http://daveday.me

Fever http://feedafever.com/ $30

So if your like me you probbably subscribe to far too many RSS feeds, don't get me wrong I love RSS it's the way I get most of my news. Recently I've reached my limit of what I can resonably get through in any one day. I'd ideally subscribe to more feeds but I really don't have the time to read them all. I'd rather not suffer the 'unread item guilt' or 'second inbox syndrome' that you can sometimes get with unread feeds. This is where the RSS aggregator Fever from Shaun Inman can help.

How is Fever different?

Fever is unique in a couple of ways, firstly (and most importantly) it's a self hosted web app, meaning the Fever installation is stored on your web server so you will need hosting that's running a recent version of PHP and MySQL. Fever is also different in the way it handles your feeds, this means you can subscribe to many more feeds without suffering the unread item guilt. This is achieved by organising your feeds into two categories, 'must reads' and 'could be interesting' I'll explain more about this later.

Installation

Before you can purchase Fever you will need to download a small package which will detect if your hosting provider is up to the job. Once your server successfully passes the compatibility tests you will be given an activation key to purchase Fever. Installation is fairly straightforward and there is even a video on feedafever.com showing you the complete install process. You may need to change the permissions of the Fever folder, presumably to allow future updates to be pushed out. Fever refreshes itself automatically, however I did encounter a problem setting up a cron job to refresh my feeds every 15 minutes. The command provided over on feedafever.com didn't seem to work with my provider (SiteGround) but after a quick email to SiteGround they soon managed to get it working for me.

Setup

Once Fever is installed you will need to bookmark it's homepage, by default the installation is placed at www.yourwebsite.com/fever/ You can now start to feed Fever with your existing feeds, this is easily achieved by importing the OPML file from your previous reader. There are four sections to Fever, the main section is called 'Kindling' this is where you place your 'must read' feeds, you can create groups of feeds here and these are read in the traditional way (although by default Fever hides unread counts). Next up are 'Sparks', this is where you file all the feeds that can be interesting but are quite high in volume. Link posts and Twitter feeds are ideal candidates to be thrown into the Sparks section as you'll never be hassled by unread counts. Just toss your feeds into Sparks and forget them. Now here's where Fever hots up, Sparks and Kindling combine to create the next section called 'Hot'. Think of Hot as your own personal Digg site.

What's hot?

Fever will analyse all your feeds (Kindling and Sparks) looking for matching links and will pick out the most frequently talked about links. These posts are arranged in order of their 'Hotness', giving popular/interesting posts a higher temperature and will place them at the top of the Hot list. It's all based on body temperature (hence the name Fever) the more popular the posts (based on similar links) the higher the temperature. There is also a 'Saved' section where (as you would expect) posts are stored for reading later. At the bottom of the main menu is a search bar for tracking down those lost posts.

Fevers design is simple, minimalistic and well laid out which works really well. Favicons are used to represent the feeds in both the desktop and iPhone versions. Keyboard junkies will love it's easy to navigate user interface. The arrow keys are used to move from pane to pane and up and down the lists. 'Space' will move you to the next post, hitting 'S' saves the post for reading later and pressing 'A' will mark the selected section as read. To expand a story you hit 'enter' and to view the entire post just hit arrow right.

Fluid

Shaun suggests using the site specific browser Fluid.app with Fever and provides a link to a rather nice looking icon and screenshots on how to configure Fluid. Fluid turns Fever into a standalone application complete with an unread dock badge.

Fluid

iPhone

Fever also works well on the iPhone as a web app, sharing the simple, easy to navigate style of it's desktop big brother.

iPhone version

A link to the web app can be saved to your iPhone home screen giving the impression of a native app. However it can sometimes take a good ten seconds to open over 3G and when viewing an external site the screen orientation can get a little goofed up, a quick tilt to the left or right soon fixes this though.

iPhone screen bug

A Post using Fluid.app

Same post on the iPhone

Conclusion

Used as just a standard RSS reader Fever works really well, I love the simple interface and easy to remember keyboard navigation shortcut keys. The 'Hot' section of Fever is a bonus, a place to find popular stories that you might otherwise have missed. The iPhone app also works really well and as it's web based it stays perfectly in sync with the desktop.

For the last couple of years I've been using Google Reader on the desktop and more recently Byline on the iPhone and although I'd reached my limit of how many feeds I could reasonably get through in any one day I was happy with this setup. After using Fever for just over a week it has completely replaced my old configuration. I use Kindling in the same way I used Google Reader but every now and then I dip into Hot to... well.. see what's hot!

Having said that the PHP MySQL app is obviously not as fast as a native OS X app such as NetNewsWire and this sometimes shows. Navigating through the pages can sometimes feel a little sluggish but you soon get used to it. It would have been nice to try an online demo installation of Fever before purchasing the app. The iPhone web app could do with a little polish, it sometimes feels a bit beta but I'm sure this will improve as the app matures. In the week that I've been using Fever there has been an update pushed which added some extra features and fixed a few bugs, I'm sure Shaun is committed to future updates.

A license for Fever costs $30 which is $30 more than most other readers such as Google Reader and NetNewsWire but I feel if you already have web hosting the great UI and the 'Hot' feature is well worth the money.

Dave Day 2009

Well I've just bought Blogpress from the iPhone Appstore for £5.99. Apparently you can publish posts, including photos 'on the go' from an iPhone.

Test photo - Pismo Beach

Test photo - London, Liverpool St

Now to see if it posts ok.....

The 3G usage is high so it drains the battery in no time, I have purchased a 12v cigarette charger and leave it plugged in whilst I use it. I also purchased a dummy cassette tape audio out which works a treat.

Check out my video demo below.

So with the WWDC (and possible iPhone 2.0 release) only a couple of weeks away I've compiled a list of features for the 2nd gen Jesus phone. Even though I love my iPhone and wouldn't be without it I'm forced to carry two devices around with me due to the iPhones lack of everyday mobile phone features such as MMS, video camera and Bluetooth file exchange.

With more and more countries promising imminent iPhone availability, Apple really need to address the shortcomings of the 1st gen iPhone if it is to be a worldwide success.

First off are four 'must have' features that should have been included on the 1st gen iPhone but for some strange reason were left off:

• MMS support
• Video camera
• 3G / 3.5G
• Bluetooth file exchange between other handsets

I believe these four features must be included for the iPhone to be a hit in Europe and Asia.

Next are features that have been common place for years on most handsets but again were missing from Apples first offering:

• Copy and paste
• SMS forwarding
• To do lists
• FM radio
• Sound recorder

Personally I'd still buy a 2nd gen iPhone even if the above five features were missing but that said, high-end mobile phones released nowadays should include them.

Lastly if the iPhone is to succeed in total world domination Apple simply need to throw in the following four features on June 9th:

• Flash & Java support within Safari
• GPS
• Front facing camera with iChat support
• 5 megapixel camera with better quality lens

I really hope we see most of these features added in the next generation iPhone, one things for sure, a 3G iPhone IS coming soon, let's just hope Apple get it right second time around.

Twinkle is, in my opinion, the best Twitter client out there. If you tweet whilst on the move using a jailbroken iPhone you really must give this native app a whirl, it's even replaced Twitterrific as my client of choice, here's why.

Twinkle is very similar to most other desktop Twitter clients and reminds me very much of Twitterrific, Twinkle however offers two other features that really add depth to using Twitter. The first thing Twinkle offers is a 'Locate Me' feature, this will automatically add your current iPhone location to your tweets enabling other Twinkle users to search tweets within a given radius.

The other thing Twinkle offers is the ability to add images to your tweets right at the posting screen.

'Home' page

This is the main home page, it shows a list of all recent tweets made by you and your friends, the most recent tweets are positioned at the top of the list. Tweets with a

'Message' page

Clicking on a tweet in the home page brings up the 'Message' screen, from here you can read the entire tweet, reply to the tweet, send the tweeter a private message, follow/unfollow the user or view the users profile and previous posts. If the tweet has been made by another Twinkle user and contains a photo you can view the photo 'full screen' by pressing the paper-clipped photo image in the top right corner.
To post a new tweet you click the

'Posting' screen

Posting a tweet is easy, simply tap in the top white posting window and start typing :)
The location window (positioned just underneath the posting window) should auto generate your location and while not quite as precise as GPS, it locates you to within a few miles, if you'd rather not share your location you can simply tick or untick the town or city, you can also turn it off completely from within the settings page.
Tapping on the

Replies and private messages have a light grey background and are shown on the 'Personal' tab of the main home page, icons indicate if the tweet is a reply

Direct messages & replies

New, unread tweets are shown by the generic

Pressing the ‘Near Me’ tab shows tweets from other Twinkle users, you can choose to display tweets from the following distances 1, 2, 5,10, 25, 50, 100, 1,000, or 252,000 miles from your current location. It works very well and allows you to find other Twinkle users nearby and to even arrange local meet-ups. I had no idea there were so many other jailbroken iPhones in my town, I also find the 252,000 miles option very handy for finding new tweets from the surface of the moon :)

If you've never tried Twinkle (and have a jailbroken iPhone) I strongly advise you give it a try. I just hope it will be available to buy from the iTunes App Store once the new 2nd gen iPhone arrives!

digg_url = 'http://www.dazaroonie.com/index.php?id=6358218669755248427';

Well after a week of living with the iPhone (unlocked and on the UK Vodafone network) I thought I’d share my opinion of the device here. Everyone I show are simply blown away by the iPhone’s UI, the gorgeous graphics and liquid movement, flick & pinch controls actually make people whom I’ve shown gasp in amazement. The Safari web browser is the best mobile web experience by none and the large high definition screen makes this the best video iPod ever.

Sadly however the iPhone falls flat on its face in a big way, this could very easily have been the device myself and many others have been waiting years for, but this is not to be.

Here’s why:

No 3G/3.5G
I know it’s been said a million times before but I’ll say it again because it’s so important, the lack of 3G is unforgiving. We currently have 80% 3G coverage here in the UK and as someone who uses it daily I can vouch for it’s speed when checking e-mails and surfing the net. Why on earth Apple released a 2.5G internet phone to the UK (which only has a 30% EDGE coverage) is beyond comprehension. I simply can’t accept Steve Jobb’s battery drain explanation. Once your outside of a wi-fi hot spot checking e-mail and using the web becomes almost impossible and the £265 revolutionary device reverts to an iPod and phone.

No MMS
The iPhone is aimed at both the consumer and business markets, while I can understand a business user not using MMS the average 20/30 something user in the UK surely must use MMS on a daily basis. The simple lack of ability to MMS friends could make this phone a non-starter for a lot of people here in the UK.

No Video Camera
Even though 3,4 & even 5 megapixel cameras are becoming the norm on high-end mobile phones here in the UK, I personally can forgive Apple for their 2 megapixel offering. After all you only really need a 2 megapixel camera to share a funny moment with a friend anyway. What is really disappointing is the complete lack of video recording, again this will be a big turn-off for the average 20/30 year old who is considering buying this phone.

SMS omissions
The iPhone’s SMS application is really nice and gives a new slant on text messaging. It shows texting as an ongoing conversation and I feel it’s a real improvement on previous phones I’ve used. Sadly though some basic features we have become to expect on phones such as graphical emoticons and delivery reports are missing from the iPhone.

On the plus side I was really impressed with the touch screen keyboard, After a day or two I could type ‘one handed’ just as fast as I could with any other mobile phone, and this was something I thought would not be possible on a touch screen device.

I see the iPhone in the UK as a prototype, something to look forward to in 2008, something that everyone will want to own, but sadly this 1.0 version will not be replacing my current phone just yet.