14 DAY TRIAL // Each day, after you wake up, there are five Wh's and the H to be answered - who, what, where, when, why and how. To put it in another way, you need news. Everybody needs news, no matter if they want to know about what Paris Hilton did last night and where, who flashed its pussy and why and, of course, when and how Michael Jackson will have its nose fall off again.
Well, I am not really crazy about all these topics, but the tool that I use to get technology news can be easily used to get entertainment news as well. After all, we're living in a world that's free, and there are plenty of news available everywhere, especially on the Internet. The difficult task comes when you have to decide what sources deserve your attention and monitore them. Obviously, the tool that I mentioned earlier is a software application, and also a free one...
The name of the RSS reader for the Mac that I came across today is MiNews, its latest version is 1.4, and you don't have to pay anything to use it, since this program is available as freeware. Available as a Universal Binary, MiNews 1.4 is produced by JS8 Media, Inc., a privately held software company from Long Island, New York.
Once you've downloaded the 2.6MB DMG file and mounted it, all you have to do is open the folder corresponding to your version of Mac OS and drag the program to your Applications folder, because MiNews has two different versions, one for Mac OS X Panther, and the other for Tiger. These being said, let's move on and discover what's in the box...
For a Mac application, I can't say that MiNews looks extraordinary, because it doesn't. Saying that it looks bad would also be unfair, and the truth is somewhere in between these two extremes, because this program has a minimal interface, a very basic one, yet it has a clean design, being also easy to use. On the left you can find the feed list and the folders pane, while the news list and the selected item description area are located on the right.
The missing part of this program's interface is the ability to customize it. I am not saying that the customization features are insufficient, because practically, this program's looks can't be changed. Of course, you can resize the window and panes, as well as being able to sort the news based on their date, title, source or status, but this is not enough! What about some visual styles for the future? Or maybe even some interface templates! Anyway, let's leave this problem aside and move on...
MiNews can read RSS newsfeeds and it allows you to add new ones using drag and drop, also giving you the chance to export and import them to and from OPML files. Although it has an internal browsing window, you can't take advantage of tabs, so you'll have to view your news one by one, switching to the main program window before viewing another item into the browser.
As I said before, the strong point of this program is its simplicity, and all the useful controls are only a mouse click away, such as bookmarks, search or text size controls. As a direct consequence, the preferences available are really basic - you can only choose the feed sorting criteria, refresh time and the feeds that should be shown ("Today"," This week" or "This month", these are the options available here).
Creating folders and organizing your news is really straightforward, so if you like to be organized, and you use a lot of news feeds, you will enjoy the feed management features of this program.
Now... should I say more? If you just want to open an application and grab your news, without too much headache and time lost in setting your options and bending the program's features and looks to your will, MiNews could be the right choice, but don't leave before checking the conclusions and screenshots, as usual!
The Good
MiNews is painfully simple, but manages to do its job well, if you don't have high expectations, being a great feed reader for beginners - small, fast, reliable and easy to use.
The Bad
I would really like to have the chance to choose a display style for the news descriptions, as well as an internal browser able to open more feeds simultaneously. Advanced users will feel frustrated by the lack of configuration options.
The Truth
Although I still consider myself a beginner when it comes to news readers, I was fortunate to find Vienna first, and since I have some expectations when using any kind of software, MiNews seems too basic for me. On the other hand, I am sure that my mother would love such a program, as well as all my relatives that use the computer just from time to time, and approach it like I would do with a jet plane...
Check out the screenshots here:
