For the last few weeks I've been looking for a suitable RSS reader application for my iPhone. I've found myself frustrated with long-time favourite NetNewsWire (which currently lacks any of the Google Reader sharing options) and the Google Reader web UI. Much like every Twitter client out there, I've bought my fair share of RSS readers for the iPhone and after much testing I have finally found a new favourite: Reeder.

Reeder [iTunes Link] has all the relevant sharing options I've craved in one place - and best of all is stylish as hell. There's plenty of applications with custom user interfaces on the iPhone - some more successful than others - but Reeder balances the familiar with custom elements, and as a result the interface looks great when browsing (and reading) content.

If I had any complaints about Reeder, it's that the application lacks the ability to view your friends' shared items within the application, but given the sheer style and speed of the application it's a small oversight. If you're looking to pick up a copy of Reeder, the developer has dropped the price to $0.99 until version 1.1 ships - and available now on the App Store.

As web apps become more powerful, more popular, and more full-featured, they're starting to replace desktop apps for many people. A Mac app called Fluid can pull those web applications onto your desktop and turn them into OS X native site-specific browsers.

Fluid has a lot of advantages compared to running web apps in your browser: you get a Cocoa app with its own Dock icon, automatic unread badges for sites like Gmail and Google Reader, and built-in userscript support. Keeping your web apps in a separate browser also means that they can't be taken down when another site crashes in some other tab. You can even create menubar apps, so your favorite webapp will be close at hand, right at the top of your screen.

To find icons for your Fluid apps, I recommend checking out the Fluid Icons Flickr group. The users there have come up with attractive icons for most of the apps on my list. Chris Ivarson has also designed a handful of great icons for Fluid apps.

Now that you know a little bit about how and why you should use Fluid, give these 10 sites a spin as site-specific browsers!

Google Wave

Google's hot new communication tool is a perfect candidate for a site-specific browser. It's pretty resource-intensive, and it's still in the preview stage, so it's prone to crashes and lag. I haven't found any excellent Wave userscripts yet, and the site's favicon makes a nice enough Fluid icon. If you want an additional icon and a userscript that gives you a badge count for Wave, Devthought has posted them.

Google Reader

A lot of people are already using Google Reader as their main RSS app, so it makes sense to set it up in Fluid. You also get the benefit of an unread count badge on the Dock icon and a bunch of great userscripts. One of my favorites is Helvetireader. Try setting it up with Chris Ivarson's icon.

Share

Google has made a couple of big improvements to Google Reader, aimed at helping you easily sift through all those RSS feeds to get to the stories you'll find most relevant. One set of new features focuses on finding relevant content that you weren't already aware of, and another feature sorts the stuff you're already subscribed to.

In the sidebar, you'll notice a new "recommended sources" list. These are sites Google Reader thinks you'll like, based on your browsing habits -- if you've opted-in to let Google track those -- and your reading habits in Reader itself. You'll also see a Popular Items section from around the web, showing you some well-read and potentially relevant posts from sites you're not subscribed to.

In addition to these ways of finding new feeds to read, Google Reader can now sort your existing items "by magic," bringing the most relevant articles to the top of your list. To make this happen, go to the settings dropdown for one of your feeds or folders and choose "sort by magic." The magic is actually an algorithm that takes into account what you read and share in Reader, and it seems to work pretty well. I'm not a frequent Google Reader user, and even my relatively untrained recommendations were interesting. If you share and like items on a regular basis, yours will likely be even better.

[via Mashable]

Eventbox, an all-in-one social networking app with Twitter, Flickr, Google Reader and Digg support (and more), impressed me when I reviewed it last year. Now it's been acquired by UK-based Realmac software, makers of LittleSnapper and Rapidweaver (and, full disclosure, home to Download Squad's Nik Fletcher). So, to acknowledge its new developers, Eventbox is also getting a new name: Socialite.

Socialite 1.0 launches in November, and existing Eventbox users will be able to get new, free licenses. RealMac hasn't announced any firm plans in terms of features, but Socialite will continue to support all the services it does now. A brand-new license for Socialite will run you $20.

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.

One of our favorite people evar, Jordan Running, former lead blogger at Download Squad sent us this great tip as a follow up to yesterday's Google Reader post about sharing stories to social networks and creating custom links.

Jordan created a Send To link for Instapaper, a web app that allows you to save web pages for reading later. While he was at it, he made one for Evernote too. Here's the skinny.

Instapaper Send To link for Google Reader
1. Copy the following URL to your text editor

https://www.instapaper.com/api/add?url=${url}&title=${title}&username=USERNAME&password=PASSWORD

2. Replace USERNAME (in caps) with your Instapaper username and replace your Instapaper password with PASSWORD. If you don't have a password, just delete everything after your USERNAME.

3. Go to the Settings tab in Google Reader and click on Send To. Then scroll down to Create custom link.

Google Reader has released some useful features to help you share stories to your favorite social networks. Also, thanks to the folks at Digital Inspiration, there's a nifty tool where you can save a story in Google Reader as a PDF to your desktop.

It's all under the settings tab - click on the Send to

I'll admit, I'm not a huge Google Reader fan. I much prefer the interface of NetNewsWire on my desktop and have been very impressed with Newsgator Go for the BlackBerry (it blows Google Reader away and has all my feeds). That said, Google Reader on the iPhone is actually pretty spectacular.

This is important, because the iPhone and Android use very, very similar browsers. Both are based in WebKit and they render pages almost identically. This is great news for Android, because newsreaders and smartphones really are a match made in heaven. Instead of the typical mobile Reader page, Google has created an optimized WebKit page that really, really shines.

Google Reader is so good, in fact, you probably wouldn't expect it to be a web app. You can easily view all new items in your account, view new items or all items from a certain category or view items from an individual feed. If a feed is truncated, clicking on a link immediately launches a new browser window to that article. Sharing and marking feeds with stars is easy and intuitive as well.

The real joy in using Google Reader is in how easy reading articles and feeds actually is. Instead of having to squint like I do if I view Google Reader on my BlackBerry (a problem I don't have with Newsgator Go), everything is clear and easy to navigate.

Check out the gallery to see some shots of Google Reader in action. I also threw in some images from my iPod Touch 2.0, to show off the similarities between the interfaces.

Suddenly Google's big play to make iPhone optimized sites is making a lot more sense!

Used to be desktop applications were essential to getting the job done, whatever the job may have been, large or small. Now, with all the nimble web apps to choose from, the idea of firing up a huge application for a small task seems almost, well, unproductive and wasteful.

Yeah, sure, no one is suggesting you do away with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Illustrator, Photoshop, Quickbooks and other heavy hitters. However, there are excellent tools on the web where less, in many ways, is actually more. Here are 10 of my favorites.

1. ScribeFire - essential Firefox add-on for bloggers. Allows you to to easily drag and drop formatted text from the Web into your blog(s), post entries, take notes, and optimize ad inventory, directly through the Firefox browser.

2. Firefox - great web browser whose charm lies in all those irresistible add ons that make the whole interwebs experience that much sweeter. Once you pimp out your Firefox, it seriously is difficult to function on anything else. Yes, there are the crashes and other peccadillos, but they're easy enough to overlook especially if you are truly in love.

3. Skitch - this is the best, quick image editor and photo sharing web app that is dead simple to use. For quick screenshots and sharing photos, you cannot beat it. For Mac only though. Sorry.

4. Gmail - I've done away with Outlook and Mail and rely on Gmail for several reasons: free, 7090 MB capacity, integration with Google calendar, Gtalk, great search functionality, and the portability is sweet.

5. Google Reader - free, powerful feed reader which allows you to share items with your friends and slog through all your news feeds as fast as your bleary eyes will let you. Bonus - I'm playing with Feedly (Firefox extension) which provides a magazine like start page of your feeds with complete Google Reader integration and Twitter and FriendFeed and more. So far I like, but Google Reader is still number one for now.

Welcome to Googleholic, your weekly fix of everything Google.

In this, yes, we're alive edition:

• Google tests automatic Blogger support for Google Reader
• Gmail adds "never send it to Spam" filter
• CalDAV support comes to Google Calendar
• Multilingual Google
• Google Maps transit directions come to more phones

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• Get the Google Toolbar for Firefox 3
• Improve efficiency with Google Docs
• Google Code Jam '08
• Googolopoly, the game
• Gmail and Google Reader tips

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.

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• Hello says 'goodbye'
• Protect roaming users with Google Web Security for Enterprise
• New features added to Custom Search Engine
• Cannes comes to YouTube
• Selective magnification added to Google Reader