How Google keeps me occupied.

[Detonate]

I have been using iGoogle as a customized home page for years. Google is ending iGoogle later this year. One of the gadgets I have is Google Reader for all of the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Yesterday we learned that Google Reader will also be discontinued.

It seems that every time I get used to using a Google feature and depending on it they change it or discontinue it. It almost seems they don't want users such as me.

Probably the next thing that will go that I use is Google Calender. I depend on this and the Lightning extension for Thunderbird to make sure I don't miss any important appointments.

Heck, if they really want to screw me up, they can do away with Gmail.

After contemplating on this I came to realize that there are very good alternatives to all of these services at my good old Kubuntu fingertips.

I painlessly set up akregator this morning to handle my RSS feeds. After doing so, I realized I should have been using this application a long time ago.

After giving some thought to what I want as my home page in my browser, I have decided to dust off my old rusty HTML skills and write my own. That's the only way I will get what I really want.

The upside of all of this is that Google has given me something to do so I won't be bored for a while.

[dmeyer]

I have been using iGoogle as a customized home page for years. Google is ending iGoogle later this year. One of the gadgets I have is Google Reader for all of the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Yesterday we learned that Google Reader will also be discontinued.

It seems that every time I get used to using a Google feature and depending on it they change it or discontinue it. It almost seems they don't want users such as me.

Probably the next thing that will go that I use is Google Calender. I depend on this and the Lightning extension for Thunderbird to make sure I don't miss any important appointments.

Heck, if they really want to screw me up, they can do away with Gmail.

After contemplating on this I came to realize that there are very good alternatives to all of these services at my good old Kubuntu fingertips.

I painlessly set up akregator this morning to handle my RSS feeds. After doing so, I realized I should have been using this application a long time ago.

After giving some thought to what I want as my home page in my browser, I have decided to dust off my old rusty HTML skills and write my own. That's the only way I will get what I really want.

The upside of all of this is that Google has given me something to do so I won't be bored for a while.

They lure you in with cool stuff, then as soon as they have you locked in they take it away for laughs!

[SteveRiley]

I have been using iGoogle as a customized home page for years. Google is ending iGoogle later this year. One of the gadgets I have is Google Reader for all of the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Yesterday we learned that Google Reader will also be discontinued ... I painlessly set up akregator this morning to handle my RSS feeds. After doing so, I realized I should have been using this application a long time ago.

Akregator is neat, yep. But useful only if you read all your feeds on a single device. The primary reason Google Reader was so cool was the syncronization. I could read via any device, and everything would stay in sync.

Many months ago, when I purged myself of most things Google, I switched over to TT-RSS running on my server at home. It provides exactly the same functionality, and even has an Android client.

It seems that every time I get used to using a Google feature and depending on it they change it or discontinue it. It almost seems they don't want users such as me.

Remember, in Google's eyes, you aren't the customer. The advertisers are. You, my friend, are the product. Google is selling you to advertisers. If you don't generate enough revenue, then Google will force you to change your behavior so that you will.

Probably the next thing that will go that I use is Google Calender. I depend on this and the Lightning extension for Thunderbird to make sure I don't miss any important appointments.

Don't bother. They're dropping support for CalDAV, too, and replacing it with their own calendar API.

Heck, if they really want to screw me up, they can do away with Gmail.

Wouldn't surprise me if IMAP support goes away some day, too. After all, if you're using an email client rather than the web, you aren't seeing any ads, and thus not generating revenue for the real customer.

[Detonate]

Akregator is neat, yep. But useful only if you read all your feeds on a single device. The primary reason Google Reader was so cool was the syncronization. I could read via any device, and everything would stay in sync.

I don't need to read the feeds on multiple devices very much. But moving over to my Mint 14 Mate install, I installed Liferea and imported the same feeds. Seems to work fine. I need to do the same on my Xubuntu laptop, and I will be covered.

[kubicle]

Akregator is neat, yep. But useful only if you read all your feeds on a single device. The primary reason Google Reader was so cool was the syncronization. I could read via any device, and everything would stay in sync.

This http://algorithmsforthekitchen.com/blog/?p=479 will likely solve that problem once all the pieces are done...owncloud news backend with sync support, and an akonadi news agent for akregator2

[Detonate]

The sync is not a big deal for me. When I go from one device to the other, I will get a few messages showing as unread that I cleared on the other device, but not many. Only take a few seconds to glance at them and mark them read. No big deal. Want to use my opml file?

[SteveRiley]

I really, really want to like OwnCloud. But man, the thing feels like a house of cards. It is a ginormous pile of PHP that I've managed to collapse without even trying. Some of the basics are still just broken -- like properly handling the deletion of one event in a repeating series on the calendar, and then replicating that change to other synced CalDAV clients. Speaking of sync, the file sync client is a chatty, wasteful csync thing that pokes the server every 30 seconds for changes. That's just silly, when inotify provides a much better alternative.

[eggbert]

I purged myself of most things Google, I switched over to TT-RSS running on my server at home. It provides exactly the same functionality, and even has an Android client.

This looks pretty cool. I have been thinking about de-googling myself as well and trying to find things I can run on my own server to replace them. Google is starting to act like a scummy internet marketing company. I think they are also no longer allowing "adblockers" in their play store. It's going to really suck when/if I have to drop the gmail I've been using for the last 5 or 6 years though.

On of the great things about RSS is that you don't have to have 50 MB of analytics tracking javascript and advertisements shoved down your throat on every page load, which is probably why google is doing away with it.

[Detonate]

A lot of people think RSS is old fashioned and is being passed by with other sources such as social networking providing the news. But I like RSS, simple and quick and good way to keep up with things. I may only get a few hits I want to read every day, but those hits seem to be authoritative and useful.

[SteveRiley]

My trusty HP Mini 2140 is my do-everything server. It runs:

* Ubuntu 12.04
* Postfix -- email MTA
* Dovecot -- email MUA
* Roundcube -- web mail
* Spamassassin -- spam filter
* ClamAV -- malware scanner
* OpenDKIM -- DomainKeys email signing agent
* DAViCal -- CalDAV/CardDAV server
* TT-RSS -- feed aggregator
* OpenVPN -- TLS-based VPN server
* ProFTPd -- FTP server
* Quassel Core -- IRC chat watcher
* Bind9 -- DNS and DDNS for my home domain
* ISC-DHCP -- DHCP server for my home domain
* Fail2Ban -- automatically adds rules to iptables to block bad guys
* Apache -- need a web server for much of the above
* PostgreSQL -- need a database for much of the above

[kubicle]

I really, really want to like OwnCloud. But man, the thing feels like a house of cards. It is a ginormous pile of PHP that I've managed to collapse without even trying.

Wasn't trying to say it's necessarily the best option for every use case, just that it's an option to replace google reader if you like akregator (once the thing is release ready). Owncloud is also pretty simple to set up on shared hosting for example...if you don't have a dedicated server at your disposal.

Some of the basics are still just broken -- like properly handling the deletion of one event in a repeating series on the calendar, and then replicating that change to other synced CalDAV clients.

Hmm...I set up a test owncloud instance and excludes in recurring events seemed to sync fine on my clients (the webcalendar doesn't seem to understand exclude fields, but syncs them to clients all the same...admittedly this could be a recent fix or depend on the client (I was using oc5 and only tested syncing with korganizer and a n900).

Speaking of sync, the file sync client is a chatty, wasteful csync thing that pokes the server every 30 seconds for changes. That's just silly, when inotify provides a much better alternative.

I've never used the file sync client (I'm old school with rsync and a ssh server), but that does seem rather redundant...I googled a bit and noticed there is a kde/plasma sync client in the works, but didn't check whether that's going to be any smarter. I haven't actively used owncloud (have tested it before out of curiosity, never fallen completely in love, either), but I'm going to keep it around for some more testing this time...it seems to have gotten better (Haven't really put it to serious testing yet, though)

[Simon]

Remember, in Google's eyes, you aren't the customer. The advertisers are. You, my friend, are the product. Google is selling you to advertisers. If you don't generate enough revenue, then Google will force you to change your behavior so that you will..

Ah truer words have never been spoken. You can really tell this when you have an issue with their version of the Chrome browser. You go to the support forum and find nothing there but others complaining about the exact same problem. No developers with quick incisive answers, just lots of complaints. Anytime I do a search I avoid the links to support.google... just because I know it holds no answers.

I recently came across this man's blog asking "Why Does Google Need My Cell Phone Number?" by Alan Breck. Mr Breck's article is on a very commercial intensive web site, so I copied it to my blog on here. I can tell by this and other articles the man has issues with Google.

[SteveRiley]

Hmm...I set up a test owncloud instance and excludes in recurring events seemed to sync fine on my clients (the webcalendar doesn't seem to understand exclude fields, but syncs them to clients all the same...admittedly this could be a recent fix or depend on the client (I was using oc5 and only tested syncing with korganizer and a n900).

Create a recurring event with KOrganizer. Sync to OwnCloud. Then sync OwnCloud to Android phone. Delete one event from the series in Android. Sync back to OwnCloud. Sync to KOrganizer. Series is now gone from KOrganizer, but still on Android. Very weird.

My OC experiences cover versions 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0. Perhaps I should look at it again now that it's matured some more.

[kubicle]

Create a recurring event with KOrganizer. Sync to OwnCloud. Then sync OwnCloud to Android phone. Delete one event from the series in Android. Sync back to OwnCloud. Sync to KOrganizer. Series is now gone from KOrganizer, but still on Android. Very weird.

Don't have android to test, so I'll take your word for it. I assume it's not a client-to-client interoperability issue and works ok with other caldav backends?

I guess one could compare the "raw" caldav data in the clients and on owncloud to look for hints where it goes awry (there unfortunately is some variation in caldav implementations), but that would probably belong in another thread (owncloud's calendar isn't really related to google reader :P).

My OC experiences cover versions 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0.

Then I guess, the first logical step would be to test whether the issue is still there in oc5. But you seem to have a nice server setup already rigged...so I fully understand if owncloud (and troubleshooting it) is not really a top priority...testing things you don't use or need can be rather tedious.