News Readers and other Handy Utilities

Abstract

MY DAILY ritual at the office starts with reading the morning news using Internet Explorer (IE) with a customized homepage at Netscape.com. I used to use Netscape's browser, but, after installing Mac OS X, I didn't like the way it worked -- or, rather, didn't work. If you haven't gone to the trouble of customizing a homepage, I encourage you to do so. My homepage has three columns, with panes or sections for news such as CNN Main Top Stories, CNN Tech, Market News from CBS Market Watch, Top News from Netscape, Tech News from ZDNet, and, of course, current weather in three cities from the Weather Channel. See what you are missing if you don't customize your home page? I am not especially happy with IE and prefer Apple's Safari browser, but I have been putting off upgrading it since it requires me to upgrade my entire operating system to OS 10.3. As I mentioned in a previous column, Safari is three to four times faster than either IE or Netscape. I tried to download FireFox 0.9.3, the new browser from mozilla.org, but I could not get it to install. By all reports, FireFox is the browser to have. But again, I will probably need to upgrade my operating system -- I must stop procrastinating. If you are using FireFox, I would like to hear from you. I doubt that I will change my routine, but lately I have been trying out an Internet News Reader. An Internet News Reader is a small program that reads various RSS news feeds from all over the Internet. Depending on whom you ask, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary -- probably the latter. But Web browsers don't read RSS feeds; instead, Internet News Readers do. A number of these readers are available as free or inexpensive downloads. I use NetNewsWire on my Mac (http://ranchero.com/netnewswire). Those who use PCs might try such readers as FeedReader, NewzCrawler, or AmphetaDesk. (The last works for PCs, Macs, and Linux systems.) After you download and install a news reader, you simply select the feeds you want. Most readers come with a fairly comprehensive list of feeds to choose from. If yours doesn't have the RSS feed from your favorite news source, simply use your browser to go to your favorite news site and use the site's search button to find RSS. For example, if you do this at National Public Radio (www.npr.org), you will find the RSS feed address for NPR Top Stories is www.npr.org/rss/rss.php?catId=2. Highlight and copy this address; then paste it into the Add Feed or Add Channels menu of your news reader. There are advantages and disadvantages to using an Internet News Reader instead of a Web browser. The major advantage is that you can read the headlines and short summaries of news articles from dozens of sources quickly. I find it fascinating to compare what various news organizations consider to be their stories. For example, on August 10, the BBC News had substantially more international top than any other source. Having students compare various news sources from around the world would certainly be an excellent social studies or media literacy activity. Another advantage to news readers is that you get a short text-only summary of the news, with less advertising. If you want to read the entire news article, you simply click on the provided link and your Web browser takes you to the originating site, such as the site for the New York Times or the Christian Science Monitor. I should also mention that there are news feeds in several languages other than English. About the only real drawback to news readers is that the software opens your browser whenever you want to read the entire text of a news article. And if you are a news junkie, there is another disadvantage: you can while away hour after hour with a news reader. I read news stories so long that I almost didn't meet the deadline for this column! A good source of useful information on RSS news feeds is located at Harvard (http://blogs. …