Short Nerd Chief

I’ve been using the new NewsGator Inbox 3.0 RSS reader for Outlook for a few days, and had high hopes for the product, which is now free.  Reading posts within Outlook seems a natural extension of the email client, and it sync nicely with NewsGator Online.  Unfortunately, two show-stoppers have led me to uninstall the software, neither of which are really NewsGator’s fault.

First, the server here runs through a filtering appliance, and NewsGator throws an error when updating unless I first go to NewsGator Online, invoking the filter.  I thus end up having both the web version and Outlook product open, defeating the purpose.  This won’t be a problem for many, but is a problem for me.

Second, because NG Inbox uses Outlook, it suffers from Outlook’s infirmities.  Specifically, if there are new messages in an Outlook subfolder, Outlook won’t show them in the parent folder when the Folder List is collapsed.  That’s a complicated way of saying that I can’t tell when there are new posts in a subfolder unless I keep the folder list expanded all the time.  That’s not NewsGator’s fault - the same behavior holds true for email folders and email messages.  Unfortunately, it makes managing feeds difficult the way I prefer to use a reader.

I’ve downloaded NewsGator’s stand-alone client, FeedDemon, and will give that a spin before going back to Google Reader.