NewsFire 1.6 (v84) is a FREE newsreader application by David Watanabe. It is an easy to use, simple, minimalistic newsreader for Mac OS X Leopard. To download NewsFire, go to http://www.newsfirerss.com/. The site gives a snippet of information about NewsFire along with the download button, but no support or FAQs are offered.

When you first open NewsFire, your feeds are on the left panel and a blank screen on the right. Just click on one of your feeds in the list on the left and the right will display the items in the feed. Mouse to a feed item you want to read and the list disappears and shows the item only. You can use your left and right arrow keys to navigate to the previous or next feed or use your mouse to click the arrows in the top right hand corner. Clicking on the feed heading will open the actual article in your default browser. You can also hit the Next button. I’m not sure what the purpose is of having the Next button along side the arrows.

Adding a feed is simple. Click on the ‘+’ sign in the bottome left hand corner and a popup window will give you the option to enter the URL address, a name for the feed, and if you want to add it to a group. Click ‘Add’ and its in your list.
If you have an OPML file of feeds, you can import them into NewsFire by clicking File<Import and the Finder window opens for you to find the file.
NOTE: To create an OPML file of your Google Reader feeds, just click on Manage Subscriptions in Google Reader, then Import/Export tab and select ‘Export your subscriptions as an OPML file. Once the file is saved to your desired location, change the .xml to .opml in order to import your feeds into NewsFire. Once you do this, NewsFire will display a popup window displaying the feeds found. Select the feeds you want to import and click ‘Add’.

One of the features of NewsFire is groups. All you do is click on the ‘+’ sign and click on ‘Group’ tab in the popup window. Name the group and hit OK. Then, just drag the feeds into the folder.

If you want to create a Smart Feed, click on the ‘+’ sign and click the ‘Smart Feed’ tab. Enter a name for the Smart Feed, choose your desired custom rules (similar to Finder and iTunes smart folders) and click on ‘Add’.

In order to decide how often to refresh a feed, just double click the feed from your list on the left and a popup window will display how often to refresh, how long to keep the item, and to only show current options.

Another is the ability to download podcast from your RSS feeds into your iTunes library.

Need to know the URL of the current site your viewing? You are able to do so in NewsFire by hovering your mouse over the feed title and in the status bar, you will see the URL for that feed.

Want to search for a certain term, say ‘Apple?’ Just type in the term in the search bar on the bottom right and NewsFire will display feed items that contain the term your searching.

NewsFire also allows you to sort your feeds. You can sort by number of new items (F1), or by most recent new items (F2), or by name (F3).

If you want to post an article you read in your feed, just click on the little communication bubble next to the left/right arrows in the upper right hand and it will give you a Twitter box with the information you want to tweet about with the URL shortened via bit.ly and how many characters you have left to use.

You can flag items to save by going to the menu bar, click on Items<Flag Current Item or use the keyboard shortcut keys Command + L. You would probably want to make a Smart Feed containing only Flagged Items. I am not sure how else you would find your Flagged Feeds.

CUSTOMIZING NEWSFIRE

In NewsFire Preferences, the Interaction tab allows the options of the functions used. Options like what pressing the space bar will do, what you want to happen when clicking on a list item, opening the web browser, etc.

The Appearance tab allows you to choose the appearance of the feed list, appearance of the item list, the mouse highlight color, content font size and if you want the dock icon to show the number of unread items.

The Feeds tab allows you to choose how often to refresh tweets, if you want to bounce the dock icon or play a sound when new items appear, when to delete items, and if you want to use Spotlight to index your content.

The Twitter tab is where you enter your Twitter username/password. Also, clicking on Join Twitter opens up your browser to join Twitter if you don’t have an account.

Overall, NewsFire is good for those of you who want simplicity. It is fairly easy to use right away and has a nice interface. I prefer using a newsreader that gives me more control over my feeds along with the ability to sync with Google Reader. If anyone uses NewsFire and would like to share their experience or frustrations about it, feel free to leave a comment and share the wealth with our fellow readers.

I use Google Reader for all of my RSS feeds. I have decided to venture outside of the usual browser and check out the various desktop newsreaders available. So, this week, I am focusing on some of the best readers.
Starting the list is NetNewsWire 3.1.7 by NewsGator (NNW for short). This is a really good reader, in fact it is top on the list. It has an easy-to-use interface and syncs with Google Reader.

PREFERENCES

General:

Reading Tab: Here is where you would decide if you want to show unread count on your Dock icon, choose how to display Updated items, like Mark as unread or Highlight differences. Also, you can decide if you want to collapse new items in Combined View layout or choose how many items to show per page.

Archiving Tab: You would choose to save news items as HTML files on your disk from here and decide how long to keep new items in NetNewsWire.

Browsing:

Behavior Tab: This is where you choose to open links. Your default browser or the NetNewsWire browser, among other items (see image).

News Items Tab: You can enable plug-ins, java, and JavaScript from here and choose your style sheet.
Web Pages Tab:  Again, you can choose to enable plug-ins, Java and JavaScript along with using a custom style sheet.

Colors:

You can change the colors in this section. It’s pretty self explanatory.

Fonts:

General Tab: Here is where you change the subscription, headlines, summaries, datelines and combined view title fonts.
News Items Tab: Choose the standard and fixed-width fonts and the minimum font size here.
Web Pages Tab: Again, you can change the standard and fixed-width fonts along with the minimum font size.

Posting:

This is where you change your settings to post to your weblog and Delicious. For posting to a weblog, you can choose your own application. For posting to Delicious, it offers you the choice to pick from the default browser, NetNewsWire, Cocoalicious, Postr, Pukka, or WebnoteHappy.

Downloading:

Feeds Tab: Change how often to refresh all subscriptions and concurrent downloads.
Enclosures Tab: Decide if you want to automatically download podcasts and add to the iTunes library or other enclosure settings in this tab.
Adding to iTunes Tab: You decide how your audio enclosure will be added to your iTunes library from here.
Downloads Folder Tab: This is where you set the folder for downloads to be sent.

Syncing:

Have NetNewsWire Sync with Google Reader by entering your Google Username/Password and merge the subscriptions.

ADDING FEED SUBSCRIPTIONS

If NetNewsWire is your default RSS reader, you can add a feed by clicking on the RSS icon in the address bar. You can add feeds to NetNewsWire by clicking on the RSS icon in the web site. Another way is to copy the link in your browsers address bar and click the ‘+’ (Subscribe) button in NetNewsWire to add the desired feed.

SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTIONS

NetNewsWire gives you the option to add Special Subscriptions. Your options are Search Engine, Tag, Local File, or Script. (I only tried out the Search Engine and Tag subscriptions.) Here is how it worked for me:

I clicked on File<New Subscription<Search Engine and typed in Apple and chose Yahoo from the choices offered (Blogdigger, Twitter, or Yahoo) and hit Subscribe. NetNewsWire brought up News articles about Apple from Yahoo and saved it as its own feed.
Then, I clicked on File<New Subscription<Tag and typed in geektool and selected from the choiced offered (Delicious, Flickr, and Technorati) and hit subscribe. NetNewsWire brought up all pictures with geektool as a tag and saved it as its own feed. Pretty cool.

PODCASTS

If you subscribe to feeds that contain podcasts, NetNewsWire allows you to either download the podcast to iTunes or to your designated download folder (to play on your own player). Here are a few of the sites that I get podcast feeds from:

http://www.podcastalley.com/
http://www.jordomedia.com/
http://www.podfeed.net/
http://podcast.com/

You would subscribe to these feeds just like you would a normal feed.

VIEWING YOUR RSS FEEDS

When you first open NetNewsWire, you will see the feeds displayed in a list on the left, along with the number of unread articles displayed next to each feed. When you select a feed, the panel to the right displays the articles in that feed. By default, the unread articles will appear bold. When you select an article, you will see either a summary, then entire article, or nothing (depending on the feed) in the panel to the right which is your preview area.

READING ARTICLES

When you double click on an article, it will open the full article on the feed’s Web site, which you can view in either your preferred browser or within NetNewsWire’s build in web browser. (You can decide which browser to use in the preferences.) You will also see tabs that can appear at either the top of the browsing area or as a thumbnail on the right side of the window, depending on your personal preference.
Another nice feature is the ability to use your keyboard’s arrow keys to browse your feeds. The left and right arrows move between the subscription and article lists. The up and down arrows are used to select a subscription or an article. Pressing return opens the selected article.

VIEWING FEEDS AVAILABLE FROM THE DOCK

When you right click on the dock icon, you be given a view of the unread count at the top, the option to Refresh All News, Mark All News as Read, Subscribe…, View items inside your Feed Folders, among the usual dock options. When you highlight a folder, the feeds available will be displayed. Hit your return key and it will open the item in the NetNewsWire browser (unless you have your preferred browser as default).

INLINE SUMMARIES AND DATELINES

You can choose to show summaries and datelines in the headlines to make going through your feeds faster. To do this, simply go to the menu bar and click on View<Layout and you can choose to show Summaries In-Line, Show Summaries Below Title or Show Datelines.

VERSATILE HEADLINE LIST

You can add date, subject, and creator columns to the headlines list and sort them however you choose. To do this, just go to the menu bar and click on View<Columns and choose from Source, Date, Subject, Creator or all of them. It’s your reader, so you can tweak it to suit your needs.

SORTING

You have a variety of sorting options.
To sort your list, you go to View<Sort By and then your options are Date, Source, Subject, Creator, Title or Arrival Order.
You also have the option to sort your subscriptions. You do this by choosing View<Sort Subscriptions By and then your choices are Name, Unread Count, Attention, Last Update, Manual Order or Sort Inside Folders Only.

SMART LISTS

Using smart lists are similar to your Finders Smart Folders or the Smart Playlists in iTunes. To create a Smart List, just click on the cog wheel located on the bottom left hand corner, you will then see a menu. Scroll up and click on ‘New Smart List.‘  A window will pop up for you to start creating your own Smart List. First, type in a name for you Smart List. Then you will go to the first drop down menu and choose from the following options: “Title, Description, or Summary,” “Title,” “Description,” “Summary,” “Link,” “Permalink,” “Creator,” “Subject,” “Comments URL,” “Flagged Status,” “Read Status,” “Followed Status,” “Subscription Name,” “Subscription Feed URL,” “Subscription Home URL,” “Enclosure URL,” “Enclosure Type,” and “Group Name.” After you choose the setting you desire, you will go to the next drop down menu and choose from the following: contains, does not contain, is, is not, starts with, or ends with. Then, if you want, you can add more settings by clicking the ‘+’ sign and go through the same drop down menus until you have the Smart List you desire. NOTE: You can also create a new Smart List by going to File<New Smart List or use the keyboard shortcut Option+Command+N.

FLAGGED ITEMS

You can flag items in several different ways. One way is to have the article you want to flag open. You can either go to the menu bar and click on News<Mark<As Flagged OR use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Command+L OR right click on the article in the article list and click on ‘Mark as Flagged’ OR customize the toolbar and place the Flag in the toolbar for one-click access.
What is cool about flagging items is that they stay forever or can be removed once you mark them as unflagged.

CLIPPINGS

Clippings provide special folders for ‘storing’ articles you want to read later. When you’re viewing an article that you want to clip, just click on the Add To Clippings button (if it isn’t in your toolbar, you can add it by customizing your toolbar), or by pressing Command+Option+S. or just drag the article to the Clippings folder.

LAYOUTS

You can view your feeds articles in either the Traditional view where the preview area appears below the article list (sort of like Mail’s email preview), Widescreen view where the preview is on the right, and finally, a Combined view, which display each article below its title in a scrolling list.

TABS

When viewing articles in tab view, you can choose to have vertical tabs with the thumbnails or the horizontal tabs (no thumbnails).

STYLES

You can choose from dozens of visual themes that determine how articles are displayed within NetNewsWire from fonts and font sizes, layouts, colors, and more.

POSTING TO WEBLOG

NetNewsWire makes it easy to post to a weblog. The first thing you would want to do is choose which weblog you prefer to use. You do this in the Preferences under Posting. You can either use MarsEdit or you can choose whatever desktop weblog application you have. Then, after making sure your settings are the way you want it, choose the article you want to write about by hitting the return key to open the article in the browser and then you click on the Post to Weblog button in the toolbar. From your weblog application, you can make changes as necessary. If you just click on add to weblog without opening the article, it will open the link along with the summary in your weblog application.

SYNCING

The selling point for NetNewsWire is the ability to sync with Google Reader. Not to mention, that if you have NetNewsWire on your iPhone/iPod Touch, you can sync with those as well.

TRACKING CHANGES

NetNewsWire has the ability to track changes when articles are updated. If a site creates a new version of an article, any deletions are displayed with a red strikethrough type and the new additions are displayed in green.

REPORTS

You can view reports that show how much time you give to a feed and which feeds haven’t been updated (which you can decide the timeframe for the report), to help you decide which feeds are worth keeping and which are out the door. To do this, you go to Window and click on either Dinosaurs, Most Attention, Least Attention or Bandwidth Stats (they are all in the same pop up window). Once the (Dinosaur tab) window is displayed, you can change the number of days for feeds that haven’t been updated by just typing in a number. To view the most/least attention, just click on the Attention tab and then you can sort the list by clicking on the Score column (with the arrow on it).In the Bandwidth Stats tab, you can view the results any way you want by clicking on any of the column headers. At the bottom of all the tabbed windows, you have the option to Open Home Page, Reveal in Subscriptions or Unsubscribe.

SCRIPTING

If you know how to create a script (AppleScript, Perl, Python, or shell) that generates an RSS feed, a Script subscription will periodically run the script and display its results. I am unfortunately not that script-savvy so I do not know how this function works.

AD-FREE VERSION OR FREE

You can pay for an ad-free version (which I believe is $14.95) or try NetNewsWire for free which has all the features as the paid version with the exception of a small ad on in the lower left side corner of your screen. You can get your copy by clicking on the icon or go to http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/ for the download and more information.

IPHONE APPLICATION

There are two versions for the iPhone. The paid version, which is $4.99 or the FREE version (which I use).

I have compiled a table of the keyboard shortcuts available for download. Click the PDF icon to download.

Even though NetNewsWire has a few things to learn about, it is a really useful tool. My favorite features are that it syncs with both Google Reader and my iPhone, I like that I can use my keyboard throughout the interface, it has many useful tools like setting up folders, along with the smart folders and much more. This is by far my favorite desktop reader application. If anybody out there wants to share their experiences and tips about NetNewsWire, please leave a comment and share the wealth with our fellow readers.

Sometimes, you want some of your useful apps to be handy. There’s an app for that. One that will stay in your menu bar, always ready for you. This is a list of what’s in my menu bar.

GeekTool
This is an awesome System Pref Pane tool for Mac OS X which allows you to display lots of different bits of information directly on your desktop. It comes with three modules: the file,  shell, and image plugins. Each of these can be used to display the contents of files on your desktop (like log files), the output of shell scripts, and image graphics (like RRD or MRTG graphs). I use this tool for ALL of my desktop customizations.

Anxiety
This is probably the quickest way to view your iCal to-do list. Just click on Anxiety’s menu bar icon and it will display your lists on the desktop. You can also add items to your list through the use of this tool.

aLunch
This menu bar tool is an application and file launcher. You can set up different folders for certain applications. I have all my Adobe apps in the Adobe file, iWork and iLife apps in its own file, Microsoft with its apps, etc., etc. It also shows Active apps in the top of the drop down menu and you can customize this tool to your liking.

AllBookmarks
This tool gives you quick access to all of your bookmarks. All your Safari, Firefox and Flock bookmarks are shown and can be selected from within the menu bar and opens in your default browser.

WeatherDock2
This tool has many features that allow you to display weather information any way you like.
You can have your weather display in a window, in the menu bar, in the dock, or on the desktop with full customization. It works by displaying weather information based on xml-feeds from weather.com®. It displays textual weather information as well as icon-based information. This tool has so many features, I can’t list them all!

Bowtie
This tool allows you to control iTunes with shortcuts. It also submits your latest songs listened to in iTunes to your  Last.fm account (if you have an account with them). There are also a few cool themes for Bowtie.

Growl
This tool is a notification system for Mac OS X that allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications. (Notifications are a way for your apps to provide you with new information without having to switch from an application you are already in.) You have complete control over what notifications are shown and how they are displayed. If you don’t want to receive any notifications from an application, just uncheck it and it turns off the notification for that app. It automatically starts when you start your Mac (which can also be shut off, but that would defeat the purpose). All of your notification preferences are centralized into its preference pane (which happens to also be in system prefs) which makes it easier to control them all in one place.

Yahoo Widgets
This tool is similar to Dashboard widgets, except they stay on your desktop (if you want them to). Yahoo has a HUGE list of widgets that you can choose from. You can also have the Yahoo dock which houses all of your widgets start up with your Mac. This dock can be moved wherever you’d like in its preferences. There are lots of cool widgets to choose from.

iStat
This tool provides you with a quick glance of your CPU, Memory, Network, Disk, and Heat Sinks all from the menu bar. You can decide what you want to display in the menu bar inside your System Prefs.  This is a very cool system monitoring tool.

F.lux
This tool makes the color of your display adapt to the time of day. When the sun sets, F.lux makes your computer look like indoor lighting.  In the morning, you have the sunlight effect. When you install it, you can set the kind of lighting you have in the preferences and thats it. F.lux does the rest automatically. You also have the option to disable it (when you’re watching movies or designing works of art – LOL).

All of the menu bar applications mentioned are FREE!!! To go to the link to download an app, just click on the name of the app and you will be directed to the download page of the application. Also, as usual, you can click on the thumbnail of the pictures to view them larger. This concludes my list of menu bar apps, what’s on YOUR menu bar?
-TINA

I’ve decided to wait on upgrading my Mac OS X (Leopard) to the newer version Snow Leopard. Why? I figured that I would wait for Apple work out some of the bugs before I upgrade. I am also making sure that most of the apps that I have on my Mac will work on the new Snow Leopard before upgrading. So, I have been modding my MacBook (you know, the screen, the docks, the icons, the folders, etc.) and came across Magnifique.

What is Magnifique?

Magnifique is a nice little app for theming your OS X. Best of all, it is absolutely FREE! Here are a few examples of some of Magnifique’s features: (Click on the link to see the image of that item.)

• It includes a free theme manager from within the application.
• It saves themes that you have downloaded for easier applying when you’re ready to change Finder or Dock themes.
• Magnifique also offers developers an opportunity to convert their themes into a Magnifique (.mfq) format and provides support for their distribution through the website.
• It has a preview pane for viewing themes before installing or applying new or downloaded themes. (note: not all themes offer previews.)
• Easy to activate themes from within the app via the ‘Restart Finder’ or ‘Restart Dock’ features. (Although if you are running any applications during an installation, you may have to restart those applications.)
• It allows you to mix themes with the Theme Mixer.

Those are the main features of this application. You’re probably wondering how to install the theme and use it. Not to worry, here is a brief explanation of how to use the Magnifique application.

When you launch Magnifique, you want to download some themes. These are located on the bottom of the Available Downloads on the bottom left panel of the screen. From this panel, you can choose which theme you’d like to download (this does not apply the theme, it just downloads it to your ‘My Themes’ panel above the ‘Available Downloads’ panel). When looking through the available themes, you will be able to preview what the theme will look like in the preview pane to the right side of the screen. Once you have downloaded the theme you like, it will appear in the ‘My Themes’ panel. Just select the theme from that list and click ‘Apply Now.’ It’s that easy!

Now you will be presented with a dialog box in which you can either apply the system theme (which themes the windows, menu bar, etc.), apply the custom mods (which are applications mods to match the theme, like QuickTime or iTunes), and/or apply the Dock theme (which themes your Dock) with the chosen theme. Then, you click ‘Apply Theme.’ If you ever want to revert your revert your Mac back to its normal state, just press the ‘Uninstall Theme’ button in the bottom right corner of the window. Then just restart any open application or re-log in to see the changes. Another nice feature that I forgot to mention is the ‘Theme Mixer.’ It allows you to choose different elements from different themes and apply them as one custom theme. You know, a window theme from one, the custom application mods from another, the dock from another. Then, you can save the theme and apply it to your Mac.

Some words of caution:

Remember that there are potential risks when theming your Mac. The files that are necessary for theming could harm your Mac. Make sure you keep a backup of your files. Magnifique is an interesting application and should be used with care. If you apply a theme and it damages your default OS X theme, there’s not much you can do, so again…..make sure to backup, backup, backup.

I use Magnifique for many of my desktop customizations and haven’t had any problems; but, again… you must backup your files! Thanks for reading!

-TINA

To download your copy of Magnifique, click the icon below to go to the website.