Google Reader is indispensable, because it lets you see old items even after they've been deleted from the current feed. So many podcasts do this: only give a f

Google Reader is indispensable, because it lets you see old items even after they've been deleted from the current feed. So many podcasts do this: only give a few recent episodes in the RSS feed, keep the old files on the server, but either bury the link somewhere or never link to them at all. With the silly default no-listing permission on the directory. Without Reader, many podcast archives would be inaccessible most users.