I've complained about this before, but maybe I'll do it again and someone will listen this time.

I need a little tray gadget that notifies me of RSS updates. It shouldn't be a full reader. It should just display a pretty little popup box when a new entry is added to one of the feeds I read. It should display the content of the entry as text, nothing fancy, and a link to the actual post.

It would be really cool if it synced with my Google Reader account so that when I added a feed there, it would start tracking that one in my tray applet.

Something this simple would make my life so much better. For all of the stuff I build for the web for other people, can someone offer me this simple little program in exchange? Please? Do I have to write this one myself, too.

Want to make it even better? Make it a Windows Twitter client, and have it track the Twitter RSS of the account that it submits to. That would be really slick.

Comments

Comment by owen on .
owen
Diana: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, right? I just gotta find me a spellcaster. :) amanda: I think maybe you're mistaking my desire to not have to run a browser with something that Safari (a browser) offers. Pat: That would mean I'd have to install IE7 on the PC that I want to read feeds on. I don't know if I'm ready to do that just yet, since I primarily need to check for compatibility with IE6 for web development. There's got to be a better way! I think maybe this is a feature I should add to Ozone - a more sophisticated notification system, and the ability to read RSS/Atom. I really need some more time to finish that.
Comment by Pat on .
Pat
Depends what you want. I can't offer easy sync with google reader (and I don't care to look up their API), but if you're willing to deal with the "Windows RSS Platform", then it's probably only a couple hundred lines away (mostly glue and UI): http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/feedsapi/rss/overviews/msfeeds_ovw.asp