I really love NetNewsWire – it fits the bill for (almost) all of my aggregation needs. It even has a rather sophisticated syncing mechanism, which got even more advanced after the the product was purchased by NewsGator.

But syncing isn’t really for me. Don’t get me wrong, I want to read news from more than one machine – just very irregularly. And sometimes suddenly. I don’t want the overhead of syncing all the time just so my subscriptions will be available when I happen to pop out of town for a few days.

The fact is, 95% of my news reading happens on my main development machine, and maybe 5% happens on my laptop. So my special low-tech version of “syncing” involves two simple steps:

1. Make sure my laptop has the same subscriptions as my desktop.
2. Make sure the “unread articles” on either machine match my last reading.

I found myself doing some pretty crazy things, like simultaneously “catching up” on one machine and then “marking all as read” on the other. Finally, I realized I didn’t need to be so particular about things. I could do just fine if I knocked out “almost all” of the posts I had already read on the other machine. How to do this? Pretty simple. Just mark everything as read, and then mark everything after a certain date as unread.

I decided to take that certain date from a cue article. That is, an article I’ve selected in NetNewsWire. By running Mark Unread Since Date while I’m looking at any article in NetNewsWire, I instruct the program to mark as unread every article released at that time or later. So I can browse through some recently read feed, select an article, and “go back in time” to the unread articles from that era and later. By identifying a particular post as “something I read,” I’m guaranteed that nothing I haven’t read will be omitted (assuming I finished “catching up” on the other machine).

This really works for me. I’m careful to pick articles from a time that is “roughly a few minutes before I stopped reading on the other machine,” and have the easiest time of staying “in sync” between the machines.

I’ve been sitting on this release too long, because of a very minor unreproducible (harmless!) bug that I’m trying to track down. Anyway, there’s no reason to hold out any longer. Those of you wanting to use the Tab, Escape, and Return keys in your script keyboard shortcuts will be happy with this release!

FastScripts 2.3.1

Version Changes:

• Allow return, tab, escape as keyboard shortcuts – the only key not supported is “delete”
• Fix a weird “only works every other time” bug with scripts that use UI Scripting for keystrokes
• Allow dragging of FastScripts note windows by holding command while clicking

Mike Zornek’s Child’s Play Day is wrapping up, and despite relatively little organization, it looks like a major success. My newest customers alone brought in nearly $250, all of which has been sent directly to the charity. I know of at least two developers whose contributions will exceed $1000, so I’m sure the event will be unanimously declared a success, and will substantially improve the lives of some deserving kids this year.

Major kudos to Mike for putting this together! And many thanks to the people who bought FlexTime, FastScripts, or Clarion over the past 24 hours. You rock!

It’s been heart-wrenching to follow the ups and downs of the James and Kati Kim family, who disappeared shortly after Thanksgiving and were missing for over a week before being found in the Oregon wilderness. While the sad story got a happy lift earlier this week with the discovery of Kati and the two children alive, James’s story came to an unhappy conclusion today when rescue workers found him, defeated by the woods he had gotten lost in.

It’s easy for me to empathize with James and his family, because he was “a lot like me” in some superficial but emotionally connective ways. He worked in the tech industry. In San Francisco. In a building across the street from where I used to work. With a lot of people who I know directly or indirectly. It was easy to envision myself driving along that mountain road and somehow letting one thing lead to another until the situation was dire. And that’s just too sad for words.

I was really hoping for a miracle.

It makes me appreciate the fragility of life, renews my respect for the wilderness, and encourages me to stop taking my own life for granted. And I want those near to me to keep living. Please.

More than that, James helps remind me how important everybody’s life is. Here’s a man I did not know, but whose story compelled me to hope beyond hope that he’d be found alive. All because the news stories and circumstances of his life made it easy for me to relate to him. Really easy. So I add my own condolences to the waves of concern for the Kim family, and hope in vain that nobody else dies before their time, at least for a while.