Recently I made the change away from SharpReader as my aggregating software.  I was tired of having SharpReader’s tendency to error when reading feeds.  At first my thought was to use the VSTO to write a .NET 2.0 add-in for Outlook so that I could read my feeds and email together. 

I did a little searching on the web and ended up finding Attensa for Outlook.  Being the right price (free for the Beta) I decided to download and install it.  Additionally it includes a Firefox add-in that automagically detects RSS feeds and allows you to add them by right-clicking and selecting Attensa RSS – Add Feed. 

I have had no problems with the stability of the software thus far.  The one thing that has happened is the load time for Outlook has increased quite substantially.  Before you start thinking “Oh that’s because you’re loading up hundreds of feeds”, let me say that I currently subscribe to less than 100 feeds.  The load time is bearable, but it seems a little too long.

I would love to see the final version of this include the ability to group the feeds into categories and, using folders, visually display the feeds based on these groupings.  The only thing that I would like to see added during the installation is a Search Folder in the Favourite Folders section that displays all Unread Feeds.

Otherwise, pretty damn nifty.