The new IE7 is pretty awesome. But to this day I'm amazed at why people continue to think of features in relation to just one computer or a disconnected computer. Its like the phone that isn't connected to the phone network. IE7's RSS features are comprehensive, but if you have more than one machine (laptop, home pc, work pc and so on), you'll quickly find yourself with new subscriptions on each different computer... So here's a little PowerShell one-liner to keep your subscriptions in sync (only works with IE7 installed). First export the current subscription on your first PC:
$feeds = new-object -com Microsoft.FeedsManager
$feeds.RootFolder.Feeds | select Name,Url | export-clixml feeds.xml
Now transfer the file feeds.xml or, whatever you called it, to your second PC and do this:
$feeds = new-object -com Microsoft.FeedsManagerimport-clixml feeds.xml | % { if (!( $feeds.IsSubscribed($_.Url) )) { $feeds.RootFolder.CreateFeed( $_.Name, $_.Url ) } }
There you go. In about 4 lines you can keep your feeds in sync on multiple machines. The obvious questions/extesnsions are a) can this solution be optimized further so that manual copying of the file isn't necessary b) what other interesting things can you do once you access to your feeds :). I've got some ideas and tricks, but I'm saving them for another blog post. Meanwhile, innovate away!
BTW: IE team, nice work on 7. Here's my wishlist: automatic sync'ing between multiple PCs would be killer, add support for highlighting search terms, map CTRL-S to searching the internet with a nice pop-up that could be configured by search providers to show their branding, allow the search box to be moved to more accessible places (fly-out, status bar, floater even). Keep up the great work!