Multiple Ways to Access Google Reader

Google Reader is a popular web-based feed reader that lacks one feature. A feature I’m sure everyone would love to have available, even if they didn’t use it. To sync with a desktop feed reader. Google seems to be falling behind with this. I stopped using Google Reader for a little while because of it. Now that I found a new way to read feeds on the desktop, I started to use it again. It’s not perfect, but it works.

One way to keep up with feeds is by using your mobile phone. You can access Google Reader on your phone by going to www.google.com/reader/m. If you have an iPhone, then you would go to www.google.com/reader/i.

If you use Firefox frequently, you can also set the sidebar to load Google Reader for the iPhone or the plain mobile one. It’s your choice.

Another way that might be my favorite, although needs issues worked out, is a desktop client called ReadAir, which connects to your Google Reader account. It’s not perfect, though. But, I’m sure eventually it could get pretty close. One of the issues only displays 20 items. Even refreshing does not remove the items you’ve marked as read.

Besides a few issues, ReadAir looks really nice and works very well. It’s not slow unlike viewing feeds in Outlook is. Using ReadAir makes me feel like I’m still using Google Reader, even though it’s on the desktop.

Remote Access to Home or Office

Remote Desktop Connection is one of my favorite tools in Windows, because it allows me to connect to my desktop computer from my laptop when I don’t want to sit at my desk. But, if I wanted to be away from home, there just isn’t a way for me to access my home computer, unless I set it up differently.

Remote access is needed sometimes. This becomes easier when you don’t have to download any software and can do it directly from the browser.

RemotePC makes it easy to setup the host computer and the local computer. There are two separate Remote Access Host installs, one for Vista and one for other versions. I used the one for Vista. On the local computer, installing the Remote Access Viewer is also easy.

With RemotePC, you can invite a guest to access your host computer by sending an e-mail via RemotePC, which will send the guest a license to connect. This license will expire depending on what you choose. The license can be set to never expire as well. I like that, because if I knew I was going to be away from my computer for a long while, this would be a great way to give myself access without worrying that it would expire after a few hours.

On the local computer, you can access the host computer through Remote Access or a web browser. To do this, all you have to do is login to your RemotePC account on the website and it will list the available hosts for you to access. Before connecting, you need to know the host key that you initially created when setting up the host.

After the guest has disconnected, you can delete the license and invite another guest if you choose. If the license is going to expire, you can just let it expire or manually delete it by right clicking on the RemotePC icon in the system tray.

When you aren’t using RemotePC, disable it by right clicking on the icon in the system tray and a little x will appear over the icon. Nice way of knowing when RemotePC is enabled or disabled.

The RemotePC Viewer was a little slow on my laptop. I had to manually disable Aero, because RemotePC did not do this for me, it only disabled the wallpaper. Even after disabling Aero though, it was still a little slow with refreshing.

If you have files that you need to transfer between the host and local computers, RemotePC allows you to do this. This was very easy to do once I realized that Vista prevents me from saving in certain locations, so I just saved to an external hard drive. The file transfer didn’t popup any warning about the file not being transferred, because it had said it completed, even though it hadn’t.

Another product, Remote Meeting, looks like something the company I work for should have. It would be great for meetings with the employees who can’t make it into the office because they are sick or working from home. It includes some really nice features, such as showing/hiding the screen to/from select people. It also allows up to 10 people to share one desktop.

For me, if RemotePC was somewhat faster, it would be a favorite of mine. I’m always looking for ways to access my computer away from home.

Has anyone else used RemotePC and noticed it being slow? I’m curious if something I was running caused this slowness.

Sponsored by RemotePC

Back to Microsoft Office Outlook and NewsGator

Outlook

Over a couple weekends ago I decided to switch back to Outlook because I missed the features like the calendar and tasks. I know, I can have all that with other programs, but why? I like having just one program open that does almost everything!

Another reason I switched is because I hate Thunderbird. Even though it’s the only e-mail client that works perfectly with Gmail IMAP when I have other e-mails forwarded to my Gmail account, I just don’t like Thunderbird. Never have. This could be because I have used Outlook for years. Using Thunderbird felt like I was downgrading.

Outlook isn’t too bad with Gmail IMAP, except that I have to manually select which e-mail address I want to use to send for my other e-mail accounts that are forwarded to my Gmail account. Outlook doesn’t automatically detect this like Thunderbird did when using identities.

I still use Outlook as I used Thunderbird with Gmail IMAP. I just wish I could use the delete button to delete e-mails, instead of always having to drag e-mails into the Gmail Trash folder. Oh well, eventually it will become habit or Microsoft will wake up and let me customize where I want my deleted e-mails to go!

NewsGator

When I had first started using Google Reader, I fell in love with it! I just liked how it worked. But, I just keep forgetting to check my feeds! It would be nice if there was some e-mail notification telling me when I have new feeds every so often. I know I get new feeds daily, but I just need some kind of reminder and notification telling me there is something new to read.

Before Google Reader, I had used NewsGator. During that time the NewsGator plugin wasn’t free to use. But now it is. I thought I would try it again. Because Google Reader doesn’t allow synchronizing, NewsGator sounds even better.

There are new features with the NewsGator plugin for Outlook, such as marking so many feeds as read depending on the age of new posts. This is something that Google Reader is missing and is needed when staring at 1000 new posts that I haven’t checked since a couple weeks ago!

The best part of the NewsGator plugin is that it is used inside of Outlook. This makes life much easier because I only need Outlook open, which I would have open 24/7 anyway, because I always check my e-mail and when I’m working, I use both the calendar and tasks for recording hours.

The only disadvantage when using an offline RSS reader is that it downloads to your hard drive and doesn’t go away unless you delete!

Anyone else prefer Outlook over Thunderbird and/or NewsGator over Google Reader?

Hidden Feature of Windows Vista

It’s been a while since my last post. I have been very busy with work. I’ve also been keeping myself busy learning ActionScript.

Anyway, while working today, Windows Update popped up that little window that says Windows needs to restart. I went to postpone the restart for four hours, except that I accidentally clicked the wrong button.

I started to panic because I had some things open that I didn’t want to lose. Then, the screen showed a list of programs that were still open and asked if I wanted to restart anyway or cancel. I was relieved to see that!

This may not actually be a hidden feature, but I didn’t know about it and it’s not something that appears unless you restart with at least Flash 8 open. In the screenshot below, it says under Flash 8: This program is preventing your computer from restarting.

If you know about this feature, does it work with just Flash, or does it happen with other programs? Is it because I hadn’t saved what was in Flash, so Flash prevented the restart?

Vista Gadget: Wallpatch Video

I just found a Vista Gadget that has become my favorite. It’s difficult finding really good Vista Gadgets.

Wallpatch Video lets me watch movies right on the desktop. Now, I know some of you are thinking that most other players let you watch movies on the desktop, too. But, this is different. I don’t need to open up a player and I can customize the size of the screen and it’s on the desktop and out of the way. No toolbars, borders, or menus in the way. The options only appear when the cursor is over the gadget and auto-hide when the cursor moves off.

It’s very simple to use. I have been looking for something like this for a while. It lets me to continue doing anything else on the computer while the movie is playing.

I don’t know what video types it supports except for AVI, WMV and can play DVDs. It wouldn’t play W4V, which comes from iTunes. I would be very happy if it could!

Go check out Wallpatch Video, which is at version 2.0 now.