Full Google Reader Backup

"Reader is dead," says Mihai Parparita, one of the former Google Reader engineers. You still have 2-3 days to use Google Reader, but the best thing you can do is to export your data.



Google Takeout lets you export some of your Reader data, but not everything: your subscriptions, your notes, starred items, shared items, liked items, the list of followers and the people you were following, the items shared by the people you were following. Mihai Parparita wrote some Python scripts that download everything from your Google Reader accounts, including the entire content of the posts from your subscriptions. You need Python 2.7 and a lot of free storage: my backup has more than 5 GB for about 250 feeds (vs 125 MB for the uncompressed Takeout backup).

Mihai also started to write a script that lets you browse your archive. It's a work in progress, probably because the script for downloading your data is more important right now.



There's also a script for downloading a feed's archive. "Google Reader has (for the most part) a copy of all blog posts and other feed items published since its launch in late 2005 (assuming that at least one Reader user subscribed to the feed). This makes it an invaluable resource for sites that disappear, can serve as a backup mechanism and enables tools to be created." My post from 2007 provides another way to download the history of a feed.



"I don't fault Google for providing only partial data via Takeout. Exporting all 612,599 read items in my account (and a few hundred thousand more from subscriptions, recommendations, etc.) results in almost 4 GB of data. Even if I'm in the 99th percentile for Reader users (I've got the badge to prove it), providing hundreds of megabytes of data per user would not be feasible. I'm actually happy that Takeout support happened at all, since my understanding is that it was all during 20% time," says Mihai Parparita, who spent 5 years working on Google Reader.



If you're curious to know which Reader alternative gets a thumb up from Mihai, his answer is "a toss-up between NewsBlur and Digg Reader."

Lorem Ipsum Google Translate

"In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum is a placeholder text (filler text) commonly used to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document or visual presentation, such as font, typography, and layout, by removing the distraction of meaningful content. The lorem ipsum text is typically a section of a Latin text by Cicero with words altered, added, and removed that make it nonsensical and not proper Latin". (Wikipedia)



What happens when you use Google Translate to find the English translation of one of the many lorem ipsum texts? You get this:

"We will be sure to post a comment. Add tomato sauce, no tank or a traditional or online. Until outdoor environment, and not just any competition, reduce overall pain. Cisco Security, they set up in the throat develop the market beds of Cura; Employment silently churn-class by our union, very beginner himenaeos. Monday gate information. How long before any meaningful development. Until mandatory functional requirements to developers. But across the country in the spotlight in the notebook. The show was shot. Funny lion always feasible, innovative policies hatred assured. Information that is no corporate Japan."



Well, Google Translate for Latin is still in alpha and the text is nonsensical. There are many actual mistakes in Google Translate. Statistical machine translation sometimes produces humorous results.



{ via waxy.org }

Cool Websites and Tools [June 28th 2013]

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. Most of the listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe here....

Continue reading the article

Read full article: Cool Websites and Tools [June 28th 2013]

Instant Message Anyone On Your Home Network With LAN Messenger

One of the worst things in a household full of poeple is when conversations consit of shouting throughout the house. More families are turning to instant messaging as a solution for in-home communication. Heck - IM is making paging systems obsolete at most workplaces, so why not in the home? The problem arises for parents of young children, who don't want those kids to be plugged into the Internet on public IM networks - for those parents, LAN Messenger can serve as an excellent solution.

Continue reading the article

Read full article: Instant Message Anyone On Your Home Network With LAN Messenger

Scrivener: The Best Writing Program for the Mac and PC

Scrivener has been around since 2006, and it is a favorite application amongst novelists and screenwriters. Scrivener is not a desktop layout application like Word and Pages, but it helps you organize and export your documents to other applications. As a full-time non-fiction tech writer, I can't recommend Scrivener enough for actually starting and drafting writing projects and today I will share my personal workflow and tips for getting the most out of Scrivener.

Continue reading the article

Read full article: Scrivener: The Best Writing Program for the Mac and PC

Nightingale: A Faster, Cleaner Cross-Platform Fork of Songbird Music Player

I’ve tried so many desktop music players that I’m starting to lose my mind. So far I’ve tried Clementine, Spider, GOM Audio, AIMP3, and a few more. How does Nightingale fare against its fierce competition? Before answering that, you should know that Nightingale is a fork of Songbird Classic. You’ll find a lot of similarities between the two, but also a number of differences - the main one being that Songbird has officially been declared dead. Whether you were looking for a Songbird alternative or a Songbird replacement, Nightingale might have what you need.

Continue reading the article

Read full article: Nightingale: A Faster, Cleaner Cross-Platform Fork of Songbird Music Player

Nightingale: A Faster, Cleaner Cross-Platform Fork of Songbird Music Player

I’ve tried so many desktop music players that I’m starting to lose my mind. So far I’ve tried Clementine, Spider, GOM Audio, AIMP3, and a few more. How does Nightingale fare against its fierce competition? Before answering that, you should know that Nightingale is a fork of Songbird Classic. You’ll find a lot of similarities between the two, but also a number of differences - the main one being that Songbird has officially been declared dead. Whether you were looking for a Songbird alternative or a Songbird replacement, Nightingale might have what you need.

Continue reading the article

Read full article: Nightingale: A Faster, Cleaner Cross-Platform Fork of Songbird Music Player

2 Tools and Ways to Manage Your Windows Libraries

Microsoft has made some aspects of managing Windows libraries rather difficult -- what if you want to add removable drives or network shares to a library? What if you want to choose a custom icon for your libraries? To do these things, you'll need a third-party tool for managing your Windows libraries. These tools are useful on Windows 7, but they can be even more useful on Windows 8, as Modern apps don't have access to the file system and can only see files in the appropriate library.

Continue reading the article

Read full article: 2 Tools and Ways to Manage Your Windows Libraries

Do More with your Feedly RSS Reader

Feedly is our favorite RSS Reader. If you have just migrated from Google Reader to Feedly, this guide will help get up to speed and learn a few trick in the process.

---

This story, Do More with your Feedly RSS Reader, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 28/06/2013 under Feedly, Google Reader, RSS, Internet.