NetNewsWire, the Mac OS X RSS client from Newsgator, has reached version 3.2, bringing out of Beta the application's Google Reader support.

Formerly used to connect to Newsgator's own servers, NetNewsWire entered a period of rapid change on 30th July, when it was announced on Newsgator's blog that the consumer back end service was to be discontinued on August 31st 2009.

Although NetNewsWire has always been a great application, I think many users, like me, were torn between the excellent online service that Google Reader offered and the leading desktop client experience provided by NetNewsWire. Thankfully the shift by Newsgator to the Google Reader back-end made this problem go away. Hurrah!

As well as Google Reader compatibility, Instapaper posting, the ability to subscribe to authenticated feeds, improved Snow Leopard compatibility and a host of tweaks and fixes, the new release makes another significant change - the move to an ad supported model. Previously NetNewsWire was completely free, however there is now a small advertisement in the bottom left corner that can be removed by registering for the very reasonable price of $9.95.

Newsgator's Windows client FeedDemon has also undergone the same changes (and shares the same pricing model), as we covered earlier today.

It was a pretty big deal in the RSS world when NewsGator, the company behind two of the most popular desktop feed readers, decided to drop its web app and syncing services and sync with Google Reader instead. NewsGator's web version was scheduled to go dark August 31st, but fans of the service are getting a short reprieve.

The web reader will now shut down September 10th, instead. Why? Well, the new Google-friendly versions of NetNewsWire (Mac and iPhone) and FeedDemon (Windows) aren't quite ready for release yet.

While September 10 is the target date, NewsGator promised in an email not to turn off its web services until the desktop apps are ready. This gives NewsGator web users a little more time to run through the (pretty simple) transition instructions and get a Google Reader account set up. Make sure you don't waste that extra time and miss the opportunity to migrate your account and shared clippings to Google.

It's sad to see NewsGator go, especially if you hate using Google Reader. On the other hand, it seems pretty obvious that Google Reader's userbase is huge, and this move gives NetNewsWire and FeedDemon a chance to pick up some of those users for themselves. Personally, I never used Google Reader because I couldn't sync NetNewsWire with it, and, and if I'm not alone, Google might get a few new users out of the deal, too.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

It hasn't been all that long since I wrote about 10 excellent themes for my favorite Mac newsreader, NetNewsWire. In that time, though, I've discovered a new style that I think is the best yet. It's Bullitt, designed by Cameron Hunt of cameron.io. Cameron is also responsible for some of the most popular (and best-designed) Tumblr themes in the universe.

The main selling points of Bullitt all have to do with readability. Column widths are optimised for your viewing pleasure, and images up to 700px should fit comfortably into the layout. Titles are handled with a neat, elegant slab-serif, and each site's favicon is displayed in the heading. The overall look is extremely easy on the eyes; this is definitely my favorite style for reading long articles. Even more attractive, Bullitt uses css ad-blocking (as if it weren't clean enough already!)

I still endorse the 10 styles I covered before, and this sort of thing is definitely a matter of taste. If none of those really struck your fancy, though, give Bullitt a try. After using it for a few weeks, I can't imagine going back to anything else.

There are two major differences between the simulator and the real iPhone that are at play here. One is the computer speed and the other internet connection speed. Even the slowest MacBook Air runs faster than the iPhone and thus any performance issue would be masked. Likewise with internet connection, there is no straightforward way to simulate the speed and latency of a EDGE connection and therefore any deficiency of the code in the app would not be exposed until the developers try it out on the real iPhone with spotty EDGE connection.

Twitterrific suffers from both of these problems. The scrolling performance of the message list is so jerky and slow that initially I thought there was something wrong with my iPhone. As I waited patiently for the list to scroll up and down, I also noticed that Twitterrific loads and re-loads every single user picture, even if it has previously been loaded. I stared at my iPhone in dis-belief because I could not comprehend how any sane developers would be as inefficient as that. My hunch that the reloading issue is tied to connection speed was confirmed last night when I got home and connected to the net via wi-fi. Both scrolling and picture reloading sped up because of the much faster connection I have at home.

Have you been spending the week trying to convince your friends and family that you're not only staying in the race so that you can have some leverage in your campaign for the vice presidency? Then here are a few stories you might have missed. Don't worry, it's happened to all of us at one point or another.

• Microsoft: Would you use our search engine for a shiny new nickel?
  This week could go down in history as the week when Microsoft finally gave up on trying to get people to use its search engine because it's good and just decided to start bribing users. But we're guessing most people will probably forget about Microsoft's cash back offer for items found using the company's product search offer and go back to using better known product search sites.
• VLC's latest version:81,297,899 and rising
  Need a video player? Try VLC. How about an audio player? Try VLC. Need something that will open almost any format and has browser plugins for Firefox and Internet Explorer? Yeah, you know the rest.
• Hungarian student throws eggs at Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
  Honestly, we're still not entirely sure why this guy was throwing eggs at Ballmer and not, say, the government officials he's accusing of wasting money on Microsoft products. But the video's fun to watch. And isn't that what really matters?
• Flipping the Linux Switch: Switching, literally, with Ulteo Virtual Desktop
  Want to run some Linux apps, but aren't ready to give up Windows? Ulteo's got you covered with a new virtual desktop product that runs Linux applications inside of Windows. And much to our surprise and delight, Ulteo Virtual Desktop does this quite seamlessly.
• Tag Galaxy: Spacy way to browse Flickr
  Tag Galaxy makes browsing Flickr a whole new experience. Just enter a search term, and watch as related keywords float across the screen. Zoom in and you can see a series of thumbnails. But honestly, words don't do Tag Galaxy justice. Just check it out for yourself. It's that cool.
• 10 Fresh NetNewsWire styles
  If there's one thing we love more than nifty visualizations, (see above), it's nifty skins. And OS X RSS reader NetNewsWire is fully skinnable, so we went on a skinning binge this week and found 10 themes that completely change the look and feel of one of our favorite desktop applications.

How many of you subscribe to an RSS feed because you liked one post you read? Raise your hands please. No, seriously, raise your hands please. Now how many of you stay subscribed to that feed because you're either too lazy to unsubscribe, don't know how to unsubscribe, or don't want to hurt the bloggers' feelings by unsubscribing? Us too.

NewsGator is coming to our rescue!

Starting today, NewsGator, NetNewsWire, and FeedDemon will start recommending stories and feeds for you to read and subscribe to.

Using some Harry Potter magic sauce from a company called SenseArray, NewsGator will start showing you suggestions based on things that other people think are interesting. Hooray!

What's the catch? Well, to make this technology smarter, you'll have to interact with your feeds a little. That's OK. We know that the earth isn't run by Terminators machines...yet. Right now, SenseArray's technology uses forward and share numbers, as well as tags and comment data to calculate what might interest you. You'll be able to thumbs up and thumbs down stories to customize the experience though, so no worries. Rage against the machine, y'all!

Soon, NewsGator hopes to accurately predict your tastes, even before you know what your tastes are.

It looks like the company is also hoping to help us deal with our severe information overload (the 3% of us junkies) by letting us unsubscribe to those dormant feeds that we don't like anymore and keep us up to date with the Right Stuff. The stuff we'll actually, you know...read?

Oh, and no worries, it's not just for the geeks. Their new recommendation service will cover Top News, Entertainment, Sports, Fun Stuff, Science and Technology. While we're not sure what "Fun Stuff" actually is, we'll wait for T2 to suggest something.

Oh and please feel free to subscribe to the Downloadsquad feed. We're humans.

Now that a lot of people are spending as much time looking at their RSS readers as their web browsers or email clients, it's probably a good idea to give your reader an appearance you can live with. If you happen to use NetNewsWire, one of the most popular RSS apps for OS X, you've got plenty of stylesheets to choose from.

NetNewsWire supports CSS styles, so it's not too difficult to code your own if you happen to have some CSS experience. If you're a CSS newbie, though, don't sweat it: there are plenty of looks to choose from. We went beyond the preloaded styles and picked out some options that should please even the pickiest readers. Some of them not only change the look of NetNewsWire, but add some useful functionality as well. Take a look at our top 10 themes.

Monday Google unveiled yet another beta site. Google Reader is now formatted for the iPhone. iPhone users tired of pinching and stretching and tapping text only links in the normal version of Reader or dealing with the plain Classic mobile version of Reader can head over to http://www.google.com/reader/i/ to check out the new beta site.

With the iPhone-enabled web-app, Google joins Ask.com in the web-based RSS reader marketplace. Ask.com's Bloglines has had an iPhone version available to users since July 19, 2007. iBloglines was created with less than a 1000 lines of code on a lark by an internal developer who bought an iPhone and wanted better access to the site.

How many of the applications you use on a daily basis are web-based as opposed to locally installed native applications? For me, the answer is way more than I ever would have expected.

Had you asked me this question a few years ago, I would have vehemently denied that the future of development is on the web. As much as I could see and understand the value of a ubiquitously available web-based application, there's just no way to approach the level of power and integration (not to mention the ability to be always-available) that is possible with well conceived and developed desktop software.

Of course, back then I didn't imagine that web applications could become as useful as Google Calendar or Remember the Milk. I also didn't imagine that light - yet still useful - versions of these apps would be available from my mobile phone almost wherever I was.

In fact, and much to my surprise, today most of my personal data today is tied up in online services: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Backpack, Remember the Milk, Facebook, Newsgator, and Evernote to name just a few.

Most of these are probably pretty familiar names, but one is a newcomer in the web space: Evernote. Still in beta, the new version of Evernote contains a full-featured web version, but synchronizes seamlessly with desktop software on either Windows or Mac platforms. And it's a breath of fresh air.

NewsGator, the Denver based company behind ever-popular RSS readers such as NetNewsWire for Mac and FeedDemon for Windows, announced updates for these award-winning products. The full list of the updated products include FeedDemon 2.6 (for Windows), NetNewsWire 3.1 (for the Mac), NewsGator Go! (for mobile platforms), and Inbox (a Microsoft Outlook plug-in). According to NewsGator, users will see improvements in peformance, usability, and relavance improvements.

The second part of NewsGator's announcment is the most exciting - all these products are available for free! Yes, you read that correctly - start downloading away.

NewsGator products' built-in selling point their ability to sync with Newsgator's internet based servers. That is, if you use NetNewsWire at home and FeedDemon at work, you won't have duplicate items to read between the two applications.

Why did NewsGator set these products free? They are obviously shifting gears add corporate resources to monetize their Enterprise offerings such as the NewsGator Enterprise Server. NewsGator wants to take the success they've enjoyed in the consumer market and apply it to the Enterprise environment.

As RSS becomes more and more of a vital tool for online media consumption and production with each passing day, the need for efficient and well-integrated RSS clients rings loud and true. NetNewsWire for Mac OS X is just such a client. Originally borne of (and still written and managed by) indie Mac dev Brent Simmons, it was purchased after v2.x in 2005 by NewsGator to help round out their empire of powerful RSS clients that now span Mac, Windows and even mobile devices.

More or less since its inception, however, NetNewsWire has been hailed as one of the best Mac apps of all time, and for a while (and possibly still) held the title of most widely used RSS reader on any platform, including Windows. NetNewsWire has earned these accolades by offering a powerful set of features in a well-designed UI, and integrating very well with other Mac OS X tools. It offers support for anywhere from ten to hundreds - if not thousands - of feeds, various methods for synching read/unread news item states between computers, a built-in tabbed browser based on WebKit (the same rendering engine Safari and many other Mac OS X browsers use), blogging to any number of desktop clients such as ecto and MarsEdit (another app originally developed by Simmons), synching open tabs between computers and posting them all as a linkdump to said blog editors, bookmarking in del.icio.us, AppleScript and much more. Today's version 3.0 milestone, however, takes NetNewsWire to an entirely new level.

New in this release is even more desktop integration, offering things like Spotlight searching of news items, adding blog authors to Address Book, support for microformats, Growl notifications of news item downloads, sending news items to Twitterrific (the Iconfactory's stellar Twitter client for Mac OS X) and more. Clippings can also be synchronized between computers and the web, and a plethora of UI and performance enhancements make NetNewsWire sing even better on both PowerPC and new Intel Macs.

Of course, you can take all this power for a test drive by downloading a demo from NewsGator, but if you fall for NetNewsWire like so many other RSS users, a license costs a mere $29.95.

[Update: Scott McNulty at our sister site, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, just published 5 questions with Brent Simmons, an interview with NetNewsWire's developer on his thoughts of the new release, why he prefers the desktop software to the AJAX hype and the choices he had to make when adding - or choosing not to add - new features.]

These days it seems like the whole world has shifted over to web-based RSS aggregators like Google Reader and Bloglines. If you're a holdout and prefer to use a Windows desktop application reader, you might be pleased to note that NewsGator's FeedDemon has recently had an update to version 2.5. FeedDemon is widely accepted as the best Windows-based offline reader, and the only reason that it doesn't kill the competition is that it is a commercial product, whereas it is competing against a host of free alternatives.

Anyhow, there are a lot of people that use FeedDemon and those users can now take advantage of the new features that have been added to it, like better support for offline reading and a very well conceptualized Popular Topics report.

The new offline reading functionality gives users the ability to prefetch unread items, which will store not only all images in unread posts, but a configurable number of linked pages. While this process can take awhile, it gives you what is essentially a full-featured feed reading and browsing experience while offline. Good stuff.

The new Popular Topics page lets you see at a glance which topics are being linked to and commented upon often amongst the feeds that you are subscribed to, with a callout that shows what is most popular amongst all of NewsGator Online's users. Great stuff.

For similar functionality on a Mac, check out NetNewsWire, also owned by NewsGator.

FeedDemon and NetNewsWire are undoubtedly top-notch products, and ones that we have used regularly in the past. Unfortunately, they may be some of the best and last in a dying breed of software; with the recent addition of offline browsing functionality to Google Reader, there is one less reason not to simply consume your feeds in a browser. Working in a browser for feed reading adds the advantage of not needing to switch contexts from feed reader to browser, or work with an under-powered built-in browser in an offline reader. Since you're dealing with web content, what better place to do so than in a browser?