Jim Roepcke's weblog have browser, will travel (est. 1999)

Shrook 2: NetNewsWire has company

I installed Shrook 2 today. I had low expectations, and I'll admit the only reason they were low was because the web site was rather unprofessional looking.

Even if the site had been a thing of beauty, this app immensely EXCEEDED my wildest expectations! Shrook 2 is truly awesome software. It has a number of features that are truly incredible, like Distributed Checking (which means you get updates way faster without added bandwidth burden on the RSS feed servers), Smart Groups, the ability to flag (mark) items, and the ability to view the web page the item points to right in the app (it uses WebKit).

Oh, and you can have multiple Shrooks have synchronized subscription lists and read-status of items. That alone is a killer feature. At the bottom of the File menu is an "Import from NetNewsWire..." command. It worked perfectly and seemed to do its job instantaneously on my PowerBook G3 500.

I love NNW as well, but Shrook 2 meets my needs better. I've always wanted to be able to mark RSS items and share my RSS item database over more than one computer. I'm going to give Shrook a thorough evaluation over the next few days, and if it is stable, I will be registering the software.

I never thought we'd see a better RSS reader for OS X than NetNewsWire, but IMHO, Shrook is better. In the long run I hope it ends up being a positive thing for Ranchero rather than a negative thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not the only person that switches in the short term.

Kuro5hin member switches to Zope

Kuro5hin: Switching from PHP to Zope/Python

A pretty good set of reasons for switching. I don't think someone needs to completely abandon PHP though. There are scenarios where using PHP is better than Zope, simply because Zope is generally slower than PHP.

Use the right tool for the job. Zope is the right tool for the content management job. PHP is good at pushing dynamic pages out fast. And Zope is a good way to make fast PHP pages, because after all, PHP pages are content, and your Zope CMS is a good way to manage those.

Paul Everitt’s oxygen/XSLT demo

If you've ever wanted someone to hold you hand and show you the absolute basics of XSLT, Paul Everitt is here for you. Turn up your speakers, and make sure your Flash plug-in is ready.

Narrated demo of XML/XSLT with the editor

Thanks Paul!