodates it.

[Paul P]

What kills me about the two RSS readers I've tried thus far is being able to only download the abstracts. If I am interested beyond the summary, it just takes too long to load the whole article by going to the link at the bottom. GPRS is pretty slow in my area. I wouldn't mind at all paying a monthly fee to just get complete text.

[Ed Hansberry]

What kills me about the two RSS readers I've tried thus far is being able to only download the abstracts. If I am interested beyond the summary, it just takes too long to load the whole article by going to the link at the bottom. GPRS is pretty slow in my area. I wouldn't mind at all paying a monthly fee to just get complete text.
It isn't the reader - look at most RSS feeds - they only give you abstracts, even on most desktop clients. Some desktop clients may be able to scrape more details by following links. Not sure. NetGator sure doesn't.

[Janak Parekh]

I know exactly what you mean... that's why I didn't use RSS initially. I think two desktop RSS readers can do what you need:

1. I believe Pluck (www.pluck.com) shows summaries, but also opens a browser window alongside that will fetch the page. I haven't used it, but I've heard good things. Pluck is free.

2. You can get a plugin for NewsGator (www.newsgator.com) called FetchLinks (http://graemef.com/?q=project/fetchlinks) that will actually snarf the entire webpage content for you into an Outlook Post instead of the summary. Note that FetchLinks is free, but NewsGator isn't. This is the solution I use, and it works perfectly for about 98% of the RSS feeds I want (the other 2% I usually get the summaries).

Unfortunately, I don't think there are any Pocket PC solutions. :(

--janak

[Arne Hess]

What kills me about the two RSS readers I've tried thus far is being able to only download the abstracts. If I am interested beyond the summary, it just takes too long to load the whole article by going to the link at the bottom. GPRS is pretty slow in my area. I wouldn't mind at all paying a monthly fee to just get complete text.
The problem is a different one, most sites doesn't use/offer browser/device based redirection to a PDA specific light version.
So if I tap on most of my "Read More" links, I get the desktop version which kills me (in terms of time and money). Only a few pages offer browser/device based redirection (like PPCW.Net does ;-) Sorry for self-ad here). Generally "Read More" links goes to the desktop version, however, on the fly you are redirected to the light version, if my server recognizes your device as a Pocket PC.
RSS on mobile devices is great, if more sites would follow the automatic redirect and - if the device manufactures would make it easier for site admins to recognize a device as mobile phone, PDA or Smartphone, like providing a tag like "Mobile Device" in the web browser.
If you are redirect to a mobile page, mobile RSS is a fine addition.

[Leon]

For me, one major drawback I discovered in NewsBreak is the refresh limit of one hour for some RSS feeds. That is just not often enough for me if I want to stay on top of the news.

Here is an explanation of what is happening:
While I have set the refresh rate for most sites to once per hour or even once per day, there are a few news feeds that I want to update every 15 minutes, others every half an hour. If the particular site sets a refresh limit to avoid heavy trafic, NewsBreak respects that and doesn't allow a refresh more frequently than the site specifies. I can live with that, no problem. However, if a site doesn't care (probably because they have enough bandwith, e.g. bbc.co.uk) and doesn't set a limit, NewsBreak sets the limit to one hour.

I have been in discussion with Ilium about that but they seem to think that they have to save the world from bandwith problems and take the step to limit the refresh to once per hour, instead of leaving it the responsibility of both the user and the specific site. That's something I cannot understand and prevents me from using the program, although for the rest I like it very much.