NewsGator

Follow feeds anywhere with NetNewsWire
Mac Tip #323, 30 January 2008

One very interesting feature of NetNewsWire is that you can follow and read RSS feeds from any computer. For me that means that it doesn’t matter which of my Macs I’m working on, or even if I want to check feeds on my iPod touch. The list of items I haven’t read yet is always up-to-date.

The reason is that NetNewsWire includes free use of the online NewsGator service.

In this Tip I show you how to set up NetNewsWire on a second machine and keep things synchronised.

Install and set up NetNewsWire

Download NetNewsWire (NNW) and install it on the second machine. Connect to the Internet, then double click the icon to open NNW. On Leopard an alert appears. Click Open to go ahead and start up NetNewsWire.

NNW starts up with some default feeds. It also opens a NewsGator Synching window, where you can enter details of an existing account, or create a new account.

To create a new account, choose a Username and password. If you already have a NewsGator account then enter your details.

Next check the box for Yes, please sync my feeds via NewsGator, and click Continue. Enter an email address if you wish, and decide whether or not to receive product news, then click the Finish button. Your NewsGator account is now set up.

NewsGator

NewsGator is a central service that is able to hold and organise the feeds you subscribe to.

You choose whether NetNewsWire on a particular computer should share information about your feeds with NewsGator. It’s possible to have some or all feeds only on particular machines.

In my case, I choose to have all feeds showing up in all places. Someone who has both a work and a home computer may choose to have only work-related feeds on their work computer and only leisure-related feeds on the computer at home, for example.

Synchronise feeds

NetNewsWire logs you in to NewsGator and puts up a window asking how you want to handle synching.

Your options are:

1. Merge subscriptions on this computer and NewsGator. Choose this if you have different RSS feeds on both this computer and NewsGator and wish to keep them all.
2. Replace subscriptions on NewsGator. Choose this if you have different RSS feeds on both this computer and NewsGator and wish to keep only the set that are on this computer. The ones on NewsGator will disappear.
3. Replace subscriptions on this computer. Choose this if you have different RSS feeds on both this computer and NewsGator and wish to keep only the set that are on NewsGator. The ones on this computer will disappear.

In my case, I already have a set of subscriptions on NewsGator and my other computers, so I choose option 3.

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Once you’ve made your choice click OK. NetNewsWire changes the list of feeds accordingly.

On my second machine the default feeds were replaced with my usual list of feeds — just the same as on my main computer. Or at least, almost.

While the actual, regular feeds were the same, they appeared in a different order. What’s more, the Smart feeds I set up as explained in the last Tip, didn’t carry across.

I can shuffle things around or set up Smart feeds as required on this second machine.

Now I can read my newsfeeds on my main machine or on the second machine, and thanks to NewsGator, everything will stay synchronised.

Edit feed settings

Log in to NewsGator to edit how feeds behave. There is good online Help available at the NewsGator website with full information.

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