Add "98% perfect RSS solution" post

posts/98_perfect_rss_solution.mdwn

@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+I've been looking for the "perfect" RSS reading solution for a while
+and I just got this idea for a setup that has to be about 98% of all
+I'm looking for.
+
+The things I'm looking for are:
+
+* Emacs interface.  This isn't that big a problem since anything with
+  an API can be made to have such an interface, and I feel comfortable
+  enough with Emacs Lisp to write it myself if I have to, like I was
+  doing with
+  [avandu](http://code.ryuslash.org/cgit.cgi/emacs/avandu/), but then
+  it *does* need a(n/ good) API.
+* Unbound to a single computer.  It's a hassle to have to remember
+  what you have and haven't read.  If it was easy your RSS reader
+  wouldn't care about (un)read items, everything would just be
+  "items".  So sharing that state between computers is pretty
+  important.
+* A server.  Something that keeps running 24/7. Or at least the
+  closest possible approximation of that.  It's no good to miss
+  everything that happens between 11pm and 9am just because you don't
+  have your feed reader running.  Of course this is only a problem if
+  you're following some high-traffic feeds, but they exist too.
+* Runs locally.  The nice thing about having shell access to a server
+  somewhere that someone else keeps online for you is the possibility
+  to run something like [newsbeuter](http://newsbeuter.org/) and just
+  (de/reat)tach from whichever computer you're working on.  The
+  downside is, though, that this breaks pretty much all integration
+  with your desktop.  Opening URLs becomes a reliance on your terminal
+  emulator's ability to parse and open them.  Viewing media such as
+  images, or audio files from a podcast, turns into `Save, Transfer,
+  Open` instead of just the `Open`.
+* Handles big feed lists.  Even if you only read five feeds, the day
+  may come you'll be reading fifty, or even much more.  A piece of
+  software that handles this well is a must.  This is the problem I
+  had with [canto](http://codezen.org/canto/) and Emacs'
+  [newsticker](http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/NewsTicker).  *canto*
+  looked awesome, the most interesting interface to RSS feeds I have
+  come across so far, but back when I tried it trying to read my
+  collection of feeds would lock-up my computer.  *newsticker* would
+  lock-up my emacs session for 10-20 minutes.
+
+Now though I have found something that does it all.  It is actually a
+twist on something I used some time ago.
+
+*Emacs* + [Gnus](http://gnus.org/) + [Gwene](http://gwene.org/) +
+[unison](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/).  Not the easiest
+thing to set-up perhaps, but once *Emacs*
++ *Gnus* is in place the rest is a piece of cake.
+
+*Gwene* is an awesome service that turns RSS feeds into newsgroups.
+*unison* is an awesome piece of software for synchronising files
+between different computers.  *Gnus* is a real newsreader.  *Emacs* is
+what *Gnus* runs on.
+
+So it's kind-of like cheating.  *Gnus* is not unbound to a single
+computer and *Gwene* doesn't offer server-side state tracking either.
+But because *Gnus* uses a single file to store state about all of its
+subscribed groups, this makes it a good candidate for sharing that one
+file.  This is not something unique to *Gnus*, at least
+[slrn](http://www.slrn.org/) uses the same kind of file, the `.newsrc`
+file (or in *Gnus*' case `.newsrc.eld`).
+
+So I register the feeds I want to follow with *Gwene*, if they aren't
+already registered.  I subscribe to the resulting newsgroups on
+`news.gwene.org` with *Gnus* and when I switch over to another
+computer I use *unison* to synchronise the `.newsrc.eld` file.
+
+An example configuration of *Gnus* could just be as simple as:
+
+[[!format el """
+(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.gwene.org"))
+"""]]
+
+*unison* just needs:
+
+    root=/your/home/dir/
+    root=/your/server/root/
+    path=.newsrc.eld
+
+And that's about it.
+
+Now it's still not 100% perfect.  I've seen that *Gwene* can't handle
+100% of the feeds I throw at it, but these can be fixed either by
+contacting the people publishing them or by improving *Gwene*'s
+parser.  It also doesn't automatically check periodicaly, though I
+think *Gnus* can be set-up to do that, but since I also use it to read
+my mail (again) that's not really an issue.  It also isn't accessible
+without *Emacs*, *Gnus* and *Unison*, but I hate web-interfaces
+anyway.
+
+So that's it. My 98% perfect RSS reading solution.
+
+[[!meta title="The 98% perfect RSS solution"]]
+[[!tag rss emacs gnus gwene tt-rss avandu]]