June 29, 2007

Helping developers with "How Do I" information

Some helpful links for Video Tutorials.. [Many of my friends keep on asking Video tutorials from me.. So, here are they!!]

 
 

Sent to you by Jigar Mehta via Google Reader:

 
 

via Somasegar's WebLog by Somasegar on Jun 29, 2007

Over the past year we have experimented with a few different ways of providing information and help to our customers and the community.

Earlier this year, I blogged about some of the work we have been doing in the forums to provide online help to developers. We took another big step in this direction with what I call the "How-Do-I" videos.

These videos are short 10-15 minute videos which pick a specific scenario and show step-by-step how to do that with the given technology. About a year ago we started creating these videos for ASP.NET and ASP.NET AJAX and publishing them on www.asp.net, and the response has been very positive from the community both in terms of total downloads and individual feedback to the presenters.

So, we have expanded our focus and are now providing How-Do-I videos for many more areas. Here are links to see the videos, and we will be adding more on a regular basis, so check back often:

ASP.Net videos

ASP.Net AJAX videos

Devices videos

Expression videos

Extensibility videos

Office/VSTO videos

Silverlight videos

Visual Basic videos

VSTS videos

Windows Forms videos

WPF videos

Namaste!


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

June 27, 2007

Windows Server Event ID: Baby #01

Funny isn't it?

 
 

Sent to you by Jigar Mehta via Google Reader:

 
 


It happens, if you have a 14 month old baby around the house, a home office and the door is open:

I might have to start planning to move my home server to the cupboard...




 
 
 
 

June 26, 2007

Why are ATM PINs 4 digits long?

 
 

Sent to you by Jigar Mehta via Google Reader:

 
 

Why are ATM PINs 4 digits long?

via Matasano Chargen by Dave G. on Jun 25, 2007

The answer is best summed up in this article about the ATM Machine turning 40 years old. They quote John Shepherd-Barron, the inventor of the ATM:

Mr Shepherd-Barron came up with the idea when he realised that he could remember his six-figure army number. But he decided to check that with his wife, Caroline.

"Over the kitchen table, she said she could only remember four figures, so because of her, four figures became the world standard," he laughs.

If you had asked me how they had come up with the length requirements, I would have thought that somewhere, someone might have tried to run some basic statistics, figure out acceptable losses based on likelihood of a PIN number getting guessed. Then try and balance that user requirements.

Nope. That wasn't (isn't?) how decisions and standards are made. And even today, MOST PINs are four digits in length. Policies are well documented inside of the enterprise. One thing that usually doesn't get well preserved is why those policy decisions were made.

The other choice quote from this article:

"Money costs money to transport. I am therefore predicting the demise of cash within three to five years."

While I can appreciate anyone who tries to predict the future, we should remember there is a reason why we say most of them are insane. I can see a future without cash, but even if we all said right now that it is time to move away from cash, it would take more than five years to execute on that.

Finally, Mr Shepherd-Barron, is working on a new invention. One to scare salmon-stealing seals away from his salmon farm:

"I invented a device to scare them off by playing the sound of killer whales, but it's ended up only attracting them more."

It's clearly an uphill battle to top the invention of the ATM.


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

June 25, 2007

Watched.. 300

Yesterday, I watched 300. The best film I ever saw in terms of Visual Effects (I can compare it to talent of those animation movies makers!!) Though, almost all the characters are real, they have mixed visual effects (computer graphics) at many places and that gives cool touch to the movie. Now, I can imagine why this movie might have got 4 nominations for award and won 2 awards. I heard that almost 10 companies all over the world contributed to visual effects of this movie.. Its really worth watching.. "Prepare for the glory!!"

Read more at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/

My Rating : 8 / 10;

Stay tuned.. Wave

June 23, 2007

Watched.. Deja Vu

Just watched "Deja Vu".. Would say awesome movie.. had some physics fundamentals (which I did not understand at all!! Happy) But felt like, it was a good movie..

Read more at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0453467/

My Rating : 7 / 10;

Stay tuned.. Wave

June 19, 2007

Watched.. Good boy Bad boy..

Just watched "Good boy Bad Boy.." The movie name seems weird, isnt it? It seemed like that to me too in the beginning. But after watching first 20 minutes, I could figure out what story would be.. Was expecting everything that was happening. Nothing was unexpected!!

Good Timepass!!!!

Read more at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489486/

My review : 6 / 10;

Stay tuned.. Wave

June 18, 2007

Watched.. Quarter life crisis..

I just watched "Quarter Life Crisis".. I watched it to see Russell Peters acting in a movie (I am a big fan of Russell!!) but would say, this movie is a good movie.. The message it wants to give is a real one!

While watching Lisa Ray, I remembered somebody! Somebody I found in some part of my life but now I dont have !! Sad I, forever, remember those moments... And when I see Lisa, I instantly can remember everything!!

Anyways, the movie is good one! Specially my language coach will be happy that I saw this one!! (It has real american accent from some of the guys! Rahul is really funny!)

My rating : 7 / 10;

Read more at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462498/

Stay tuned.. Wave

June 17, 2007

Watched.. Transmorphers

Just watched Transmorphers! I would say I wasted my 1.5 hours. Baseless story without good visual effects. The robos (who came from some other planet) are just ugly Sick..!! Their design team really needs some rest.. Could not understand much part of the story! I also dont think this is continue series.. but still they assumed viewers will come after reading their imaginary book about the story! Failed to convey good message. Sad

Read more at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0960835/

My Rating : 3/10

Stay tuned.. Wave

Watched.. Swami

Just watched Swami. Awesome movie. I like family movie and this movie is 100% family movie. Manoj Bajpai rocks in the movie.

My rating : 9/10

Read more at,
http://entertainment.oneindia.in/bollywood/reviews/2007/swami-review-090607.html

Stay tuned.. Wave

June 16, 2007

Justin shares his thought about SDET at Microsoft.

Justin, SDET Lead II and now Program Manager at Microsoft, shares his thought about what SDET (Software Development Engineer - Test) a.k.a. "tester" mean at Microsoft. After reading all these things, at least I don't think there is anything wrong with Tester role. I would like to work as tester at Microsoft before moving to dev team!! (Thanks Justin, your interview cleared many mis-conceptions!)

What brought you to Microsoft?

After living in Miami, Florida for the first 20 years of my life, I decided to go to a school with a “better” climate so I matriculated to MIT.  During my freshman year, I applied for an internship as a SDET at Microsoft and was rejected.  Staying persistent, I applied again the following year and was accepted into a (Systems Engineer) SE position.  SE is a very unique position that mostly deals with configuring servers (basically, IT management on steroids). 

I came out to Seattle for the summer and worked for the Office Update team.  Over the summer, I spent a lot of my free time playing racquetball, eating at a ridiculous number of Teriyaki restaurants, and completing my MCSE certification exams (I was totally into IT management back then). 

Before the internship, I never intended to work at Microsoft as a full time employee, I just thought that it would be a good place to spend the summer and gain some experience for my resume.  Fortunately, I absolutely fell in love with Seattle and Microsoft.  The Northwest isn’t Great for nothing!  By the end of the summer, I had interviewed for a full time position, been accepted, and decided to graduate MIT a full year early just so I could get out here faster. 

When I came back to Microsoft, I worked for a year and a half in MSN running the day-to-day operations of MSN.com and then decided that I wanted a position where I could be more technical and work on the development of a “box” product instead of a service.  Hence, I became a tester on the Windows Shell team.

What is an average day like for a tester at Microsoft?

It’s hard to describe an average day for a tester, simply because no day is average.  Not to demean the other disciplines, but the tester is really the one doing all the juggling. 

Common tasks of a tester include: reviewing specs and dev designs, writing test plans, coding automated test cases, running manual test cases for things that can’t be automated (God forbid!), filing bugs, reviewing SDK documentation, “Self-Hosting” (a term used around Microsoft that simply means using the latest build of the product on a daily basis and looking for bugs in and more importantly, outside your feature areas, filing bugs, reviewing dev code changes, reviewing “resolved” bugs and activating them again when the dev didn’t really fix the problem), filing bugs, working with real customers on issues, attending trainings on a variety of topics, reading, triaging bugs with the feature team, representing bugs in triage, war, etc.  

I know that this is a big list, but you really do all of this every week, if not every day.  For me, my goal as a tester is to be the last line of defense for the customer. I have to ensure that the customer will be happy with how the product is, not some dream of what it should be.

How much coding do you do?

Again, it depends (I’m starting to sound like an accounting class).  In general, testers write as much code as possible (why manually test when you can write an automation to do it for you).  In addition to writing automated tests and libraries of functions to support them, many testers are involved in side projects for tools to solve different problems that the organization is facing. 

A great example of this was a tool one of my peers worked on which enabled manual testing of common controls.  The tool allows a user to setup a control (like a button or progress bar) with any settings they wish and then interact with it either manually or by APIs.  This dramatically improved manual testing for the area as well as reduced the amount of time needed for creating repro applications – just run the tool and do what you want, don’t waste time writing something custom each time a new scenario has a bug. 

Today, this tool is used by the entire feature team and has gotten accolades across the org for being a HUGE improvement in the way the team designs, tests, and develops new features.

What has been your most rewarding moment as a tester?

My most rewarding moment as a tester has been getting to develop the model for performance testing across my entire team.  I was tasked to take on the “performance project” after 3 other testers failed to make a large impact.  Working with one of my colleagues, we were able to create a complete end-to-end infrastructure (by pushing “go”, machines would install the latest build, configure the OS with files, programs, etc. and run a collection of performance tests, automatically analyzing the results and filing bugs). 

The project was so successful that we are expanding it for Windows 7 to a broader audience across the Windows client instead of just the shell team.  The project gave me the opportunity to not only design and code the infrastructure, but to broaden my technical knowledge of the entire Windows project.  Performance issues are not contained to individual feature areas – often they span many features and teams. 

During this project, I worked with members of the entire Shell team (300 people) on a daily basis and really got a feel of how the breadth of the OS fits together instead of looking at things from a depth based perspective, as is the case when working on just a single or couple of feature areas.

What are peoples’ conceptions of what a tester does?

Outside of Microsoft, people think of testers as the ones doing grunt work, manually installing products, and testing them haphazardly by just poking at them.  The reality is that testing is much more thought out and methodical. 

With a product the size of Office or Windows, it’s important to think about what test cases matter, how features will interact, and how testing can be reproducible. We want to understand the bugs so we can fix them, not just report that something went wrong, but we don’t know where or why. 

Inside Microsoft, testing is an equal discipline to Dev and PM.  They are not the “wicked stepbrother” that people outside the company often assume them to be.  Unfortunately, to the testing “profession”, there are very few resources on how to test software well.  In addition, most colleges barely touch on the subject: “don’t forget to test your code” is about as far as software design classes go. 

It’s my hope that as the software industry continues to mature (don’t forget, we’re all pretty new at this), a bigger emphasis will be placed on testing as a whole. Some best practices from Microsoft, as well as many other companies in the field, will be shared and taught to individuals interested in software design.

What skills are required for testing?

Generally, if you ask someone what skills are required for being a tester, you often hear things like, “be good at breaking things”, “be inquisitive”, or “take apart toasters”.  While these are all good skills, the reality is that a tester is no different than a developer.  There’s a reason why the title at Microsoft is not Tester, it’s Software Developer in Test.  WE’RE DEVELOPERS!  We just happen to develop tests and tools, not the product itself. 

When I interview SDET candidates, I look for intelligence and coding skills first, and testing skills second.  If you can code well, you know how to debug code and fix the issues in it.  That’s what we do, just on a broader scale.  It’s nice if you can think about a list of test cases.  Try it on your next software problem set – how would you test the function you just wrote?  What would a good list of test cases be?  The list should be LONG, like more than 50 cases (and I’m not talking about putting the numbers 1-50 in as inputs). 

Think about things like globalization: what happens if your function was being run on a system in Germany? What about in Israel, with right-to-left languages? What about accessibility: if someone is blind can they use your program? What about border cases? What about security?  Testing is not easy, but if you’re methodical, you can usually come up with a lot of “creative” test cases.

What career path is available for testers?

There’s no difference between a tester’s career path and a developer's.  Do you want to go down the path of management and become a lead or manager of managers? Do you want to become more technical and move into a test architect position? Do you want to own more feature areas?  Do you want to own horizontal areas like performance or security?  Do you want to become a Dev or PM later on?  You are in no way limited to career choices just because you’re a tester. 

Thanks, Justin!

Microsoft Photosynth..

Amazing Microsoft Research Project..


Video: Photosynth 2

Stay tuned.. Wave

YouTube Redesigns and Moves to Google Accounts

New design for YouTube and now, link your YouTube account with Google Account!

 
 

Sent to you by Jigar Mehta via Google Reader:

 
 

YouTube Redesigns and Moves to Google Accounts

via Google Operating System by Ionut Alex Chitu on Jun 14, 2007

After updating their embeddable player, YouTube experiments with a new layout for the site. The new design places the search box in the center, moves the metadata below the video, makes it easier to rate the video and to find other related videos. There's also an option to embed a video using the old player.

To get the new interface, add &v3 at the end of a YouTube URL, like for this video.


YouTube also added to the homepage a list of videos that are being watched right now using active sharing, cleaned their search results and included a new option to view the results as thumnbnails.

But more importantly, you can now use your Google account to login to YouTube. You can link an existing YouTube account to a Google account or create a new one, but you'll still be able to use your YouTube credentials, so this is more like a temporary solution.


The login page proudly lists YouTube's features:
  • Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide
  • Browse millions of original videos uploaded by community members
  • Find, join and create video groups to connect with people with similar interests
  • Customize your experience with playlists and subscriptions
  • Integrate YouTube with your website using video embeds or APIs


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

Bill Gates, Back to School

Amazing video.. LOL.. Just look at BillG's getup! He is a good actor too :)

The Puzzle

Cool Video

How would it be.. "If YouTube remembers all the videos I watched!!"

Today it was a difficult task to find out some scientific video that I watched last monday (wanted to refer to it once again because I got some idea! Happy) and I was not able to find it out. Had to go to web browser's history (thank god, i saw that on that machine only! othewise it would not have been possible!)

So, here is the feature,
YouTube should remember history of all the videos I watched anytime and they can also give history search feature!

I hope this idea click in some of the engineer from YouTube Team and they develop it as soon as possible!!

Stay tuned.. Wave

Watched.. Living and Dying

Awesome movie! This has just got released..

This movie made my weekend.. Its a violent movie but damn good! Its suspense also, at the end you come to know who is who..!! A must watch from my side.

Read more at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479948/

My Rating : 9/10;

Stay tuned.. Wave

Microsoft JobCast by Mel Sampat..

Mel is the one, whom I have been seeing from long time with Windows Mobile. Right now he is PM with WM team. He shares his experiences at Microsoft. Interesting listening..

http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/archive/2007/06/14/jobcast-mel-sampat-1-year-later.aspx

Copy the JobCast MP3 audio file..
http://www.garageband.com/mp3/JobCast_with_Mel_Sampat.mp3?%7Cpe1%7CWdjZPXLrvP2rZlm3YWps

Stay tuned.. Wave

Watched.. The Train

About this movie, I would say, some songs are Awesome!! If somebody wants, drop me a line, I will give them to you. Happy

Just watch this song..

This is real-life situation movie. How a guy gets caught into a trap. Its also really difficult in some situation for guys to resist in the case when specially one is having tention from everyside.

I liked the movie. The tag line for the movie is really worth it, "The Train, Never cross the line!"

My Rating : 8/10;

Stay tuned.. Wave

Watched.. Vacancy

Yesterday, (under Weekend Fever impression!!), watched Vacancy. The movie has just got released. Its really scary movie.

Read more at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452702/

My rating : 7/10

Stay tuned.. Wave

Cow with five legs

Japan has come up with a very good post about a cow with five legs in Ahmedabad.

Read more here,
http://deshgujarat.com/2007/06/15/in-ahmedabad-a-travelling-cow-with-five-legs-video/

I remember when I was very young, I saw many cows with three eyes! People used to worship them and give money to cow's owner for feeding her.

Stay tuned.. Wave

Adobe renames Apollo web technology as AIR..

Today the public beta of AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) goes live, ending the alpha chapter of its life as Apollo. As has been previously mentioned, the technology allows web developers to use their existing kung-fu to create applications with all the behavior and most of the abilities of traditional desktop apps. Adobe has a gallery of sample AIR applications online, of which the Yahoo-powered MapCache we’re playing with is particularly entertaining. Hopefully in the coming months we’ll see this ecosystem grow, if for no other reason than to update our Facebook profiles from the airplane.
Stay tuned.. Wave

Just got RAM upgraded..

Yes, I just got my office machine's RAM upgraded. So, one of my machine is now,

  • 64 bit Architecture
  • Dual processor
  • both processors Core2 Duo - 1.87 GHz
  • 4.0 GB RAM (Previously it was 2 GB)
  • Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition.

And good news is, Now machine is running so smooth even after loading my environment fully (where I have following items running almost all the times...

  • 2-3 visual studio 2005 IDE
  • one Windows XP Virtual Machine running with Visual Studio 2008 (orcas) on it
  • IE
  • Firefox
  • Safari
    • [I mostly have all browsers running, i use different browser for different purposes]
  • two Remote logon to my other lab machines
  • Outlook 2007
  • Yahoo Msgr (2 instance)
  • Google Talk
  • Windows Live Messenger
  • Office Communicator
  • RegCrawler
  • WinPatrol
  • Synergy
  • Google Desktop
  • Windows Desktop Search
  • at-least 7-8 windows explorer window
  • Office Application (mostly Word)
  • JetAudio
  • Wakoopa.

I might be missing some applications which I am running but these are almost all mostly used and running application on my machine.

RAM really matters, life is more easier now!

BTW, I already have a lab machine (for one customer case where machine has IA64 architecture with 12 GB RAM, because I have to create AD environment there so, I have four virtual machines running there.. One is primary domain controller and other three client virtual machines.)

Stay tuned.. Wave

June 14, 2007

Yahoo ki woh mulakatein..

One of my friend just sent me this.. Remembers me of something Happy

yahoo ki wo mulakatein
wo pyar bhari batein
wo loging hony ka intzaar
wo intzaar ki saaetein
kaho kya bhool jao ge?
wo farzi naam ka btana
haha likh ker jhoota qehqaha lagana
wo ASL poochny par
apni umar ko aor kam btana
kaho kya bhool jao ge?
wo pyar bhari tehreerien
wo yahoo ki emotion tasweerein
wo nick mein haal-e-dil likhna
wo net ko fast karny ki tadbeerien
kaho kya bhool jao ge?
wo typing se unglion mein dard hona
kisi baat per gusay se chehry ka zard hona
lafz sorry ka screen par atay hi
lehjay ka phir se sard hona
kaho kya bhool jao ge?
wo jaagna roz raton mein
wo chalakna pyar baton mein
wo type karty karty
lena mouse hathon mein
kaho kya bhool jao ge?
wo yahoo pe doosron ko ignore karna
har jumley par bohat ghor karna
wo dil per hath rakh kar bye kehna
aor zara der aor rukny per zor karna
kaho kya bhool jao ge?
tumhary login hotay hi
dostoon ka wo jhumgutha lag jana
tum se bat karny ki khatir
sir dard ka wo jhoota bahana
kaho kya bhool jao ge?
bewaja ki batoon per takraar karna
baar baar net meeting per israar karna
wo roman urdu mein ki gayi batein
pyar ka dabay lafzon mein izhar karna
kaho kya bhool jao ge?
wo doston se tumhara ID chupana
kabhi font badalna kabhi gungunanaa
der se jawab anay per
busy hony ka ilzam lagana
per lagta hai tum bhool gaye……
yahoo k aanchal per likhi hoyi kahani
per mujh ko yad hai har ik lafz zubani
khudara na tum aisa sitam karo
na karo tum aisi nadani…!!!

Stay tuned.. Wave

The most important (daunting) task of the year!! Review process..

Here comes the most daunting task of the year. Its Performance Review process. Here at MS, we have stages like top 20%, then middle 70% and bottom 10%. According to your place in one of the above category, you get hike and bonus and stocks everything.

So, here is the deal, candidate have to show off what he has been doing from last year. How he has been effective in the team as well as to the business. What are the points which he has done extra-ordinary which others have not done yet! (to get into top 20% portion!!). At MS, we have unique mechanism of setting commitments in the beginning of the year which gets reviewed at the end of the year, if you have achieved every commitment you gave in the beginning, you are right there otherwise world is not for you Sad

So, here it starts. I am starting my self-assessment process from today. I am going to prepare some comparative statistics (comparing my performance with other team members), final goal is to convince the manager that I have done good!! Big Grin, Finally its good hike that I want (I also believe, hard work is the only requirement for that, and I believe I have done that to my best.)

Just yesterday, we had a brown-bag for our upcoming review process, now one-on-ones will start and will be busy for few weeks till this completes. Believe me, at Microsoft, we have cut-throat competition because each and everyone is best-and-brightest. It will really be a hard time for manager to decide whom to put in top 20% box! At least, I can not think of that right now! (may be I am not mature enough to decide those things now! but life goes on.. will see what happens!!)

Stay tuned.. Wave

June 13, 2007

Watched.. Shrek the Third..

Yesterday, I watched "Shrek the Third", the latest animation movie.. I would say they have amazing talent, Its real (natural) animation.. I really liked the movie! thousands of hardworking hours while making the movie are worth it..

Read more at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413267/

My Rating : 8/10;

Stay tuned.. Wave

Watched.. Fire Serpent..

Watched Fire Serpent today, read more about it at,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0471561/

Good movie.. Should watch..

My Rating : 7/10;

Stay tuned.. Wave

The Ultimate RSS Toolbox - 120+ RSS Resources

Nice collection !!

 
 

Sent to you by Jigar Mehta via Google Reader:

 
 

The Ultimate RSS Toolbox - 120+ RSS Resources

via Mashable! by Stan Schroeder on Jun 12, 2007

rsstoolbox.PNG

Never again will mankind have to look for RSS info in more than one place...ok, we're kidding, but we've aimed to create a near comprehensive list of all the RSS readers, tools, browser plugins, tips, hacks and directories available on the web. We hope you find it useful (we built it because we needed it), and feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

For those just starting out in the big wide world of RSS, note that we're talking about Really Simple Syndication, a way to publish and subscribe to frequently updated content like blog entries and news items.


RSS readers - Windows

Awasu

Omea - one of the most fully featured RSS readers out there; can get a little slow as its database grows; free in its basic version, also has a commercial, advanced version with more features
Mozilla Thunderbird - Mozilla's e-mail and RSS reader, supports skins and add-ons
Awasu - RSS reader with a customizable user interface, the ability to synchronize with other readers, bookmarking and annotation, and republishing of your feeds
GreatNews - integrates with Bloglines, and offers a very fast way to browse through your feeds
RSS Bandit - RSS reader that offers organization of your feeds through folders, as well as synchronization across several installations
IntraVNews - an RSS reader that integrates with Microsoft's Outlook.
SharpReader - requires .NET framework, lets you organize feeds into folders, integrates with Feedster, can display new items via system tray popups
eCruiser - an RSS reader in Japanese
Juice - a pretty basic RSS reader
Opera - Opera web browser comes with a fully featured RSS reader
FeedDemon - Newsgator's feed reader offering a high degree of customization, newspaper-style feed reading, synchronization with other Newsgator products, and feed search
Snarfer - a free RSS reader, with key features being river of news style view, embedded video display, synchronization with Bloglines, powerful search and filtering
Active RSS Reader - simple RSS reader with a very small hard disk and memory footprint
Feed Amasser - a very lightweight, freeware RSS reader
FeedExpress - a freeware, open source RSS reader; quite basic, but with some nice features, for example CSS customization
Crackfeed - a tiny systray based application that notifies you with RSS news as they come
HappyFish - RSS reader and podcast client, requires .NET 2.0
Attensa for Outlook - RSS reader that fully integrates with Outlook, support OPML import/export, scheduling, republishing, and advanced feed organization
Briz RSS Reader - a very simple RSS reader
Particls - desktop RSS notifier and ticker with lots of options, also has a Firefox plugin
Anothr - RSS reader/bot for Skype/Gtalk/MSN


RSS readers - OS X

Pixelnews

Newsfire - RSS reader for OS X
NetNewsWire - Newsgator's RSS reader for the Mac comes in two flavors: commercial and free
PixelNews - a commercial Mac OS X RSS reader that comes with a huge database of feeds
Shrook - a Mac RSS reader which also has a web based version; supports synchronization, instant notifications via Growl, real time search, smart grouping and more
Vienna - a freeware, open source RSS/Atom newsreader, with a built-in tabbed browser and the ability to customize feed display
NewsLife - RSS reader for the Mac, pleasing to the eye, simple and easy to use
Squeet - another Mac RSS reader, currently on hiatus


RSS readers - Linux

Akregator

Liferea - RSS reader for Gnome users
Akregator - RSS reader for KDE
Straw - RSS reader for Gnome, supports RSS and ATOM, as well as exporting/importing OPML feeds
Snownews - text based RSS reader for all you 1337 people
AgileRSS - desktop aggregator that is able to display any RSS, ATOM, and XML news feed; also offers an RSS news ticker


RSS Readers - cross-platform

Bottomfeeder

RSSOwl - works on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Offers, among other features, a multi-pane, highly customizable interface, OPML and blogroll import, internal browser, and a search engine.
BottomFeeder Rich-featured multiplatform RSS reader (works on Linux as well as Windows and OS X), supports CSS customization, OPML import/export, and plugins.
BlogBridge - open source RSS aggregator that allows you to create dynamic feed reading lists


RSS readers - web based

Netvibes

Google Reader - In addition to tracking your feeds, Google's popular RSS reader allows you to star items (like in Gmail), view trends in your feeds and reading habits, and recently added an option to read feeds offline.
iGoogle - Formerly known as Google Personalized Home, iGoogle allows you to include RSS feeds as part of your custom start page.
Netvibes - This personal homepage provider includes hundreds of "modules" you can add to your page from Hotmail to your Flickr photos, but also lets you create your own modules by simply entering an RSS feed URL.
Pageflakes - Another personalized homepage provider, Pageflakes functions similar to Netvibes, letting you select from pre-made modules or create your own by adding an RSS feed.
My Yahoo! - Still the most widely used custom homepage on the Web, My Yahoo now allows you to add RSS feeds alongside your weather, stock quotes, and news. Similar to Netvibes and Pageflakes, My Yahoo allows you to re-arrange your feeds with drag and drop features.
My Netscape - Netscape's personal homepage service also includes the ability to add RSS feeds as content modules. An account also lets you participate in their Digg-like homepage voting.
Daily Rotation - A no-frills personalized homepage aimed targeted at techies, Daily Rotation includes recommended feeds from hundreds of tech sites, and also lets you add in additional feeds of your own choosing.
Rojo - A part of Six Apart, Rojo is a web-based reader that combines RSS aggregation with a community of sorts, showing what people are reading on their homepage.
Bloglines - One of the early online RSS readers, Bloglines "split screen" interface makes it easy to view the full content of any of your feeds. The service is part of the IAC family of sites.
Newsgator - NewsGator's RSS reader allows you to organize your feeds in Windows-style folders that can be expanded and collapsed.
MySindicaat - an advanced online RSS reader with a tree-like feed layout, available in several different flavors, including a mini ticker and a mobile RSS viewer. It also has RSS mixing capabilities.
Fwicki - web based RSS reader that lets you create custom river-of-news style feeds.
NewsAlloy - a fast and full-featured web based RSS reader. Also has a mobile version.
Feeds 2.0 - a personalized RSS aggregator, that learns from your reading habits and displays relevant feeds


Mobile RSS Readers

Litefeeds

NewsGator Go! - NewsGator's mobile version syncs with user's online accounts, allowing you to read their feeds on the go for $29.95.
LiteFeeds - Once downloaded to your phone, LiteFeeds allows you to browse your feeds, email articles to friends, or bookmark them to your del.icio.us account.
Egress - This program for Windows Mobile sports a clean UI and also supports podcasts. Egress is available for $12.95.
Mobispine - Mobispine is a free Java application for reading your feeds on your mobile. The service also includes a web component where users can add feeds to the Mobispine database, see related feeds, and leave comments.
Quick News - Designed for Palm OS, Quick News lets you download feeds either via a HotSync or a direct internet connection for later use, which enables offline (or out of coverage) reading.
Bloglines Mobile - The popular web-based reader also offers a browser-based mobile version to access your feeds without downloading anything.
FeederReader - This application is designed for phones running Windows Mobile, and bills itself as being especially well suited for developers, allowing you to view the RAW XML files for and its XML elements and attributes.
FreeRange - This Java application will work on Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. The site has optional Google Reader integration.
Google Reader Mobile - If you use Google Reader, you can access a version designed for mobile phones.
ZapTXT for mobile - mobile version of the ZapTXT widget.


RSS to email converters

zaptxt

Feedblitz - one of the most popular RSS to e-mail converters. Supported by FeedBurner. Also has a Firefox plugin.
ZapTXT - monitors feeds for certain terms and sends you notifications via e-mail. Also has a mobile version.
R|Mail - offers simple subscription to any RSS feed, as well as an R|mail subscription widget which you can use on your site


RSS Feed Validators

Feed Validator

Feed Validator - By entering your feed URL at Feed Validator, the service will literally translate your RSS to code and identify any potential problems. It works with versions of RSS up to 2.0.
RSS 1.0 Validator - This validator for RSS 1.0 generates an HTML page identifying any errors.
Redland RSS 1.0 Validator & Viewer - This validator offers a variety of display options for checking your feeds.


RSS-related plugins - Firefox

Sage

Sage - RSS reader for Firefox, has a decent amount of options, allows CSS customization
Wizz - a very advanced RSS reader for Firefox with a huge set of options
RSS Ticker - an RSS ticker for Firefox with a large number of options
Beatnik - simple RSS reader for Firefox
BlogRovr - a Firefox plugin that brings you related news based on your feed choices and the website you're currently visiting
NewsFox - fully featured RSS reader for Firefox, with three panes; similar to Thunderbird
InfoRSS - another RSS ticker for Firefox with a very comprehensive set of options
Feedbar - Feedbar displays new live bookmarks items directly in your Firefox sidebar


RSS-related plugins - Wordpress

Fedafi

Feedlist - a wordpress plugin that displays linked lists imported from an RSS or ATOM feed
Feedsmith - redirects all RSS feeds on a Wordpress blog to the Feedburner feed.
Fedafi RSS plugin - a plugin for Wordpress that creates a full text valid RSS 2.0 feed from your Wordpress blog and adds a style sheet, tracks subscribers and clicks on articles.
BDP RSS aggregator - converts RSS feeds to Wordpress blog entries. Handy for creating an automatic blog.
Sig2Feed - Wordpress plugin that lets you add a signature to your RSS feeds


RSS-related plugins - other

Miranda

Good News Trillian RSS plugin - allows you to read RSS feeds in Trillian
RSSNews - RSS reader for IM client Miranda
RSS Feed Scanner - Azureus plugin that allows for automated downloads by means of advanced feed filter configurability
RSS Popper - RSS plugin for Outlook and Outlook Express
RSS Reader for Gaim - enables you to read RSS feeds in Pidgin (formerly Gaim)


RSS managers

FeedBurner

Feedburner - the obvious one. Recently acquired by Google, FeedBurner has become the de facto standard for RSS feed management, offering a huge set of features, including detailed analytics, chicklets, feed optimization and ad insertion.
WebPasties - a set of RSS-related tools, including some feed management features
FeedPass - creates a nice landing page for your feeds


RSS mixers

Yahoo Pipes

Yahoo! Pipes - an advanced RSS mixer with a graphical user interface; supports simple operators, filters, and many advanced functions
Feedbite - a combination of an online RSS reader and an RSS mixer, with the possibility to vote for RSS "bundles"
Feedblendr - a very simple RSS mixer that doesn't require registration
Blogsieve - full featured RSS mixer that lets you blend up to 5 feeds and do some advanced filtering on the results
Feedcombine - RSS mixer that lets you blend feeds from a list of predefined sources
Feedshake - RSS mixing and some basic filtering
xFruits - a set of very neat tools for RSS blending, filtering and conversion, including an RSS to PDF tool
BlastFeed - an RSS mixer that lets you combine and filter feeds and get them delivered via e-mail, IM or RSS
FeedRinse - an advanced RSS filter that enables you to get rid of the "spam" in your RSS feeds
FeedDigest - RSS mixer that lets you mix and sort feeds and then republish them on a website
Popfly - Microsoft's very promising RSS mixer, currently in closed beta
Google Mashup Editor (GME) - Google's set of developer tools for creating mashups
RSSMesh - a PHP script that lets you blend several feeds into one
Afeeda - RSS mixer which lets you blend all your favorite feeds into one


RSS Ping Tools

Pingoat

Pingoat - On Pingoat, you enter your blog URL and select the services you would like to ping. Doing so will make sure that the selected sites crawl and index your site. The site has nearly 50 different services you can ping.
Ping-o-matic - Enter your blog or feed URL and select from a variety of blog search engines and Ping-o-matic will send them a ping. The site has about 20 services to choose from.
Blog Flux - In addition to a variety of other tools for bloggers, Blog Flux offers Pinger, which includes more than 30 sites you can automatically ping, including several language specific indexes.
ping service - This site is mostly in Dutch and automatically pings a few of the larger services such as Technorati and Weblogs.com


Feed directories

Blogstreet

Syndic8 - one of the biggest RSS feed directories; integrates with several services on this list
Technorati - indexes blogs based on tags and authority, as measured by incoming links.
Feedster - organizes feeds into content channels such as technology and celebrity gossip.
Blogstreet - places feeds into different directory categories and also has a Digg-like homepage powered by user rankings.
Weblogs.com - one of the original feed directories, Weblogs.com simply shows the most recent blog updates automatically as they happen.
Icerocket - a blog search engine that also keeps track of blog statistics with their Blog Tracker product.
blo.gs - a simple listing of recently updated blogs in the spirit of Weblogs.com.
blogdigger - blog search engine, also has a Local feature for finding bloggers in your area.
2rss.com - a categorized blog directory and search engine with about 10,000 feeds indexed.
WeBlogALot - a blog directory that also pulls in breaking news feeds from mainstream sources.


RSS tips & hacks

Hacks

Steve Rubel's collection of RSS hacks
Another set of RSS-related hacks from Steve Rubel
Web Worker Daily's tips on RSS reading
5 RSS tips by LifeDev
Steve Rubel's 35 ways to use RSS feeds
RSS tools for Firefox - a detailed roundup of RSS-related add-ons for Firefox here on Mashable
Mister Tipster - a hardware USB mini display aimed specifically at displaying RSS feeds
Some RSS tips from Wired
Read RSS on your AppleTV


Miscellaneous RSS-related tools

Fireant

SearchFeedr - RSS feed search, supports Yahoo!, Google, MSN Live and Altavista
FeedCycle - bundles feeds into "episodes" and delivers them on a scheduled/daily basis
FeedCrier - brings RSS feeds to your instant messenger
Clicky's RSS feed - Clicky is a web analytics tool which can deliver analytics results via an RSS feed
RSS Panel X - a Greasemonkey script that displays RSS, Atom, hAtom and OPML directly from originating website
FeedForAll - create and edit RSS feeds and podcasts
Radio UserLand - a combination of a publishing platform and a news aggregator
Custom Reader - a white label RSS reader solution, ready to be branded to your liking
Chaos Wallpaper - RSS reader and wallpaper changer in one
FireAnt - RSS reader focused on podcasts, vidcasts, and media
NewsAloud - converts RSS feeds to voice
RSS2PDF - converts RSS feeds to PDF format
Dapper - creates an RSS feed from any website
Feedity - another RSS generator that can generate an RSS feed from any website
RSSMicro - an RSS search engine; searches over 65 million feeds

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