Carrying an RSS reader in your USB stick has a couple of advantages, especially if you use multiple computers in office, home, college or workplace.

The first advantage is that you get the same reading environment , regardless of which computer you’re using. Sure you can use web based RSS readers like Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo but some people have an inclination towards desktop RSS readers like FeedDemon.

FeedDemon is by far one of the finest and most popular desktop based RSS reader made till date. FeedDemon allows you to read RSS feeds offline, so this is great for folks who travel a lot and need an easy way to keep up with latest news, blog posts, articles without an internet connection.

The best thing regarding FeedDemon is that the program offers Google Reader synchronization, has support for so many languages, allows watches and smart filtering of RSS feeds , so your reading list remains trimmed and up to date no matter where you are and which computer you’re using.

The only disadvantage of FeedDemon is that it’s not portable and you have to install it on the host computer first, login with your Google Reader account and fetch the subscription list. This can be a bit of problem, when you are browsing the web on a slow connection and FeedDemon hangs up in the middle due to slow response from the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection you’re using.

However, the following registry trick will let you turn FeedDemon into a portable RSS reader, which can be used from any computer without having to install FeedDemon in the first place.

Make FeedDemon A Portable RSS Reader Using This Registry Trick

1. Install FeedDemon on your home computer, sign in with your Google Reader account and fetch the subscription list. Next go to “File > Manage Cache” and change the location of FeedDemon’s cache folder

2. Restart FeedDemon and prefetch your subscription list one more time.

3. Type regedit in Windows search box to open Windows registry editor. Navigate to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Bradbury”, right click “bradbury” and choose “Export”. Save the FeedDemon’s registry file on your removable drive or USB thumb drive.

4. All done, now copy the entire FeedDemon folder to your removable drive and you are done with the setup.

To run FeedDemon from your portable USB stick, first run the registry file of FeedDemon and then launch FeedDemon.exe from the FeedDemon folder, earlier copied into your removable pen drive. On the first run, you will be asked to enter your Google Reader account credentials on the newer computer. Do the same and you have just converted FeedDemon into a portable RSS reader which can be used from any computer running on Windows operating system.

This trick can also be used as a standalone installation of FeedDemon, if you don’t want to install the program again and again after formatting your computer. Just move the FeedDemon core files to a custom directory, export the registry backup and dump all of them into an external hard drive or to a non operating system partition on your hard drive. Nice !

Thanks Vishal Gupta for the tip.

Also read: Portable applications that make you more productive at work

Turn FeedDemon Into A Portable RSS Reader With This Registry Trick–Run FeedDemon From Any Computer originally published on Ampercent

Sometime back, I had detailed how I use Feeddemon as my Twitter desktop client. One thing I hated most while sharing stories from Feeddemon was that there were no built-in URL shortener. That meant longer URLs and either I had to compromise on the words to tell about the story or had to use a URL shortening service to shorten the links myself. That was tiring.

Well recently I had found out a way out to auto-shorten links with Bit.ly, while sharing feed entries on Twitter from Feeddemon. Here is how you can do it:

1. Sign up for a free account with Bit.ly or login to the service if you already have an account.

2. Now go to “Settings” and scroll down to the section “APIKey” and copy the API key to a newly opened notepad file. Leave the notepad file opened and (you may) sign out of your Bit.ly account.

3. Open Windows Registry editor and navigate to

4. Create a new String value by right clicking in the editing area and choosing New > String Value. Name the new entry BitlyLogin. Create another string value and name it BitlyApiKey.

5. Double-click the newly created entries one by one and enter the following values (without the angle brackets) as the value data,

6. That’s it, start Feedemon and share anything and the links will get auto-shortened with Bit.ly.

I have always considered that it’s more productive way to combine two (major) tasks into one place. And using Feeddemon to tweet helps me read and share on the same place. With this simple hack the task of sharing has become easier. Thanks @WinObs for notifying and @nbradbury for elaborating the nice trick. Happy tweeting.

Shorten Links With Bit.ly While Sharing on Twitter from Feeddemon originally published on Ampercent

Let us see how you can share any feed item on Twitter without making it public. FeedDemon will save the day for you. If you read feeds its almost obvious that you know about FeedDemon. But, if you are not, FeedDemon is a free tool to accumulate and read feeds. You can synchronize the feeds with your Google Reader account as well.

Setting Up FeedDemon

If you already use FeedDemon you do not need to follow this section. Proceed to the next.

1. Download and install FeedDemon.

2. During installation you will be asked if you wish to sync your feeds with your Google reader account. If you wish to do so just add your Google Reader account details to the wizard.

Tweeting From FeedDemon

Earlier versions of FeedDemon didn’t support Twitter and hence they were not added by default. So let us first verify that. If its there we will proceed to the next steps and if its not there we will add it and then proceed to the next steps.

Verifying Twitter Features

1. Go to [Windows Drive Letter]:\Program Files\FeedDemon\Data\SendTo.

2. If a file “Twitter.xml” is already there then your FeedDemon has Tweeting capabilities already installed. If not then let us add it.

3. Open notepad and type the following code within it.

4. Now save it as “Twitter.xml” in the directory mentioned above. Remember to add the extension to .xml and  change “File type” to All files.(Refer screenshot below).

Now you have successfully added Twitter Share to FeedDemon.

Adding Send To Button in FeedDemon

The Send to button is not shown by default in FeedDemon for single feed entry. Follow the steps to add it.

1. Open FeedDemon and locate to any feed. Click the button, “Choose Newspaper Icons”.

2. An Window will open which will let you add the Send To button to a feed entry. Select the checkbox beside “Send To”.

3. You will notice a new button beside the feed entry.(Screenshot below)

Log In To Twitter From FeedDemon

Well to tweet anything from any Twitter tool you need to be logged in to Twitter within that tool. FeedDemon is the tool here. So let me show you how to log in to Twitter using FeedDemon.

1. With FeedDemon opened, press Ctrl + T to open a new tab.

2. Type “http://twitter.com/login” in the address bar and hit enter. As the page loads, enter your login details and log in Twitter the similar way you do in any other browser.

3. Once logged in you can close the tab or keep that open(if thats not a headache :)).

Posting a Feed entry as Tweet

Now whenever you wish to post a feed item as tweet click the “Send To” button (beside it) and select Twitter. You will be asked to login to Twitter if not done already.

Reading Twitter From FeedDemon

Well as Twitter lets you subscribe to the RSS of your friend’s timeline you can also read tweets from within FeedDemon. Let’s see how to set it up.

1. Open Twitter in a new tab within FeedDemon. Follow the steps as mentioned earlier in the “Log In To Twitter Fom FeedDemon” section.

2. Now as you log in you will notice an orange icon to the right of the address bar. Click that icon and you will see subscribe links to your friend’s timeline(what your friends are tweeting) and your mentions timeline(if somebody mentions your twitter name in tweet in a word replies to you).

3. Click the two links one at a time and subscribe to them. While subscribing make sure you add them to a new folder “Twitter” to segregate the feeds in a proper fashion. As Twitter uses secure feeds you will be asked to log in to your account. It must be noted that secure feeds cannot be synchronized with Google Reader account.

4. That is all. Now every time someone(you follow) tweets it will be fetched via feeds. You will also get notified if somebody mentions.

Replying Any Tweet

FeedDemon 3.0+ lets you reply to any tweet directly by default. Every Tweet(that now you see as a feed entry) has an option of replying. Click that to reply your friend.

As the screenshot shows FeedDemon 3.0+ auto expands bit.ly shortened URLs by default. This is also a neat feature.

A message to the Developer

FeedDemon is my favorite tool and as I had figured out a way to tweet from it, I have started liking(and using) it even more. But so far my Tweeting is concerned I am a bit choosy in case of scheduled tweets. I use Hootsuite to schedule my tweets. If I could possibly schedule my tweets from Feeddemon itself I will be more than glad to abandon Hootsuite.

That is all I had figured out so far on how to use Twitter on FeedDemon. You can surely put in some more efforts to find out more. And if you already know about somne more tricks please feel free to tease us with that via comments.

Tip: Twitter Tools that Save Your Time

Learn How To use Twitter From Feeddemon originally published on Ampercent

Too much unread items in your feed reader ? If you use Feeddemon as your default feed reader, you can handle information overload with this funny game built right inside Feeddemon.

Open Feeddemon and type  FeedDemon Easter Egg in the web search address bar located on the extreme right. A default game will open up which you can play using your arrow keys. Funny !

The basic idea of the game is to keep your unread feed counts to a Minimum. Catch the unread feed Items (shown in blue) and avoid the spams (the yellow squares ). If you miss an A-List Blogger the unread count increases by 2.

Sometimes when you get bored out reading too much feeds and news stories, you can try this Game for refreshment.

Tip: Tweet from Feeddemon

Play Games on FeedDemon – Handle Information Overload originally published on Ampercent