Professor Geek

Most blog readers are familiar with RSS readers that are installed on your PC, however there are some limitations to this model:

1. Since the reader is installed on one PC, you can’t stay up to date very easily when you use mulitiple PCs.
2. If you install a reader on multiple PCs, you will have trouble keeping the PCs synchronized (what you have read vs. what has not yet been read). Although there are workarounds to this, depending upon the reader you are using, none of them are simple.

There are also advantages of having your reader on your PC:

1. Your reader can stay up to date automatically, so there is no delay when you decide to read your new posts.
2. The installed reader is much more customizable
3. The installed reader is much faster
4. Privacy/Security is better on an installed reader

If an installed reader doesn’t work best for you, you might consider an online aggregator. There are many available and I ran into a nice comparison on the TechCrunch blog. Check it out if you are interested in making your reader web-based instead of PC-based.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.