I've had my Gmail and LiveJournal accounts since 2005. I've had a few before then, but these are the ones I've kept. I like the names, I like all of the crap that accumulates over the years. Granted, some of the e-mails and posts seem a little odd to me a few years later, but that's only to be expected.
LiveJournal first.
Almost every friend on the internet I have I met through LiveJournal. Three close friends from it feels like a million years ago through ai_made_us_cry, a community where we hated new "greenday" with every fiber of our beings. Another through an Emo Boy community, which admittedly hasn't been much more active than said anti-Green Day one. And now that I'm not being such a lurker, this Fullmetal Alchemist community has brought me quite a few friends - not close ones, but "hey! I know & like you, let's talk<3" kind of friends.
And the point of all this is that I love my LiveJournal experience. I have for years. So when I see things like this news post, I start to worry. Strikethrough 07 was something pretty awful, and my only internet access at the time was fifteen minutes away at the library. The Adult Content notice is a new annoying feature (especially as I am a few months shy of eighteen and much into fanfiction) but removing basic, ad-free accounts and then telling everyone? Nice.
I feel as though I knew I had cause to worry when LJ was sold to some year-old Russian company.
Now! In more recent ... years, months, I stumbled across www.goowy.com, a Flash-based webtop with e-mail client and "widgets," the former of which I simply forwarded my Gmail messages to and the latter of which come in really, really useful. Did I mention that it's gorgeous, which is why I prefer it over everything else? It also has games and probably some other things. Oho, where can you sign up?
Well, you can't. AOL acquired Goowy, announced February 3rd, and on the homepage as of the 17th of March new accounts are no longer an option and the explanation is scant. Moving Goowy to AOL's webmail client? What does that mean for users? I went to the forums wanting clarification, and I kind of found it.
I think it is fair to assume, based on the note on our home page, that we will be transitioning users away from goowy, which is to say that we will not be maintaining the environment for the long term.
Well, you know, I was just assuming AOL would be HOSTING the gorgeous webtop I've had since November or December, but ... that's a valid assumption, too, I guess. Thanks for, uh, clarifying that and such.
So, needless to say, I need a plan for if/when Goowy goes under. I begin one. Well, I certainly don't want to go back to ugly old Gmail's interface except to compose messages (and yes, it is rather ugly in comparison to Goowy); my friend tells me AOL's got free accounts now! Oho! Well, I like their interface, and they are the ones who own Goowy now, so maybe ...
Except they won't let me begin with a number. I'm certainly not going to be songlyrics@aol.com or televisionshow@aol.com or anything. I don't have personalized default e-mail addresses, no sirree! So I look for other free e-mail clients, which is how I found Goowy in the first place, hoping and praying I'll find something as gorgeous and easy.
I haven't, and I probably won't. So back to Gmail itself instead of forwarding everything for the time being.
But that's only one problem solved. Until recently I was never really into RSS feeds, you know, I only keep tabs on a few websites and they don't update every hour. I'm not a newshound or an avid blog-reader. I have my friendslist on LJ for that, basically, and a few MySpace blog subscriptions. However, I need a way to keep up on Blogger posts from blogs I care about, like my friend's art blog and ... well, a college I was intensely interested in for a long time. From there I subscribed to some other feeds, like my favorite webcomic and NPR news. Yes! News! I wanted to know what was going on with new research!
Now I'm sure you see my problem here... yes, all of that is on Goowy's webtop. Very pretty, you know, very simple. Now I need, augh, a "real" feed aggregator. Well, that's simple enough, I think - I'll go find one!
Oh yes, very simple - if you're the kind to just download the "best" thing out there... which I'm not.
So what now? Well, let's read what other people are saying about it. From there (one post, actually, which is here), I was sent along my merry way to see about Omea Pro and Newzie.. Well, I don't need all of those extra features with Omea Pro, so I figure I'll just download the basic Omea Reader. Haha, sir, no, you can download it but TO NO AVAIL! For you have not the .NET framework (which I admit I know less than nothing about except the following) which you must have Windows XP to download!
What? Crap! I only have 2000! Thanks, Microsoft! There goes Omea. I make a sad face.
Which out of the two, leaves, obviously, Newzie. Newzie's website design is, in my opinion, functional but kind of lacking in aesthetic luxury, so I'm reluctant to download, but like I said - it looks functional. And when I download it, it isn't gorgeous, but it's pretty enough to suit my girly tastes. And it ... doesn't say anything about requiring .NET, but like I said, I know less than nothing about that so I suppose if it does, well, I'll cry. And try to do things about it like get older versions.
And maybe, if it comes down to it, just use my browser.
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