CLibra’s Blog

If you’re the kind of person who downloads your email into Outlook Express, no doubt you’ve probably considered the possibility of using it as an RSS reader, too. When it interested me, I searched high and low for plugins, checked the manual over and over again, until I stumbled across the (godsend) nttp://rss.

What this cool tool does is poll RSS feeds into an NNTP protocol. How does this help? Read on!
NB Make sure you have the Java runtimes installed before you undertake this, get them at http://java.sun.com/j2se/downloads.html

1) Download nntp://rss from Methodize. Grab version 0.5

2) Extract the Zip file. Place the folder wherever you want, preferably in the Program Files directory, but anywhere will do.

3) Now run the nntprss.exe program. A small Icon should appear in your system tray. Right click and and click properties.

4) Click System Configuration. Set the polling interval to 10 minutes, make sure ‘Observe HTTP 301′ is checked. Put the Content Type to ‘Text & HTML’, and check the box below it.

5) Now click Add Channel. This is where you’ll be adding your RSS feeds. Fill in the boxes and click add, and repeat for all the RSS feeds you want to subscribe to.

6) Open Outlook express. Click Tools, Accounts, then click Add and chose News. Fill in any name and email address (it’s not needed anyway), and put 127.0.0.1 for the server.

7) In the Outlook Express sidebar, you’ll now see the entry 127.0.0.1. Right click on it and chose Newsgroups. Ta-dah! The list of RSS feeds you added to nttp://rss. Double click on each feed, then click Ok. They now appear in Outlook Express, so you can read them like Newsgroups.

IMPORTANT: Remember the directory you unzipped nntp://rss to? Create a shortcut to nntprss.exe, and drag it into your startup folder on the start menu, otherwise nntp://rss will have to be started manually each time you want to read RSS feeds.

This tutorial by no means covers all the features of nntp://rss, but it gives a basic insight into using it with Outlook Express. If you feel more daring, you could try setting up encrypted access to your RSS feeds, or blog posting from Outlook Express.