There are more Mac applications on the market now than probably ever before. The field is getting very crowded. You can find an Mac app for just about any use these days. Many of them have a slick Leopard interface and take advantage of things like CoverFlow and QuickLook. All good. There is one application that really stands out and its not published by any of the 800 pound gorillas (Microsoft, Apple or Adobe for starters). Rather its put out by the extremely talented Brett Simmons. The app is called NetNewsWire and it is a full featured RSS aggregator and reader distributed by NewsGator. It does just about everything one could hope for AND its free! (It used to cost $30 and was worth every penny). That's right, all you need is a $1000 Mac and NetNewsWire is free. Just download it and go. I won't go into all the details about the features that make this app great, so go download it now and give it a try. The good folks at NewsGator are continuing to develop this with Brett and they allow you to sync your RSS feeds between computers using their servers (or your .mac account). The app has an active community and Brett readily listens to suggestions from users.

If I had to start ranking general use Mac apps that are indispensable, NetNewsWire is one. For anyone who seriously surfs the web on a Mac, you just have to use this app. It is wonderful!

Keene