Comments on: When Google Reader Goes Bad

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:53:59 +0000

http://groups.google.com/group/google-reader-howdoi/browse_thread/thread/a68ae3f9a7761e26/11eb862ab44a67c3
The idea in this thread worked to clear my unread items. Just star all the items in your kept unread list, then visit your starred items and uncheck keep unread.

Reportedly won’t work for every case, but worth a try if it’s still bugging you.

By: Molokov

Molokov — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:10:19 +0000

@Luciano

Thanks for the link. I had seen freemyfeed.com in my travels but decided to give the PHP/MySQL based solution a try first, as I knew that was on /my/ secure server rather than having to pass through someone elses...

I'll now give freemyfeed.com a shot and see how effective it is. I guess it depends on their server too... it was down yesterday when I tried but back up this morning.

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:20:48 +0000

For some reason reader also insists on removing the left hand bar whenever I log back on. I know I only have to hit “u” to get it back, but it’s weird, and only started happening about 4 months ago. Still love it though :)

By: Luciano Fuentes

Luciano Fuentes — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:14:36 +0000

Sorry! It's freemyfeed.com

(Mods are welcome to correct my first post if they wish)

By: Luciano Fuentes

Luciano Fuentes — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:12:02 +0000

@Molokov

If you want authenticated feeds in GReader you should have a look at feedmyfeed.com

By: Angus Kidman

Angus Kidman — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:10:09 +0000

Ah, but I hadn’t ever used the “keep unread” function on the articles in question — so I’d call it a bug. And even if I had, why keep listing something as “kept unread” after you’ve specifically marked it as “read”? Your point about why this function is needed at all when unread articles are highlighted is an excellent one. What’s needed is a customisation option to take those unwanted features off the front page (I don’t care for the “recently read” section either).

By: Molokov

Molokov — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:03:27 +0000

My biggest put-off for Google Reader, and in fact, most web-based RSS feed aggregators, is that they don't handle feeds that require authorization.

I subscribe to the RSS feeds on a number of friends' Livejournals - which sometimes have private posts, hence you need to be logged in to LJ... but Google Reader (et al) don't seem to like this at all.

I also have one or two feeds which require a username/password authorization.

Mostly I've been using the offline reader GreatNews (from CurioStudio) which uses IE as a backend (yes, bad stuff, I know) and this handles all the above quite nicely... it even prompts for username/password on the authorized feed and can save the password (using IE's password storage feature). However, I regularly use three different computers (work, home, laptop) and having to re-read the same feeds on each is sometimes timewasting. I'd love an "online server sync" RSS aggregator that kept track of what feeds I'd read, but also something that can handle authorized and LJ private feeds, and an offline/system tray icon that can notify when you've got new feeds to read (so I don't have to keep a browser tab open on Google Reader all the bloody time).

A week or so ago, I did some research (i.e. googling) to find some server based solutions that I could run on a webserver.
(PHP/MySQL based, etc). There's quite a few out there, but none of them really have a complete feature set and customisable interface. So I gave up and went back to GreatNews, and reading the same feeds 3 times on 3 different machines. It's the best solution for now.

Anyway, it seems that RSS feeds, despite their convenience, don't have much in the way of decent features available in one nice, customisable package.

By: Grim

Grim — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:53:32 +0000

The “kept unread” list is just a list of things you last clicked that function for. If you uncheck the option on them at a later date, they stay in the list as the last things you “kept unread” (even though they aren’t anymore).

It’s not really what I’d call a problem or a bug. Just a strange feature. I’m not sure why I’d want to know which things have been “kept unread” on the home page when they’re clearly marked as unread anyway (I keep up to date with every feed I subscribe to).