Shrook is a kickass RSS reader for the Mac with a lot of fit and finish. Graham Parks, the software's author, released a new version today with a really nice, innovative feature: distributed feed-pulling:
In order to keep each channel as up to date, each individual copy of Shrook would have to load the channel at least every ten minutes. For users, this would obviously have an effect on the performance of their internet connection and computer. For popular channel providers, the hundreds or thousands of RSS readers connecting regularly, around the clock, already represent a huge financial burden (amongst other problems), as most are billed on the volume of data transferred to and from their computers. Checking more often would only make things worse.
So how does it work?
To oversimplify: A central server maintains a database of when each channel was last updated. To keep it up to date, every so often, the server chooses a computer to check for new items and report back. The frequency of this varies from every 5 minutes for popular channels, to every half hour for channels with only one online subscriber, and it tries to use a different computer each time. At the other end, each copy of Shrook checks in with the server every 5 minutes, and if any of its channels are out of date, it reloads them.