RSS Popper

Lock/disable touchpad while typing

2010-04-09T22:58:00.000-07:00

[This is not RSS Popper related]

I needed a way to prevent mouse clicks if I touch the touchpad accidentally while I'm typing on my laptop. There are few free tools out there that automatically lock the touchpad while typing and releases it when you stop typing. However, none gave me the configuration options I wanted, thus came "Touchpad Locker".

Touchpad Locker locks/disables the touchpad while you're typing, releases it when you stop typing and gives you the freedom to tweak the details when/how long to lock the touchpad. It's a small weekend project, but I think it might be useful to others so I've placed it online. Have fun.

Touchpad Locker

RSS Popper for Outlook 2010

2010-02-11T11:16:00.001-08:00

I got few e-mails saying that RSS Popper doesn't work with Outlook 2010. My guess is that Microsoft changed something in the registration of Add-ins in Outlook.

I'll check it only with the final version of Outlook 2010 later this year.

UPDATE: It work's just fine with Outlook 2010 x32, so I guess the problem is only with the x64 version.

Twitter to Outlook

2010-02-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

From time to time I get requests to write Twitter Add-In for Outlook, and every time I have the same answer: you can use RSS Popper to get updates from Twitter to Outlook (or any RSS reader for that matter).

Twitter got RSS feeds for most interesting things.

Accessibility Support (MSAA)

2009-04-11T02:02:00.000-07:00

It was brought to my attention that the 'Feeds Info' window does not allow people who are using Windows accessibility software (screen reading, MSAA) to get the feed names (they get 'checkbox' instead).

With the help of this testing utility I've fixed this issue in version 0.39d.

Firefox support

2009-01-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

Since I moved to use Firefox, I've decided to add support for Firefox in RSS Popper - so now, with RSS Popper 0.39c comes a small utility called 'RSSPopperFF.exe' that do just that.

To subscribe from Firefox: open the RSS in firefox & in the 'Subscribe to this feed using' drop down select 'Choose Application...' and browse to 'RSSPopperFF.exe' (usually under C:\Program Files\RSS Popper).

RSS Popper 0.38d released

2008-11-19T23:55:00.000-08:00

Enhancements:
* Added feed translation (title translation & link to Google Translate).
* Added Swedish translation.
* Improved RSS Parser

Bugs Fixed:
* Several minor bugs (mostly related to the RSS Parser).

Improved RSS parser

2008-10-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

I got few reports in the RSS Popper forum about problems reading some RSS feeds. One post last week gave an example of such feed which allowed me to pin-point the problem.

The new version of RSS Popper (0.38b) that fixes this issue can be downloaded from the site.

RSS post translation

2008-08-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

In the last few days I've been playing with Google Language API.

The result:
* Added an option to translation the Title of incoming messages.
* Added a link to Google Translate with the message 'Read more' link.

Due to limitation imposed by the Google Langauge API terms of use I can not use it to translate the message itself in the Outlook message (there's a limit to 500 characters).

To enable this feature you should:
1. Select the target language in the "Options" window.
2. Check "Translate Feed" for every feed you wish to translate.

Those features are available in RSS Popper 0.38a (see the download page).

btw - another feature in the version is a new shotcut key: Control-L to create a new feed.

Version 0.37 released

2008-07-10T04:01:00.000-07:00

Enhancements:
* Added German translation
* Removed Google search box
* Initial support for Windows Mail (OE for Vista)
* Improved date parsing (blogger.com date format)
* Improved image downloading/parsing when downloading web pages
* Moved to .NET Framework 2.0
* Don't allow the user to select invalid folder as a destination folder for feed.

Bug Fixed:
* Possible memory leak fixed.
* Allow to change feed info when the feed is offline (excluding feed URL & authentication)
* When the target default folder was a Store root -
--- Every time the settings window was opened the user was asked if he wants to change the feeds folders.
--- The error message sent to the default Outlook Store.

German support in RSS Popper

2008-07-08T03:21:00.000-07:00

A new beta version of RSS Popper 0.37 was placed online.

The most important change: German language support.
Other minor changes include improved date parser & fixed memory leaks.

The full list of features will be available with the official release of the version.

Content redirection

2007-09-18T22:59:00.000-07:00

In the near future I plan to shutdown the hosting of rsspopper.com.

Users which uses the content redirection feature of RSS Popper to bypass the phishing warning of Outlook should install RSS Popper 0.36c which uses a new redirection host.

I already placed a notice in the redirection page.

Sorry for the trouble.

Version 0.36 released

2006-09-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

Enhancements:
* Improved non-English letters support.
* Remember RSS is ON/OFF settings (setting saved in the configuration file)
* Initial iCal support

Bugs Fixed:
* Destination folders name which ends with '\' caused creation of blank folder name

Future plans

2006-08-30T04:44:00.000-07:00

For the last few months I didn't had the time to work on RSS Popper. In the next week or two I think I'll have more time, so if you sent a request during the last 3-4 months I would be happy if you'll send it again. I promise to answer any mail in the next 2 weeks.

iCal support

2006-04-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've just uploaded v0.36a2 which is the second build of RSS Popper with iCal support.

To register iCal feed:
* Open 'Edit Feeds' window.
* Click 'New'
* Select 'iCal' in the feed type list.

RSS Popper creates a meeting request for each meeting in the iCal feed, and it looks like this:

Since I'm not a big iCal fun, I can't really check this (I'm not aware of many feeds).

The most important features that are NOT supported by RSS Popper 0.36a2 are:
* Events update (if event is changed - no update is sent).
* Time zones
* Recurring events
* Remainder (partial support - never tested)

iCal to Outlook synchronization

2006-04-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

I'm planning to add iCal synchronization feature to RSS Popper, thus enabling iCal sync with Outlook.

If anyone has ideas, comments, feature requests or iCal sample feeds feel free to throw me a line.

UPDATE 21.04.2006:
After fighting with Outlook calendar for the last few days, it seems I've got answers to all the questions and it's only a matter of days (and not many) before a first development version is released.

UPDATE 22.04.2006
An initial version with iCal support (0.36a1) is available for first preview. iCal events are stored as meeting requests in the target folder of the feed. It lacks a lot of functionality, specifically:
- Remainder
- Recurring events
- TimeZone support
- Events update support

Further more, there are some iCal feed that I couldn't make working at all (socket couldn't connect). I'm still checking this out, it's really weird.

Version 0.35 Released

2006-03-18T12:12:00.000-08:00

Enhancements:
* Improved support for Atom 0.3 feeds that does not follow the standard.
* Convert HTML code symbols in message title (such as "quot")
* Improved XML parser to support some invalid XMLs.
* Improved image downloading & added support for images in forms buttons.
* Improved Outlook Express installer (not all DLL released before upgrading "RSS Popper")

Bugs Fixed:
* Fixed support for error messages in Outlook Express version
* Fixed a problem with URL that contain spaces.

Version 0.34 released

2006-02-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

Enhancements:
* Improved Atom 1.0 support (HTML rendering)
* RSS Popper for Outlook Express release.

Bugs Fixed:
* The GUID of RSS feed item was not stored.
* Fixed several issues with page download.
* Removed "Cache-Control" http header. Some sites had problems with it.
* When downloading full webpage - there was a problem when the webpage was redirected (failed to download images)
* Fixed a bug with relative path in the 'Link' field of the feed.

Intel.com feeds & Offline browsing

2006-01-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

There was a problem to download web pages from Intel.com - RSS Popper couldn't download the images.

This issue was fixed in version 0.34c and it is recommended to update if you read Intel.com feeds off-line.

btw - There's a cool Outlook add-on to send messages to SharePoint, check out SharedLook

RSS Popper for Outlook Express

2006-01-05T05:45:00.000-08:00

I've just finished writing a variant of RSS Popper for Outlook Express 6 (initial alpha version). It's not really an 'add-in' but a stand-alone program. It's based on RSS Popper engine so it contains all the features of RSS Popper (or so I think, didn't check everything yet).

If there will be a demand I might consider writing a 'real' add-in for OE. If someone tries it please drop me a line & tell me if it works on your computer.

Update (14.01.2006): As of Alpha 3 RSS Popper for OE is an add-in.

Version 0.33 released

2005-12-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

Enhancements:
* Improved Atom 1.0 support
* Support proxy configuration scripts (Preliminary)
* Added an option to download podcasts (as attachments).

Bugs Fixed:
* Solved the multiple instances problem (?)
* Fixed a bug causing empty messages if there's no title tag in the RSS/ATOM item.
* Fixed a bug causing two different pictures with the same name to be downloaded as one.
* Some images weren't downloaded to the local e-mail.
* Fixed some small issues with Atom parser.
* Fixed relative path issues.
* Added redirection to links within feed item.

Update (23/12): due to a problem in v0.33e, I've released a fix - version 0.33f.

Version 0.32 released

2005-11-01T11:28:00.000-08:00

Enhancements:
* Support for newsgator.com synchronization
* Support Atom 1.0 (Preliminary)
* Added an option to redirect all links thru RSSPopper.com to prevent Outlook 2003 SP2 phishing warning.
* Improved feeds registration UI
* Improved installation process

Bugs Fixed:
* Better handling http caching (handle invalid protocol values)
* Fixed problem displaying central European languages special characters (Umlaute ect.)

German letters

2005-10-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

I've just uploaded a new build of RSS Popper 0.32b which should fix a problem with special German letters.

I would appreciate feedback on this matter (it's hard to check this).

p.s. I got complaints about this only from Germany, but I think that this was the case for some other languages (French?).

NewsGator Online synchronization

2005-08-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've just uploaded RSS Popper 0.32a which includes "NewsGator Online" synchronization.
To add a "NewsGator Online" account: Open "Edit Feed" -> "New Feed" menu -> "NewsGator Online Account"

p.s. It's still a beta and does not include many of the special features of NewsGator Online

Version 0.31 released

2005-08-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

This version contains only minor changes, don't upgrade if you're not experiencing problems.
Due to problems reported in 0.31c I've released 0.31d which solves those issues.

Enhancements:
* Added "Refresh Interval" column to the "Edit Feeds" window.

Bugs Fixed:
* Improved compatibility with other programs running Outlook ('ActiveSync', 'HideOutlook' etc.)
* Improved XML support (some feeds didn't worked)

Version 0.30 Fix

2005-08-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

Due to a problem in RSS Popper 0.30 (0.30d), causing Outlook 2003 process to stay alive after shutdown (and might cause an error window), I've released a minor version (0.30e).