Can I possibly buy a month or two at a time? I want to try it out without buying a whole year. I know that's cheap of me, but I'll probably be trying a few RSS readers in the near future.
Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
51–60 of 146 posts
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#52So far I am not a user of ANY reader. Between googlenews, twitter, and HN I get my daily digest. I would like to try Newsblur but it seems that to get immediate value I have to have been some reader user: I can migrate my googlereader account or upload an OPML file. What I would like to see are different versions of OOTB "skins". I can sign up as an "HN-lover" and it seeds my account with 50 blogs I should follow. Th…
As I mentioned on Twitter, if you want a free account but can't get around the paywall, just know that the paywall is extremely leaky on porpoise...
> just know that the paywall is extremely leaky on porpoise...
This is my new favorite typo.
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should lock that "dorito" that follows your mouse. It allows you to adjust the currently selected story. It's an indicator line. Maybe I should lock it by default and allow you to click on it to have it follow your mouse...
I wasn't aware you could do this. Locking it by default seems like it would make more sense. Also while I've got you, two issues I've noticed. 1. When I click "All Stories" to refresh my feeds it defaults to listing everything, even though I have it set so I only view one item at a time. As soon as I click the button/arrow to go to the next unread item it shows the first item as it should and everything works fine af…
1. Intentional. Otherwise you'd stare at a blank screen until you click a story.
2. That's an unfortunate bug, but one that will probably get sussed out when I work on scaling over the next month.
Dev is largely just a re-skin. They share a backend.
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried to install NewsBlur, but instructions were not very helpful. I tried to get as far as I can, editing fabfile and installing gajillions of new python modules, but still failed. Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful and very commendable of you to open source NewsBlur! Nor do I feel entitled to the source code or free ride (I will probably end up paying for the hosted solution). Just providing some feedback, given…
This is something I'll be working on soon enough. There are many, many dependencies (not only for the web app, but there are three DBs that you have to have installed as prerequisites - mongo, postgres/mysql, and redis). The real problem with setting up your own instance of NewsBlur is that you'll have to do your own feed fetching. This is effectively what you're paying for when you pay for NewsBlur. Let me break it…
Three DBs? I don't suppose you have a blog post or something that explains your architecture decisions? Not criticising - I'm sure you had good reasons - but I'm rather curious as to what they were :)
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't aware you could do this. Locking it by default seems like it would make more sense. Also while I've got you, two issues I've noticed. 1. When I click "All Stories" to refresh my feeds it defaults to listing everything, even though I have it set so I only view one item at a time. As soon as I click the button/arrow to go to the next unread item it shows the first item as it should and everything works fine af…
1. Intentional. Otherwise you'd stare at a blank screen until you click a story. 2. That's an unfortunate bug, but one that will probably get sussed out when I work on scaling over the next month. Dev is largely just a re-skin. They share a backend.
Why can't there be an option in the cast of 1. for it to automatically open the first unread story when I click "All stories"? Basically what I am doing by pressing the first unread button.
I can understand not doing that by default since people may want to see their unread feeds, but I always just go to the first unread one anyway.
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#56And I just want to remind the technical crowd here that NewsBlur is 100% open-source: http://github.com/samuelclay I've been asked quite a few times why I open-source the code. The answer is simple. Let me use an example from Joel Spolsky. (From http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html ) The dominant spreadsheet, with 100% market share, is Lotus 123. You're the product manager for Microsoft Excel. As…
I tried to install NewsBlur, but instructions were not very helpful. I tried to get as far as I can, editing fabfile and installing gajillions of new python modules, but still failed. Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful and very commendable of you to open source NewsBlur! Nor do I feel entitled to the source code or free ride (I will probably end up paying for the hosted solution). Just providing some feedback, given…
> I tried to install NewsBlur, but instructions were not very helpful.
NewsBlur should distribute in an .egg form, or via PIP directly, with VirtualEnv and everything.
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried to install NewsBlur, but instructions were not very helpful. I tried to get as far as I can, editing fabfile and installing gajillions of new python modules, but still failed. Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful and very commendable of you to open source NewsBlur! Nor do I feel entitled to the source code or free ride (I will probably end up paying for the hosted solution). Just providing some feedback, given…
This is something I'll be working on soon enough. There are many, many dependencies (not only for the web app, but there are three DBs that you have to have installed as prerequisites - mongo, postgres/mysql, and redis). The real problem with setting up your own instance of NewsBlur is that you'll have to do your own feed fetching. This is effectively what you're paying for when you pay for NewsBlur. Let me break it…
Just to add to this, the size of the data grows far more quickly then you would expect. I crawl 30 or so feeds for a personal project and database after 2 months of operation is over 200 meg in size.
For the cost of hosting/development/work you are MUCH better paying for newsblur and forgoing 6 outside coffee's a year.
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
This analogy seems to be describing a different principle. Microsoft was trying to break the network effect that Lotus had.
I agree it's not a 1-to-1 analogy, but the idea is the same. Knowing you're free to come back to Lotus by using Excel frees you from the chicken-and-egg constraint of waiting until your entire office is on Excel. With NewsBlur you know that you can host your own instance if your dependency on the newsblur.com hosted instance breaks.
This analogy only helps for developers that would be comfortable installing and operating their own instance. I don't see many folks being excited about the opportunity for personal use.
For other folks hoping to build their own service, commercially or otherwise, having access to your code provides a huge savings in time to market.
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I mentioned on Twitter, if you want a free account but can't get around the paywall, just know that the paywall is extremely leaky on porpoise...
> just know that the paywall is extremely leaky on porpoise... This is my new favorite typo.
I don't think that's a typo.
Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree it's not a 1-to-1 analogy, but the idea is the same. Knowing you're free to come back to Lotus by using Excel frees you from the chicken-and-egg constraint of waiting until your entire office is on Excel. With NewsBlur you know that you can host your own instance if your dependency on the newsblur.com hosted instance breaks.
I see what you mean by that, but open-sourcing all your software instead of just having an export function seems risky to me. In our area of business, our features get copied really quickly.
You can still copy the feature without looking at the code. Sometimes its even preferable.