Productive Organizer

I have subscribe to the Google network a fair bit. This means that I use

1. Gmail as my main email client
2. Google Reader as my main RSS feeds reader
3. Google Calendar as my consolidated calendar
4. Google Contacts as my main contact manager

The advantage of subscribing to Google’s cloud services or network, or whatever you want to call it is that

1. It is extensible. You can link data to your data easier than other platform. You can export data away from Google should you feel dis-satisfied with it
2. Because it is extensible and API is open to developers, many desktop,smartphone and other native device developers can build applications to increase productivity and performance
3. Google continues to innovate in their products to accommodate to a large number of users with different ways of calendaring, contacts management, reading and managing email

But the downside for using Google’s product

1. The look is always very ugly compare to Microsoft and Yahoo’s offering
2. Because applications are always in Beta, some people will feel turn off about experimental things and why it doesn’t have certain features

Google have taken a lot of efforts to address the UGLY portion. In the last year, their web applications and Android and iPhone applications have undergone a drastic beautifying.

Now there is a consistent minimalist white theme for almost all their applications. They have cut out a lot of the clutter and have given enough whitespace to enable the user to focus on the right subject.

Good user interface attracts users to come back and want to use it, and the more a person use it, it enhances them better.

The new Gmail resizes better when you change it to a smaller window. The email conversations look better with the picture of the person you are talking to next to it and overall feels more like a chat conversation.

The problem with Google Reader had been that it always look strange and its really not great at focusing on what matters – the content! This redesign removes a lot of the boundaries and ensures the user sees clearly between controls and content.

There is also a tighter integration with Google Plus which is good to grow the Google Plus social network. The more ways you make it easier for info sharing the more it becomes important.

What do you guys think? Do you like the new changes?

Google (finally!) came up with their own Google Reader application. Everyone have been asking for it for such a long time and I wonder why a large software company take this long to realise that this could improve their competitive edge.

The app supports all the basics you’d expect like unread counts, friends, sharing, liking, and starring, but it also has a whole lot more, including:

• Multiple accounts
• Synced preferences
• Full subscription features (subscribe and search from your phone)
• Search

So what do folks think about this?

Clean Interface

Interface is clean like other google applications. It basically translates web google reader to app.

Use of hardware buttons

One great upside is that you can use your volume buttons to scroll between next and previous articles. A lot of people will welcome this.

But personally I use Byline on the iPhone and what I really enjoy is swyping right to left to move to the next article. So this to me isn’t something much.

No offline caching!

This title says it all. A huge downer. I reviewed NewsRob and gReader before and this is what makes this 2 third party application still very relevant.

Send to various other third party apps

This is important to a blogger like me, or as a person who wants to inform my friends on latest happenings on my RSS reader.

Sending to email and twitter is big. But really what is missing is sending to Read-It-Later and Instapaper.

If  you are finding it difficult to keep up with numerous websites providing you with information you require, then having a RSS Reader that aggregates all your news content is very helpful.

What is RSS Feeds?

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

Why RSS? Benefits and Reasons for using RSS

RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site’s email newsletter. The number of sites offering RSS feeds  is growing rapidly and includes big names like Yahoo News.

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed? RSS Feed Readers and News Aggregators

Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use.A variety of RSS Readers are available for different platforms. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows – integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks. Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available.

What i use

What happens when i am on the move?

When i am on the move, i have my iPod Touch 3G with me most of the time. Its a great organizer and i do recommend people to get it for no frills organizing.

So do we have a similar solution for Android Devices?

Android is picking up pace and one consideration whether I can make the transition across is having an app on android that can do that.

it looks like Google Reader is having the same headers as that of calendar and gmail. As it now looks, it seems to be no different from those App Store software like Mobile RSS Reader and NetNewsWire.

Do give it a try and tell me what you think.