Cyndicate - a Shareware Blog Reader for Mac OS X

Most of the software reviews I write are for freeware and open source programs. This is very intentional. I feel that everyone is aware of the "big" programs such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, and similar programs. There's really no reason for me to take a look at them. Simply go to Google and do a search. You'll come up with all the reviews you can handle!

But what if you're looking for a review of a small program? A lesser-known program? Something a bit of the beaten path? Well, that's where my little reviews come in, in my mind.

The subject of this review is Cyndicate, a great blog reader (for RSS and Atom feeds), that I think is great. I don't know if it will replace my blog reader of choice on the Mac (Vienna, which is open source and free), but for those leery of open source applications or just looking for something a little different, then Cyndicate might just be what you're looking for.

First of all, Cyndicate isn't free. It's a shareware program from Cynical Peak Software, and a license costs $29.95, which may be purchased (and the program downloaded), from its website.

That out of the way, what makes Cyndicate so good? First off, it's a "real" Mac application. It isn't written in Java (and therefore fairly slow). It isn't a web application that runs in a web browser (although there are a ton of those apps that I like a lot). No, it's a Cocoa application, which means it can take advantage of all sorts of systemwide services, such as Spotlight search, spell checking and services.

Using Cyndicate is pretty straight-forward. If you are already using a different blog reader, you likely have a list of blogs you check each day. Any good blog reader (including Google Reader, one of those web apps I like), can export your current blog list to a format known as OPML, an XML list which can be imported into Cyndicate. Once this is done, Cyndicate will immediately have your old list, and will start updating it.