NewsGator Go! for Mobiles is a free News Reader that allows you to track and manage all your RSS feeds directly from your mobile device.  Installing, configuring and using the software is quite easy.  Once the software is installed to your mobile device, you can sync your device to your NewsGators online account through an ActiveSync internet passthrough connection, WIFI connection or through a GPRS/EDGE/3G connection, disconnect from the internet and take your news with you to read at your convenience without having to maintain a continuous connection to the internet.

Software Installation

You'll use a .CAB file to install the application to your device.  You can download the application directly to your mobile device by browsing to NewsGator's mobile page from your mobile device or your can download the .CAB file to your computer and copy it to your mobile device.

There are three versions of NewsGator Go! for Mobiles: 1) a Pocket PC version; 2) a  Smartphone version; and 3) a Java/Blackberry version, so take care to download the version that matches your mobile device.

Before you can use the software, you'll need to establish a NewsGator Online account and you can create the account either from your computer or from your mobile device.

Microsoft's .NET Compact Framework Version 2.0 Service Pack 2 is not required to run the software, but if you don't have this software already installed on your mobile device, you'll see a message every time you open up NewsGator Go! that states that NewsGator will perform better if you have it installed.  I haven't installed .NET Compact Framework on my hx2415, and NewsGator works just fine without it.

The very first time you open up NewsGator on your mobile device, the application will open to a Login page, where you can create a NewsGator online account (if you don't have one already) or you can login to your account by entering your Username and Password in the space provided.

	After you log into NewsGator, you'll be taken to the main page (see screenshot on the left).  If you've already subscribed to some feeds through your NewsGator Online account, you'll see a list of the feeds on this page. Along the bottom of the main page you'll see two options: Sync:  Tapping the Sync option updates the mobile device with your most current feeds and related posts (you'll need an internet connection).  Menu:  The Menu option is context sensitive, that is, the menu options change based on the item that is selected on the page. On the main page, you can subscribe to new feeds directly from your mobile device by selecting a folder and then tapping Menu > Folder > Add Feed.  Then you will input the Feed URL or website home page URL into the space provided and tap Add.  NewsGator Go! will search for the feed and add it to your subscription list.
	You can manage various feed options by selecting a feed and tapping the Menu option: Feed allows you to: Refresh the selected feed (highlighted in blue in the screenshot to the left) Mark the selected feed as "Read" Remove the selected feed from your NewsGator online account and your NewsGator Go! account. Remove the selected feed only from the NewsGator Go! account (you will still be subscribed to the feed but you won't view it on the mobile device - you will still be able to view it from your computer through the online account) Reset Sync refreshes the mobile device and synchronizes the feeds with your online account. Cleanup removes read posts and posts that are more than 60 days old from the mobile device
	Top Posts displays the most popular posts on NewsGator (see the screenprint on the left) My Media allows you to play media files that are stored on the mobile device, such as podcasts, through Windows Media Player, directly from NewsGator.  (you'll designate a folder on the mobile device through NewsGator's Settings > Media option) Search allows you to search and subscribe to feeds or review relevant articles from across all NewsGator subscribers Settings is where you'll configure how your mobile device accesses your subscribed feeds through NewsGator (see the section entitled, Setting up NewsGator Go!) Exit quits and closes the application

Setting up NewsGator Go!

NewsGator Go! provides several customizable options to enhance your reading experience.  Tapping Menu > Settings brings you to a screen where you can personalize the software through several options:

• Credentials is where you input your NewsGator Username and Password.
• Synchronization allows you to set options regarding feed update frequency (see the Synchronization screenprint below)
• User Interface manages how feeds are displayed on the mobile device (see the User Interface screenprint below)

Synchronization	User Interface

• Locations identifies the device (and the related feed information) that is being used to access NewsGator.  I use NewsGator on my computer and on two of my mobile devices, so there are three profiles registered under Locations under my NewsGator account.
• Web Browsing allows you to
  • Format the web pages to optimize viewing from your mobile device by choosing to view pages via Skweezer or Google; and by choosing to show images
  • Open links with your mobile device's default browser
• Media allows you to designate the folder on your mobile device where your media files are stored
• Feeds allows you to designate the folder on your mobile device where the synced Feeds are stored on the mobile device.  Synced feeds are stored in .xml files and can be read off-line.
• Network allows you to specify proxy name and port, and username and password if you connect to a network through a proxy server

Reading and working with Feeds

	From the main page you can tap Menu > Feed to: Refresh the selected feed (highlighted in blue on the above screenshot) Mark the selected feed as "Read" Remove the selected feed from your NewsGator online account and your NewsGator Go! account. Remove the selected feed only from the NewsGator Go! account (you will still be subscribed to the feed but you won't view it on the mobile device - you will still be able to view it from your computer through the online account)
	Tapping on a feed displays any unread feed entries.  The Menu option here allows you to: Hide Read Posts Mark a selected post as Read Mark a selected post and older posts as read Email a post:  You can email feed articles to multiple contacts (integrated with the Pocket PC's contacts application). Select Menu > Contacts > scroll through your contacts and choose the contact email addresses you wish to send.  After you've selected all the email addresses you wish to send the article to, tap Done > input a message in the space provided and tap Send.  The email gets sent from a newsgater email address (when you create an account with Newsgator, you get a Newsgater email address - autogen - your login name@newsgator.com
	Tapping an entry opens it up so you can read it.  When an entry is open, the Menu option on the bottom of the screen allows you to: Choose the next or previous post. View Full Post: Opens up the mobile device's default browser and displays the full post on the web (you'll need to be connected to the internet to do this).  If you selected Skweezer in the Web Browsing screen (this is discussed above in the Settings section of the article), the displayed page will be optimized for your mobile device Clip Posts: Saves posts to a "My Clippings" folder on your online account. If your mobile device is connected to the internet, you can select any of the hyperlinks in the posts.

Final Thoughts and Suggestions for Improvement

NewsGator Go! is a solid News Reader that includes some really nice features.  The software:

• Is easy to install and syncs flawlessly
• Improves efficiency by allowing you to download full feeds directly to the mobile device
• Allows you to manage feeds while you are on the go
• Is compatible with windows mobile 2003, WM5.0 and WM6.0 devices

I really like NewsGator Go! and recommend that you try it out.  There are a few things that could be enhanced to make it an even better application:

• Please provide some documentation:  I could not find any documentation for the software on the website and there are no Help files included with the application.  I spent quite a lot of time figuring out how the more advanced features work and have documented them here to the best of my ability.  There are a couple of neat features that really need to be documented:
  • Streaming video & audio:  The website states that the windows mobile version of NewsGator Go! can play streaming video and audio, but there is no documentation that explains how to do it.  I tinkered around with it some, searched through NewsGator's user forum, and eventually it appeared that a podcast was being downloaded to my device, but then the device froze up and I had to perform a soft reset to get out of it.  Either I was not executing the option correctly or this option is a real memory hog.
  • The Clip option:  Clipping allows you to clip specific entries and save them to a separate folder for future reference.  On the Pocket PC, you can clip entries but I could not find a way to view clipped entries on a mobile device.  When you sync to your online account, the clipped entries are transferred from the Pocket PC to the online account and you can view them there.
• Memory requirements:  A couple of times while I was writing this article my Pocket PC completely ran out of memory.  In all fairness, I was opening and closing menus, moving from article to article, and doing things that a normal user probably wouldn't do, so I might have caused the memory outages through my abnormal use of the application.

Additional Resources

• NewsGator User Forums
• To learn more about RSS feeds, see Bookmarks, RSS feeds & email subscriptions

Software reviewed: NewsGator Go! for Mobiles (version 2.0.0.25412)

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