08-29-2003, 05:00 AM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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TwoPeaks Releases Free MobileRSS Beta
Two Peaks has developed a mobile RSS web client. What's RSS? It's an increasingly popular web standard for news feeds; it uses a structured XML document to allow other sites or devices to get a syndicated, lightweight, newsfeed. Most of your favorite news and blog sites (including this one) have such a feed. What's cool about Two Peaks's solution is that it's entirely web-based, designed primarily for PIE; no application is needed on your Pocket PC, and indeed it should work with other handheld devices, like a Smartphone. Two Peaks is currently conducting a free public beta test, so you can try it on your Pocket PC and see if it's right for you.
I gave it a quick runthrough and found it to work exactly as advertised, even though it's a beta. The frontpage lets you set up a list of newsfeeds, which you can then quickly browse. The only downside to it is an inherent limitation of RSS: since providers can't tell who or what is syndicating the newsfeed, most RSS sites link to non-mobile-friendly full versions. I guess someone could develop multiple RSS feeds to solve this problem, but such a solution isn't prevalent yet. Overall, I think Two Peaks has done a commendable job, and it's worth a look if you want a lightweight solution to hit a variety of sites and check out the headlines.
I've attached screenshots of PPCT's and Slashdot's RSS feeds using mobileRSS.
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08-29-2003, 05:37 AM
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5000+ Posts? I Should OWN This Site!
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 5,616
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Sweet! And it doesn't have the ClearType problems that PocketFeed has.
I've already got my account set up. And one of my preferred feeds was already listed so it saved me some work. 
Only drawback is no offline mode.
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iPhone 4! ☠☠☠ Mid-2010 15" MacBook Pro! ☠☠☠ Gateway LT2102h! ☠☠☠ Dell XPS M1210!
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08-29-2003, 06:12 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 382
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Pretty cool - now if only MSDN would also format their articles for PIE. Then again MSDN may now work under WM2k3 and not PPC2k2. Can anyone confirm this?
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08-29-2003, 06:18 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 69
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Hi, this is Mel from Two Peaks. I just wanted to add that we're creating a Web service in .NET that will address the limitation which Janak pointed out. What we are hoping to do is, create a database at our end, which would automatically detect URL's from popular websites, such as CNN, NY Times, MSDN and others. When you click on a link of such a website from within mobileRSS, it will launch the "printer friendly" page (low graphics), or the mobile page (if available). As you might know, printer friendly pages look great in PIE. All this should be transparent to end-users, as our server will try and guess the printer friendly URL while displaying your RSS feed. So, that's how we're hoping to enhance this in the near future, let's see where it goes. Thanks!
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08-29-2003, 08:48 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 330
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I had a look at this yesterday and it looks very promising.
Slightly off topic..
One thing I miss about WM2003 though is looking at a feed on the today screen. I had today's HTML but now it does'nt work.
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08-29-2003, 11:02 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 176
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Mel, I hope you get to read this.
There was some interest (mainly from me I admit...) over at Smartphonethoughts in an RSS aggregator for the Smartphone.
This app is ideal for the Smartphone platform (hint! hint!) 8)
Cheers, Iain.
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Orange SPV C500
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08-29-2003, 03:58 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 69
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popabawa:
It already works with SmartPhone! Here are some screenshots:
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Linear Mode
