Reader

Last week Google announced it will shut down its Reader service. It is a web-based RSS reader. It therefore allows to be kept updated of news from around the net in a central location. I liked the service for 3 reasons (on top of the fact it’s free, 0$, to use): It’s web-based, accessible from anywhere/everywhere with a simple browser; It’s text-based, you can quickly scan headlines and use the powerful search function from Google; It’s backed by an API so you can use it via different apps on different platforms and they all stay synchronised (the web/mobile version of Reader is not as efficient as the web/desktop version; hence the proliferation of apps using Reader as a backbone). Of course it frustrated a lot of people, from scientists to consultants … to name a few only. People are looking for alternative ( you can do a search on Google while the Search service is still working). Feedly is cited very often as the next best alternative. However its nice, graphical interface conflicts with my second reason to like Google Reader: it’s text-based. The Old Reader looks also interesting, it is text-based but no apps on different platforms yet. But both are also proprietary and can be turned off (or changed to a pay-for-use model) at any moment :-( ...

For some reasons, I had to choose between a new, simple Nokia phone (but fortunately not a Windows one!) and my 1-year-old Android phone. Before I leave this Android phone, here are the few 6 Android apps that I really appreciated and used daily. FBReader is a very nice e-book reader for Android. It supports a lot of e-book formats like epub, fb2, (partially) mobipocket, html, RTF and plain text. It works very well with Calibre (a free software e-book reader / manager / converter) - or is it the opposite? I also really like the fact FBReader can browse and download some free e-books directly from the internet. Of course, reading an e-book on a small 3.2 inch screen isn’t the perfect user experience. However, the night mode (white text on black background) is very handy to read something when it’s late and you don’t want the harsh white background. You can find FBReader on the Android Market for free (it’s a free software, under the GPL). ...

Three months ago, I complained about the fact we can’t see comments made in PDF files in Evince. With a recent update to Fedora Core 12, Evince was also updated to version 2.28.2 and, among many improvements, comments ( annotations) added to PDF files are now visible :-) Bye, bye, Adobe Acrobat Reader ;-)

Evince defines itself as “simply a document viewer” (for Linux/Gnome and now for Windows too). However it can already read a lot of formats: PDF, TIFF, PS, DVI, DJvu and plans to support a lot more in the future. But for me there is one important feature missing: the ability to read comments in PDF files. I sent PDF versions of draft documents to my PhD thesis promoters and they send them back with their comments. Open them in Evince: you’ll only get the balloons but no possibility to click on them (see Figure 1 below). Open them in Acrobat Reader and not only you can see that there are comments but you can also see their content (see Figure 2 below). ...