Desktop control over Google Reader

Regular Google Reader user know how addictive the web application can be and how important it becomes to be on top of new unread items. This little plugin give you control of the online news reader from your desktop, thanks to Growl.

Reader Notifier is accessible from your menu bar, where it will show the number of unread items you have. Open up the drop down menu and you’ll be able to access your Reader, refresh unread items or add a new feed.

This last option is great, since it lets you add any new RSS link you might find, without having to open up Google Reader every time.

Reader Notifier includes Growl support, which is a nice way of keeping up to date with unread items.

You can also choose to block items you don’t want to see. If you want to save yourself the hassle of even simply visiting Google Reader, you can also set up Reader Notifier as your default RSS reader in your browser preferences.

The application also features TorrentCasting, which may be lesser known and not as clear for many users, but can actually come to be quite useful.

TorrentCasting allows you to keep up to date with media in RSS feeds such as torrents, podcasts or videocasts. It’ll attach the file to the feed, making it immediately accessible to you from the menu bar.

Reader Notifier works fine most of the time, however it has been known to show some random number in the menu bar when you have too many items.

Reader Notifier aims to supplement the official Mac Notifier menubar plugins for OS X, in adding support for Google Reader. Reader Notifier tells you when you have new unread rss/feed items available, and lets you visit those feeds without ever going to the Google Reader interface.

In addition, Reader Notifier will tell Google that you’ve already read the items you’ve accessed through the menubar, so that they won’t bother you as unread when you actually go to Google Reader (for instance at work where you cannot bring your Mac).