Google Reader Replaced by ...

Picture heavy and includes mini-tutes.

First off, I want you to know that yes, I do realize that the title of my last blog post included a misnomer.  I referred to my investigative research as a search for a Blogger replacement.  That was wrong; I was actually searching for a Google Reader replacement.

See the referenced post here.

I have made my decision.

My top two choices are Feedly and NetVibes.

Feedly - my second choice

Feedly is pretty, but I hadn't figured out how to tell it to mark all posts in one category as having been Read.  Interestingly enough, I Just Found It.  Gah!

By hovering the mouse over the Featured tab, the notation "mark featured as read" appears:

By hovering the mouse over a blog title, the notation "actions" appears"

By hovering the mouse over the word "actions," the actions menu appears:

By hovering the mouse over the unread message count of a category on the left side, the "mark all as read" option appears:

There is one reason I will occasionally use Feedly - Searching!  I did find that Feedly allowed for search limits - or not.  Here's what appeared when I clicked on the search icon at the upper right and entered my search criterion.  This really surprised me that I could limit my search to my blog feeds or to the whole
Internet:

Feedly is no longer my primary RSS Reader because I could only preview a few blogs at a time.

NetVibes - my first choice

When I first started using NetVibes, my blog feeds were not categorized.  Yes, it took a little time to do it but it was easy to do.  First I clicked on the "Uncategorized" category.  Here it is shown in the "Reader" view:

... and here it is shown in the "Widgets" view (before I changed my colors):

I used the "Widgets" view to drag each box, which was a blog feed, to the correct category   In the "widgets" view, the categories are also called tabs.

I will get back to this after I show how to add a blog.  First I search for a new blog:

I click on the link to go to the blog, then i click the RSS Feed icon:

... and as scary as it might look, I got this.  Please note that I selected (and copied) the feed's web address - has the word "Feed in it:

Back in NetVibes, I select "Add content" then "Add a feed" then paste in the web address and select the "Add feed" button:

Hover the mouse over the small "feed" box and click on the green plus sign:

This new feed went into whatever category (tab) was already selected (highlighted).

To move a blog (box) to a different category, hover the mouse over the blog title bar, which gives a Windows "move" icon (plus sign with four arrows), and drag that box to the category.  The spot where the blog was appears empty, and the receiving category appears differently, with the small "feed" box on top of the new category:

There are many cases where unwanted functions can be hidden.  This is usually done by finding the related "X" - for example:

I prefer the "widgets" view (immediately above) when recategorizing blog feeds.  I prefer the "reader" view when reading the blogs I follow.  Each blog post has a one-line preview.  The blogs I have already read are grayed out:

When I want to read a blog post, I click on it, and it shows me the article:

When I want to mark all blogs in a category as "read," I click the "Mark all as Read" box:

When the mouse is hovered over a blog post, more symbols appear.  A click on the double-arrow causes that blog post to open in a new tab in the browser:

NetVibes is a winner for me because I can now scan all my unread messages more quickly than before - as in Google Reader!  I don't so searches as often as I thought (just a few days ago), so I will use Feedly when I need to search my own blog feeds.