Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
April 8, 2007

Volume 2, Number 43 — Sunday, April 8, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

3. The GreatNews RSS Reader

What's an RSS feed and why should I be interested?

The most frequently updated content sites on the Internet are blogs. In fact, blogs are so easy to update and to maintain that some regular web sites are converting to the blog format. RSS feeds are a way that you can get titles and introductions to the lastest articles -- without having to go to the web site to see if there's something new! The RSS reader that I use is GreatNews, from

Product: GreatNews
Class: RSS Reader
License: Freeware
Version Reviewed: 1.0.0.381 (Beta)
Publisher: Curio Studio, www.curiostudio.com

For some reason, they're still calling GreatNews a Beta version. Beta is a pre-release status where the author(s) have resolved most of the bugs and they're allowing others to test the program. I've been using GreatNews for about six months and have yet to find a bug!

GreatNews is a free RSS reader. It will automatically fetch any RSS feeds to which you "subscribe". That way, you can know immediately when your favorite blog has a new article or even your favorite web site has a new article (I've added an RSS feed to my Terry's Computer Tips web site).

Tech Tip
Unlike a magazine or an email newsletter, subscribing to an RSS feed doesn't tell the originating site anything. You tell your news reader to subscribe -- that is, you tell it that you want it to fetch the entries in the RSS feed. Then, every time you start your newsreader, it will get all the new updated feed articles.

Once GreatNews has fetched the new articles in the newsfeed, it shows you a display very similar to your email program's display. In the list of feeds to which you've subscribed, it shows the feed names in bold to indicatte those that have new messages.

You can download GreatNews in either a Windows Installer version or a Zip file. If you download the zip file, unzip it to wherever you want it to be installed — it's ready to run once it's unzipped. The Windows Installer version will install it into C:\Program File\CurioStudio\GreatNews.

When you start GreatNews, the first time or any subsequent time, you're presented with the same display (although later times will show the changes as you add or delete newsfeeds).

GreatNews initial screen

(click on the image for a larger version)

At this point, you can add manually add your first newsfeed. Which one shall we get? How about my new one?

GreatNews adding a newsfeed, step 1

(click on the image for a larger version)

Depending on what software you have installed on your computer, you might get a debugger screen -- just say no. After declining the debugger(s), you'll get the properties dialog box that shows you what GreatNews found.

GreatNews adding a newsfeed, step 2

(click on the image for a larger version)

In the next screen, you pick which feed group (think "directory") to file this one in. THe default is "All News Feeds," that is, not in a group. Of course, you can click on New Group... to create a new group. When you're ready, click on the Finish button.

GreatNews adding a newsfeed, step 5

(click on the image for a larger version)

You've finished adding your first newsfeed.

GreatNews newsfeed_added

(click on the image for a larger version)

Once you've added your first newsfeed, GreatNews downloads the feed so you can see it. If an article looks interesting, click on its title. The title is a link to the article.

At this point, GreatNews will open an embedded Internet Explorer window inside GreatNews. this is not optional — Microsoft wrote an Internet Explorer embedded control (an ActiveX control, if I'm not mistaken) that programmers can incorporate into their programs to create embedded IE sessions. Even if you have Firefox or Opera as your default web browser, this will be Internet Explorer.

GreatNews is an easy way to keep track of your favorite blogs and your favorite web sites, if the web sites have added RSS feeds. More are doing that all the time. Try GreatNews — it's a lot better option than the RSS readers built into Firefox2 and IE7.

Comment About This Article Now

4. Inserting Special Characters Using Alt-NumberPad

Many of us have set Windows to use English as our language. If you have your keyboard set as the standard 101/102 key keyboard, you can use a combination of the Alt key and the keys on your keyboard's number pad to create special characters like some of those used in languages other than English.

Tech Tip
You can check or change your language and keyboard settings via the Control Panel. For the keyboard, select "Printers and Other Hardware" and then Keyboard. For the language setting, select "Date,Time,Language, and Regional Options" then "Regional and Language Options." Mine is set to "English(United States)" in the Regional Options tab and the Advanced tab.

Since this technique uses the number keypad, if you don't have "Numlock" turned on, the keys do not put out the number code.

Hold down the Alt key while you type the numbers on the numeric keypad. If you have Numlock turned on, the special character should show up when you let go of the Alt key.

I often need to type the "é" character. Rather than going to the trouble of getting the Windows character map, I know that Alt-130 will give me the é character.

Tech Tip
Really, my notebook is my primary computer — and it doesn't have a numeric keypad. Well, really it does, superimposed over the 7,8,9,0,u,i,o,p,j,k,l,;,m, and / keys. I have to use the Fn key to access these numbers, so to do the Alt-130, I really have to do Fn-Alt-130 — I hold down both Fn and Alt while I type the 1, the 3 and the 0.

I've found a great web page that have tables of the characters you can create using the Alt-numpad trick. You can find them here on the Windows - Alt Key Numeric Codes web age.

Comment About This Article Now

reimage

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Volume 2, Number 43 — Sunday, April 8, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.

Thank you for visiting my site — I hope you found the site and articles helpful. If you did, please consider supporting my efforts by making a purchase (if you have one to make) via one of the links in my articles, one of my recommendations, or in my "Ads by Terry" to purchase the item. You can also shop via these links to major Internet retailers
Amazon.com and NewEgg.com or this my Amazon store...