Mac OS X  |    |  AmphetaDesk

AmphetaDesk

AmphetaDesk - 0.93.1

Syndicated news / headline reader

All Time: (2.0)
This Version: Not rated (0.0)
Current Version: 0.93.1
Release Date: 2002-10-30
License: Freeware
Downloads (this version): 7,291
Downloads (all versions): 8,000
Price: null

Information Related to Version:

Broken Link? Newer Version? Tell us!

Product Description:

AmphetaDesk is a news aggregator - it sits on your desktop, downloads the latest news that interests you, and displays them in a quick and easy to use (and customizable!) webpage. With thousands of channels for selection, AmphetaDesk can shave hours off your day - and you'll look smart to all your friends! Egotism never had it better!

What's new in this version:

After an impromptu poll on the amphetadesk-discuss mailing list, it came to light that people wanted quicker releases, not large "gee whiz, look at all this stuff!" attempts. As such, AmphetaDesk v0.93.1 was released on October 31st, 2002, bringing with it mostly bugfixes, security enhancements and minor feature updates here and there. Read on, dear news hound:


  • Improved Compatibility: AmphetaDesk once again works on Windows 95 and Macintosh OS 7-9. I'd like to apologize for all the Mac users that had to wait patiently, and all the Windows 95 users that will caught unaware (as was I). Don't hesitate to let me know if things aren't quite right.

  • Optional Radio Userland Listening: AmphetaDesk can now optionally parse the "coffee mug" icon that is often shown on Radio Userland produced websites. This feature is turned off by default (as it could conflict with an existing installation of Radio Userland on your machine). More information is available on AmphetaDesk's "My Settings" page once you install the v0.93.1 update.

  • New Minor Features: Nothing super exciting, but noteworthy additions include:

    • A channel's email address is now saved in myChannels.opml.
    • A frontend to modifying the HTTP referer has been added.
    • Authenticated proxies are now supported.
    • Channel descriptive data is now updated after each parse.
    • Channels and settings are now saved before being shut down.
    • Encoded content from mod_content is now displayed.
    • HTTP headers are now output correctly for proxy servers.
    • PNG images are now displayed correctly.
    • Templates have been tweaked for more speed.

  • Security Updates: I consider these three tiny lines to be reason alone for your updating:

    • The internal server is now closed, by default, to outside connections.
    • URLs are now checked for funny business.
    • We no longer divulge the full path on a 404.

  • Bug Fixes: For more geekish explanations and fixes, check out the CHANGELOG:

    • AmphetaDesk.log may not have been saved in the correct directory.
    • Defaulting to 'index.html' on a directory request works correctly on Win32.
    • Importing feeds no longer clobbers existing attributes not in the source.
    • Matching filenames randomize to four places now, not two.
    • Old, unsubscribed channel data is now removed at startup.
    • OS X: Cleaned up some extraneous logging to the window.
    • Removed our ugly onClick img hack on a channel deletion.
    • We no longer crash on XML files encoded as UTF-8 with BOM.
    • We no longer crash on feeds that have more than one channel.
    • We no longer die when a channel has only one item.
    • We no longer die when myChannels.opml only has one channel.
    • Webserver shutdown was not correct, causing the port to remain open.
    • Win32: Proper systray and window maximization now occurs.

Operating System Requirements:

This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:

  • Mac OS X 10.2
  • Mac OS X 10.1
  • Mac OS X 10.0

Screenshots:

Download Links:

Your Installed Versions:


 

Feedback Summary:

This Version:
Overall Rating: Not rated (0.0) Features: Not rated (0.0) Support: Not rated (0.0)
Ease of Use: Not rated (0.0) Quality / Stability: Not rated (0.0) Price: Not rated (0.0)
Add Your Feedback

Key to Types of Feedback:

ReviewsReviews   TroubleshootingTroubleshooting   Usage TipsUsage Tips   Developer NotesDeveloper Notes   CommentaryCommentary   Featured ReviewsFeatured Reviews

AmphetaDesk Commentaryinteresting... - Version: 0.93.1, 10/13/2005 12:09PM PST

grikdog
My experience with Amphetadesk is two-fold: The first time I tried to install it, it wanted to download a truckload of perl modules from CPAN and I killed the install. Who has time for "some assembly required" installation, especially on a Mac? The second time I tried, I'd spent most of a morning (weeks later) trying to install a Perl script to convert an rss feed into html -- an effort which eventually failed for much the same reason as effort 1, above. Within moments after giving up yet in in disgust, I found a no-nonsense script called rubric at RubyForge that meets my rss2html needs exactly. But as a side effect of all this foofarah, I discovered I'd installed sufficient Perl modules to run Amphetadesk. Which is interesting. Yes, it works. No, it doesn't display enough of the content actually available in standard RSS 2.0 (not counting Userland extensions) newsfeeds. And it's not that configurable. And it exposes an advanced user settings interface for you to dork around with proxy settings and other geeks-only stuff. But it does make a limited, rather nice display of a valid RSS in your web browser. That's kind of cool, especially for a pre version 1.0 app. So, bottom line -- damnation with faint praise. Most people will be better off with NetNewsWire Lite, also free, but this has a few geek-level uses and some ways to get even more interesting as the future unfolds.
Post a commentAlert Admin

AmphetaDesk ReviewComment on RSS - Version: 0.93.1, 12/20/2004 06:49AM PST

peterpayne
One note to makers of RSS feed readers. There exists a real need for a way to host one's RSS streams in a minimalist HTML format so that people can read their feeds on a cellular phone, which naturally can't handle lots of extravagant graphics but could display the contents of RSS feeds with graphics easily. Services like Bloglines, which let you surf your feeds online from any computer, still require logins and other things that a cell phone couldn't handle. So how about adding support for this with an RSS reader -- it could have options for creation of a view-anywhere HTML display that could be surfed from any machine via web sharing, or uploaded to an FTP site at regular intervals? Viewing one's RSS feeds on a cell phone is a "killer app" that has been ignored totally so far, as long as I can tell.

Incidentally this is VERY CLOSE to what I'd want, yet VERY FAR since you can't change things, how it displays, what kind of information it shows, and so on. Bummer.
Post a commentAlert Admin

AmphetaDesk CommentaryWeird. First time… - Version: 0.93.1, 11/10/2002 06:41PM PST

youcanrunnaked
my setup failed to recognize a sourceforge link. My apologies . . . this works. Now to drive it around the block a few times . . . .
Post a commentAlert Admin