14 DAY TRIAL // We live in the information era. Information is accessible to absolutely everyone that wants to receive it in many ways: publications, audio and video forms and... of course, the internet. The internet represents the most powerful way to distribute or find information.
What was that saying like? Ah yes... "Information is power". And if you want to have power, then you need to be as informed as possible. This means that you will need to be up to date with all the news you can handle. Of course you can not handle all the news in the world... not even a computer can, but you can know everything that is worth to you. Everything that interests you is a few clicks away.
The only problem that remains is how to find exactly what you are looking for, when this astonishing quantity of information is given to you every day?
Exactly! You will have to sort it out. Good ones in, unimportant ones out. To do this by yourself is a nightmare...
... And that is why you need an RSS reader.
There are plenty such applications to choose from, but I'm not going to talk about all of them. I'm going to talk about NetNewsWire, because it is one of the most popular desktop newsreader on the market. If you don't believe me, check out FeedBurner and you will see.
NetNewsWire is also an award winner. It has got on its shelf a Mac OS X Innovators Award from 2003 and received an eddy from macworld in 2005. But enough with this. Let's see what is capable of.
Working with it:
NetNewsWire captured me trough its simplicity and ease of use that hides as many subscriptions as one can handle in a life time. The easy to set up toolbar offers all the possibilities you need to view your news exactly the way you want it. Subscribe/unsubscribe, refresh all, show info, next unread are just a few features that you'll obviously need, but it has more.
A very nice thought from the developers was to add a "Sites Drawer". This drawer contains hundreds of news sites organized by categories, which is a feature that makes finding information extremely easy and that is what I - personally - look up to such an application in the first place.
The active subscriptions panel is also one of the reasons I am fond of NetNewsWire, as I like everything organized on categories so that my news-reading-experience be as pleasurable as possible. In this panel, a user can organize its subscriptions exactly the way he chooses in the easiest way. Just add a category and move the subscriptions needed in the category you choose it belongs to, nothing more and nothing less.
Another wonderful addition to this NetNewsWire is the integrated browser. This really spoils the user and makes NetNewsWire the only thing you would ever need if you only want to read your daily news. The even better part is that this browser is tab-based and does not bore you with a bunch of extra windows on your desktop, windows that you just don't need.
The thing that went trough my head when I first used NetNewsWire was that it would be great for those that use laptops. I just pictured a man standing in its car on a business trip and enjoying the daily news trough NetNewsWire. I thought about this because I know how frustrating it is to use many windows on a laptop in a vehicle? it's a nightmare. Well with the three-column view it's not that much of a nightmare at all, as NetNewsWire is perfect for the laptop's display which has a more horizontal view. The easy searching for news is also a strong point of this application. Not only that you can organize your subscriptions the way it fits you best, but you can also search for news content based on a criteria chosen by you.
A feature that the developers describe as included in this application is the "Sort by attention" feature. How cool is that??? As you go trough news, NetNewsWire pays attention to the news you focus and then can tell which feeds are more important to you. For example: I have many subscriptions to feeds that relate to Apple, but most news from them is related to technology in general, not especially Apple. NetNewsWire can see that I don't read them so much and concentrates its attention on the ones I read the most.
Another two settings that made my day a little nicer are the "Flagging" and the "Persistence" settings. As you flag a feed, this feed can be remembered forever or until you decide you don't need it anymore and it is unflagged while the "Persistence" setting lets you decide how long NetNewsWire should keep news items, so you can read them even when they disappear from the feed.
Its looks
Nothing special about the looks; don't get me wrong? it is a nice place to "be in", being both simple and fully accessible. It's well structured and makes everything as easy and enjoyable as it can possibly be. The preview panel for the news can be skinned in many ways, but I don't think it's such a good idea as the rest of the panels remain the same as your Apple theme.
The good
It is easy, simple, and makes your work as nice as possible with its drawer filled with well organized news sites. Its browser is certainly a strong point and being tabs-based makes it even nicer.
The bad
If you want all of those features, you will need to pay 29,95. You can get a Lite version for free, but it does not include the tabbed browser, the smart lists, persistence, or search engine and tag subscriptions.
The truth
If your work depends on news or you just like being up to date with everything, NetNewsWire does everything an RSS feeder should do and more. It is a good acquisition if you ask me.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
