walkah: Google reader-ing

OK Google Reader, you got me. I'll admit, I *almost* switched when Boris did. I tried it at the time... sorta liked it... but had my concerns. But this week, I've re-thought my position, given it another try, and I think it might stick. What changed? Well:

• Thunderbird 2.0b1 was released (more on that later). What does that have to do with it? Well, one complaint was that reader doesn't support authenticated feeds - which I use a *lot* of for work. Incidentally those are the same feeds I'm most interested in having access to when offline. I actually find Thunderbird's feed handling decent - and the nice part of having work feeds in my mail app is that I follow a similar workflow there as I do with my mail (including growl alerts for new posts), and there's a clear separation between stuff I need to pay attention to vs. the rest (although, most of the feeds I follow are work related - the ones I'm talking about here are bug reports and internal tickets, etc).
• Getting the n91. Simple: a phone with wifi is amazingly useful. I can do a quick feed catchup anywhere with wifi without having to drag out my laptop. OK, maybe this mobile craze has legs.
• Discovering the Google Reader Notifier extension for firefox. It helps me keep an eye on what's been posted without having an extra (or even an extra tab) open.

It took a little fiddling with the workflow, a bit of adjustment, and some time memorizing the keyboard shortcuts, but I'm finally pretty happy with things. And, I no longer have to worry about syncing issues.

I've been a long time user of both NetNewsWire and endo - and I love both for different reasons. But, man, google is actually making web apps I don't hate. *gasp*