RSS Feeds for Windows Mobile

If you are not familiar with internet "news readers", here's a chance to make some great discoveries.

A news reader displays information from the Internet in a special format called RSS. Exactly what RSS stands for is open for debate. Some call it Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary, or something similar, but whatever you call it, RSS delivers content in a format that is ideal for the Pocket PC or Smartphone.

The first thing that you need to read RSS feeds is a "news reader". There are a number of news readers for Windows Mobile devices. My favorite is Newsbreak from Iliumsoft which also happens to be one of the magazine's award winners this year.

Rather than focusing on the features of various news readers, I thought I'd list out some of my favorite RSS feeds:

• MAKE Magazine - http://www.makezine.com/blog/index.xml
  MAKE is great for hardware and software "hackers". The blog links to other interestings sites as well.
• The Dilbert Blog - http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/index.rdf
  Not really so much a Dilbert Blog, but rather the musings of Scott Adams, Dilbert's creator. Very entertaining.
• WOOT! - http://rss.woot.com/feed.aspx
  Woot! is a shopping site like no other. It features "one day deals" and easily the most entertaining descriptions of the items for sale I've ever seen. Fun to read, but be warned: Woot can be addictive so don't buy unless you really think you need or want what they are selling.
• USGS M>5 Earthquakes - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/catalogs/eqs7day-M5.xml
  Living in California, I have a special interest in Earthquakes. The USGS provides a feed of all major (magnitude 5.0 and above) from around the world.
• Yahoo News - http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/mostviewed
  In addition to this "most viewed" feed, Yahoo provides many other news feeds you might be interested in. Yahoo also allows you to customize your own feeds (see below).
• Custom news from Yahoo - http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&x=wrt&p=Bluetooth
  The link above specifically gives you news from Yahoo aboout "Bluetooth". But replace the "p=Bluetooth" in the link with "p=whatever" and you can search for, well, whatever. (Now how many of you are right now creating a custom feed to search for news about yourself?
• Pocket PC Magazine's Blog - http://www.smartphonemag.com/blogs/xmlsrv/rss2.php?blog=1
  Of course, this list would not be complete without pointing out that you can read our blogs with your news reader.
• My Blog - http://www.smartphonemag.com/blogs/xmlsrv/rss2.php?blog=14
  And last, but certainly (for me) not least, a direct link to my blog page here.

I have some others, including some of the "standard feeds" that Iliumsoft lists, such as Pocket PC Thoughts and Geekzone.

If you have a favorite, let me know in the comments.

Cheers, and a belated happy Thanksgiving to all!
--David