ARGH

[mmegaera]

So, I went to read my RSS feeds at The Old Reader just now, and they're shutting down public operations. In two weeks, my page there will go away.

So, I notice that my version of LiveMail has an RSS feed thingy. Given that two RSS feed webpages have gone belly up on me this month (Google Reader, although I left them last spring when they said they were shutting down in July, and now The Old Reader), I'm wondering how to use this RSS feed thing on LiveMail, because it won't go away, at least as long as I keep using this version of LiveMail. I don't do anything with my RSS feed reader except, well, read my feeds, so I don't need the social stuff GR and TOR provided. I never used that part.

But I'm not sure how to go about transferring my feeds to LiveMail's reader, or how to find out. Also, when I transferred a sample RSS feed to LiveMail, it insisted that there weren't any new posts to read when I knew there were. I would need to know how to fix this, as well as transfer my OPML file to it.

Help? Or is this a supremely bad idea and should I go looking for yet another third party website for my RSS reading? And if so what guarantee am I going to have that I won't be going through this again in another month?

Oh, and I'm reminded in a comment that Feedly did not turn out to be a viable option for me the last go round, so if I do end up using another third party reader, it's going to have to be something else.

Please, someone, anyone? The days are counting down till I won't be able to read my RSS feeds anymore!

ETA: Well, I tried Feedly again because I literally didn't know what else to do, and so far it seems to be working okay -- I don't know what I did last time, but now, as long as Feedly stays afloat, I should be okay. [crosses fingers]

Comments

[annathepiper]

I was pretty sure TOR was in trouble when they fell over so hard because of the hardware failures--and then had erratic performance even after they came back. I feel for 'em. It's gotta be a massive pain in the ass having their lives eaten by a project that's turned into a monster for them, since as near as I can tell there's only the two of them working on it and they can't keep up.

I'm sniffing around Feedly now mostly because talking to it seems to be the direction most of the various available iOS apps are going. But I'm still using my TOR account. We'll have to see what happens when TOR goes private or whatever they're going to do; I don't know if my account with them will vanish or what.

I'd LIKE for NetNewsWire to finally release its new version. I keep hearing they're working on a sync solution of their own, and I keep NNW around on my Mac for being able to read friendslocked journals.

[mmegaera]

Yeah, I was beginning to have my doubts, too. Alas, I'm a Windows person, so I can't use NetNewsWire, so far as I can tell.

I really do wonder what else I can do.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, it's a Mac-only app, sadly. Even the new version on the way is Mac-specific.

I haven't had to pay attention to Windows-based RSS apps so I'm not aware of many off the top of my head. At one point I think Outlook did RSS but I wouldn't recommend using it as a reader.

And I'm pretty sure Mozilla's mail client Thunderbird does RSS, but I haven't actually investigated it directly.

I tend to prefer using computer-side clients only for authenticated feeds, anyway. I do like having a web-side solution, and other than Feedly and TOR I'm not aware of too many others.

[mmegaera]

Thunderbird and I had a knock-down drag-out fight last year and I ended up uninstalling it, so that's definitely not an option.

I don't have the money for Outlook, so that's a moot point, anyway.

I'm wending my way through the Microsoft comms trying to find out how to make LiveMail's RSS feeder work properly, so far with no success whatsoever. Why is it whenever I post a question over there, very carefully listing my OS and relevant program versions (this time even in boldface), the people who answer only answer to ask me my OS and program versions??? Eventually, in the past, I have pulled answers out of them (generally with pliers), but this never fails.

[annathepiper]

Since this post of yours went up TOR managed to get its shit together, so yay! Here's hoping they manage to keep it that way.

But yeah, that kind of first-tier tech-support scripted answers always drive me bonkers, too.

[mmegaera]

I ended up making Feedly work for me (the first time I tried it, after Google Reader went belly up, the only thing I could figure out was that it wanted me to download an app to use it, which is not what I wanted, but when I went back after TOR said it was going to close down, it turned out to be a web interface after all), but yeah.

Reading the actual question really isn't all that difficult.

[annathepiper]

I wound up making a Feedly account myself once I learned that they did indeed have a web-only interface, so I'll probably punt to that if TOR falls over permanently.

[mmegaera]

Feedly actually runs a lot faster than TOR does for me, too, so I don't think I'll be going back.