Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools
Google Reader Notifier for Mac OS X
I posted earlier this month of my love for the recently refreshed Google Reader, though for many users it's still missing one key feature: a notification utility for new headlines. Some newsreader apps and services have all sorts of widgets and menubar apps that can notify users of new content in their favorite feeds, and now the new Google Reader has one as well, the Google Reader Notifier (unofficial, not provided by Google). Based on GROSX (which worked on the previous version of Google Reader), this notifier can check your entire Google Reader account for new headlines, or you can give it a specific label to watch. While the Google Reader Notifier it doesn't provide popup notifications like Google's official notifiers, it can display an unread count. One downside to those who aren't quite as RSS obsessed as others is that it can only be set to check at intervals of 5, 10 or 30 minutes - there are no lengthier options like 1 hour, 3 hours, etc. Still, this is a nice utility that shakes hands well with a Google Labs service.Google Reader Notifier is free and available from the developer's site.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
egordin said 12:46PM on 10-30-2006
How is this better than GROSX (except for no need for Safari login)?
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David Chartier said 12:50PM on 10-30-2006
#1: Last I heard, GROSX has not been updated for the new Google Reader. I tried using it and everything broke. This new notifier works pretty well, though I personally have far too many feeds, and Reader is open 99% of the time in my browser anyway.
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rich said 4:05PM on 10-30-2006
Or just leave the browser window running Reader minimized and the titlebar will reflect new items as they come in. That way you don't have to have yet-another-app running to keep up with your news.
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Brent Anderson said 3:52PM on 10-30-2006
Off topic, what's up with the "22:57" battery life? How does one go about getting that much juice out a battery?
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Andre said 4:54PM on 10-30-2006
I was thinking just yesterday of how nice it would be to have a notifier app for Google Reader. :-P
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mark said 6:40PM on 10-30-2006
@Brent - I don't think that's 22:57 hours of battery life.. it's the battery full, but not charging icon, and a screen capture taken at 10:57 PM. (22:57 is the clock)
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Stuart said 7:01PM on 10-30-2006
Wow, I almost made this myself. Luckily, I chose to make something a little different. Mostly a Bookmark Menu and Notebook Menu...
http://stuartjmoore.googlepages.com/home
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Jim Bridges said 3:16AM on 11-16-2006
5 or 10 minute intervals is not long enough. Although this is a nice added feature. I think google will come up with something soon. As long as there is great demand, they're sure to think up something to keep us happy. I think for now it would be better to just keep the Reader window open if you really want to keep track of what's new.
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