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Reduce the time spent checking your friends’ blogs with RSS and Google Reader

I’ve made a post about Really Simple Syndication (RSS) in the past and alluded to it elsewhere, but I never really went into the details of the best way to adopt this very simple technology (no pun intended). In a nutshell RSS let’s subscribe to all your favorite blogs and websites and have all the posts and content show up in one easy to access place. I’ve got about 40 blogs and sites that I frequent, imagine how long it would take to go through and check everyday for new content; I sure don’t have that kind of time. That’s where RSS and Google Reader comes in.

I’m going to use Google Reader as a platform for this post but the post will still be helpful to those using a program that supports OPML. I’m a big fan of Gmail which led me to be a big fan of Google Reader. I’ve done all the work of compiling a list of feeds that includes all of our blogs and their comments; you get to reap the benefits. All you will have to do is create an account with Google (if you don’t have one) and then upload the XML file below.

  1. Save this XML file to your computer by right-clicking and hitting “Save As…”
  2. Create your Google Account here
  3. Log into Google Reader
  4. Click “Settings” in the top right
  5. Click the “Import/Export” tab
  6. Browse for the file you saved in Step 1 and hit Upload
  7. Go Back to Google Reader and browse everyone’s posts and comments

I tried to get everyone in there so if there’s someone missing let me know and I’ll update the file.

And if you want to add your friend’s blogs here’s how to get their comment feeds since they usually aren’t linked:

  • Blogger: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default/
  • WordPress: http://blogurl/feeds/comments/default

Got other feeds for sites you like? Post em up and share with everyone else. One of my favorites is I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?, hit “Add Subscription” in Google Reader and paste in this link:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ICanHasCheezburger

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Right-Click Taskbar Atrocity

I’m on the computer pretty much all day and I consider myself a power user; I need my system to behave the way I expect to maintain productivity and sanity. Every so often something comes along that throws a wrench in that smooth operation and makes me want to flip off my monitor. Lately that wrench has been programs that decide to reinvent the wheel and change the order of the options of the taskbar right click menu. What am I talking about? Right click a program in your taskbar and look at the order, close is the bottom option right? Well let’s try another scenario, hit F1 to bring up the Microsoft’s Unhelpful Help and right-click that. You’ll probably see the same atrocity that I see below:

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE HELL! Thankfully only a handful of programs were developed by morons who thought this modification to the standard Windows experience was a good idea. One principle I follow when I do user interface design is don’t make the user think. With this right-click scenario I instinctly click the first option to close. When it doesn’t close the program I have to stop what I’m doing and figure out why my computer decided to do something different than I intended. Sorry for the rant, but these flaws are the kind of things I try to avoid in my own applications and have become more aware of.

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Holy Heads On Pikes Batman

Finally. It seems HBO has picked up George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice, and plan to turn it into an ongoing series, one season per book. This is the first thing coming to TV in a long time that has gotten me even close to excited.

You’ve probably heard Nathan or I rave about these books and if you haven’t started reading them then hop on it (if you want to borrow a copy just ask). I’m sure the HBO adaptation will be very well done but nothing can beat the books.

Variety broke the story here and George R.R. Martin has a post on his website here.

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New WordPress Version is out

A new version of WordPress (2.1 to be exact) is out and has a fair number of upgrades but if you have a lot of plugins then be careful that some of them might not be updated yet. Since I develop 3 plugins I have had 2.1 on a beta install and updated my plugins but I’m taking the plung right now. I’ll be posting new versions of my plugins right now too.
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