I have been missing out on a lot of blogs lately. It is not the usual excuse off not enough time but instead it appears that my "software" is not working. I have tried several different programs for reading blogs but for one reason or another have abandoned most of them. The ones that integrate with Outlook have held my attention the longest but even then I have always had problems with them and given up on them. Here is my wish list for the perfect reader:

1. Work with software that I am already using (Outlook, IE, etc.). I really don't care as long as I don't have to open a separate program to get the information.
2. Show me a view with subject and the first few words. There are blogs that I always read just because I know the person posting them or because they have always had good information. There are others that I scan. I also subscribe to a few that I mostly don't read but they sometimes have some gems in them so I want to see what is posted and make a decision on whether or not to read it.
3. Allow me to mark items for follow up. If I read a particularly good post I might want to refer to it later or do what the author suggests. I want to be able to find those posts quickly and act on them.
4. Allow me to customize when I see new items. I don't really need to check every hour, once a day is usually fine with me.
5. Allow me to categorize blogs. Referring back to item 2 I like to have "folders" for always read, sometimes read, scan, etc.

I don't think I am being that demanding in what I want. I thought I had found the perfect solution in squeet. With squeet I could ask it to go out and scan the blogs I am interested in and e-mail me the posts. I liked it because it met my first 4 criteria. I could see the items in Outlook where I got the title and with the reading pane could see a few lines to quickly decide whether the rest of the article was worth reading or not. I could flag items for follow up and even use different colored flags for different meanings. I could also use Outlook rules to dump the e-mail into different folders if I wanted to.

So why this post? Well over the last few weeks the mail delivery has been lacking. I have missed some posts, others have been delivered several days late, and all the time the page that shows my account doesn't have any indication that there is an error. I will still stay subscribed to squeet while I look for something I like better but I have about given up on them. Maybe it is time to try IE 7 and see if I like it's RSS handling. I might also look into using one of the many SharePoint add-ins to see what they are like. If you have a favorite reader that meets my requirements I would love to hear about it. Please post a comment or drop me an e-mail.