Wicked Strategery

The Microsoft Max team have added a real nice desktop feed reader to their photo viewing/sharing software.

The display, which uses the .Net 3.0 Framework and the Windows Presentation Foundation, is, in a word, gorgeous.

One of the things Max does nicely is handle HTML and CSS within feed items, something I haven't really seen done well elsewhere. Viewing of a feed is in a two-column newpaper like format. Love columns in print, but not on the screen. But Max does a nice job of rendering the content.

I haven't tried out the photo-sharing portion of Max yet, but it looks really nice and simple. It looks like it does a good job of indexing the images I have and makes for easy sharing. Like Picasa, Max also resides in the system tray for quick sharing.

Also, another nice touch is the use of Automatic Updates to provide updates to Max, just as the Windows Defender does. Nice touch, but the installer automatically configures Automatic Updates for this purpose. I can't say that I'm a fan of overriding a user's preferences.

Unfortunately, Max doesn't yet support auto-discovery (at least not that I could get to work) nor OPML lists. But then again, Max is in beta, so it is to be taken with a grain of salt.

The .Net 3.0 Framework also brings a number of features that I can't wait to look into. Technologies such as Windows CardSpace (formerly InfoCard, and yet another attempt at online identity management), Windows Presentation Foundation, and more. More information on this can be found on the Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0 Community site.

Also check out the Microsoft Max blog for more features and news.