A comparison of feedreaders

This week I decided to look for a new blog/feedreader. My first try was to search the web and try web-readers out myself, using my OPML file. Behold – now Techcrunch made an article about feedreaders.

their idea:
There are a numer of different types of readers: web-based, desktop, Outlook based, etc.. This post is focused solely on web-based feed readers. I’ve included the big guys plus some up and coming readers with outstanding features and/or performance like News Alloy, Gritwire, Attensa and FeedLounge.

Rojo is the reader I am using at the moment, but I miss an option to search all my feeds for a keyword (hey, where is that blog entry about Quake3StrategyGame?).

So perhaps I should try out bloglines…

btw: they made a mistake in the article: Rojo supports OPML export, I just tried it out and it even semi-validates.

the quake III strategy game

Quake 3, by ID software, a “first person shooter” game that became popular because of the Quake 3 Arena mode. The code of this software is open source now and there is a new version, quake 4 out. But still, a very popular game.

The problem with quake 3 is, that newbies are cannon fodder for the cracks. So, when Leobard joins a quake game he can look around a few seconds, enjoy finding a gun and is then immediatly shot. Not so with the alternative gameplay:

The Quake III strategy game.
Quake 3 strategy is a modification of the original, allowing you think about every move you make, aim when shooting, plan every move and really enjoy drinking coffee during the game. How to enjoy this? Set the server speed to 20% and the gravity to roughly 500, then you are in. No hasting for powerups anymore, no stress.

If you think that is stupid, check out the real Doom Roleplaying game:

Doom RPG
Doom RPG is a first-person turn-based role playing game set in the Doom universe. Developed specifically for your mobile device, you reprise the role of the Doom Marine made famous in the groundbreaking id Software titles Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3. Say goodbye to humdrum mobile gaming and prepare yourself for the return to Mars in a showdown with the legions of Hell!

Semantic Desktop Hands On Workshop III, 21-23 April 2006, Kaiserslautern

The next Semantic Desktop hack! Learn about current projects on the Semantic Desktop, express your ideas and combine them with others.

Date & Place

April 21st – 23rd, 2006

Location

DFKI Kaiserslautern, Germany, Building 57, Room 508

Registration

Participation fee for the three-day workshop is 30€, to be paid at the first day on site.

Register by sending an e-mail to Thomas Roth-Berghofer.

If not indicated otherwise by you, we will put your name and affiliation on the public list below.

Participants

Accomodation

The city of Kaiserslautern has a list of hotels here: http://www.kaiserslautern.de/tourismus/hotels_und_unterkuenfte/index.html?lang=de&download=00157

The Pension Blum (Rudolf-Breitscheid-Straße 7, 67655 Kaiserslautern, Tel.: +49-631-3115656) is known to be cheap and ok, and is 2 minutes from the station.
(or if price is not an issue the Dorint is between DFKI and the city centre and is also nice … )

Organizers

Topics

  • frameworks for Semantic Desktop
  • possible application scenarions
  • your scenario – your diploma thesis, your customer project
  • Ontologies for the Semantic Desktop
  • The Nepomuk EU Project – what it is?
  • Programming interfaces for the Semantic Desktop
  • Cooperations based on existing projects
  • Philosophical impact of the Semantic Desktop, changes in knowledge work and society.

Talks, Demos, Posters submissions

We will have slots for talks, demos and posters. Roughly four talks per day, each 30 minutes.
Alltogether there are 10 slots for talks open.

Please submit your proposed talk, poster or demo via e-mail to Arne Handt.

Current Program

  • Talk: (Thomas Roth-Berghofer): What is the Nepomuk EU Project?
  • Talk & Demo: Leo Sauermann: current state of the gnowsis semantic desktop
  • Talk: Dominik Heim: Introducing his diploma thesis
  • Talk: Arne Handt: DBIN
  • Visit the official homepage

(btw: these workshops were previously known as the gnowsis hacks)

gnowsis 0.9 and python = sweet bliss (by gunnar)

Gunnar Grimnes recently blogged about his happy moments with the combination of gnowsis 0.9 and python.

the code looks something like that here:
#!/usr/bin/env python
from xmlrpclib import ServerProxy
server=ServerProxy(“http://127.0.0.1:9993”);
#print server.listMethods()
print getattr(server,”gnowsis-server_dataaccess.querySelect”)(“gunnar”,”fulltext”)

but read Gunnars original words for full bliss.

vienna is an online city

If you didn’t know this yet: vienna is one of the coolest places to geek at. Nice town, cheap rents, cool people, free universities, art, recreation. And, most important: free wifi nearly everywhere.

Try it out in vienna: open your mobile computer and in 50% of all times, some nice person will have intentionally have left you an open wifi access point. Yes, these people believe that the world is a nice place and that you can surely use their wifi to read mail and google something up. There is free wifi in most of the cafés I frequent and there are enough public places like www.muqa.at with free wifi.

All this geek-friendlyness of vienna has led to many people using plazes there to check where they are and where wifi is. Vienna is on place four in an in-official statistics with having the most online plazes. Vienna is on a head-to-head race for place four with New York, perfect. San Francisco is second, first is Berlin.

read dazinde’s blog and enjoy

Dazinde is a new fellow with DFKI, starting his diploma thesis soon in the Semantic Desktop research are. His full name is Danish Nadeem.

read his blog and enjoy.

topics at the moment are his diploma thesis, suicide packs in japan, weird pixelart and semantic web stuff.

kissenschlacht-flashmob 1.4.2006 13:30

* Termin: 01.04., Punkt 13:30 Uhr
* Ort: Kaiserslautern, Innenstadt, Kreuzung der Fußgängerzonen
Fackelstraße/Kerststraße (beim H&M)
* Mitbringen: Kissen
* Aktion: Kissenschlacht
* Soft pillows only!
* Swing lightly, many people will be swinging at once.
* Do not swing at people without pillows or with cameras.
* Remove glasses beforehand!
* The event is FREE and appropriate for ALL AGES.
* Nach 10 Minuten löst sich alles in verschiedene Richtungen auf!

Achtung: das kissen darf nicht platzen. wirklich.

siehe http://www.newmindspace.com/pillowfightnyc.php

amazon.de rentable dvd – missing titles…

Amazon.de started a service where you can rent DVDs. The idea is – similar to other existing online DVD rentals – that you pay about 10€ per month and can have one DVD at home all times. So, they send you a DVD, you keep it, sometimes you send it back, get the next one.

Now, cool: amazon, one of the biggest web shops has DVD rental. So I would expect that I can rent now all those nice DVDs they have in the shop. It would be perfect: in Kaiserslautern there is no specialised DVD rental service and we cannot get all the interesting movies (for example, the top 100 of IMDB cannot be retrieved in Kaiserslautern).
If amazon rented everything, it would improve something.

But no. Search for all the good titles – you can’t rent them.
A few examples:

  • Texas Chainsaw Massacer – DVD at amazon in three different versions, no rental
  • Hotel Rwanda – DVD at amazon shop, award winning movie. IMDB place 47. no rental
  • Shichinin no samurai – not at amazon.de at all (hm)
  • Animal House – one of the most successfull movies ever, part of american heritage, sold in amazon shop but no rental

This sucks. I only signed up there to get “Animal House” but they don’t rent it.

So what will happen? These online DVD rentals will steal income from local rentals, so expect that your local stores will close or get a more limited program. All online DVD rentals probably have the same blockbusting entertainment. I hope that someone points me to a good alternative online DVD rental, where I can get above DVDs.

Go support your local weirdo video rental, where you can meet fellow weirdos and can have interesting conversations.