Using Google Reader to bring the web to you

Image via CrunchBase

For those of you unfamiliar with Google Reader, it is a collection of tools put together by, you guessed it: Google, for the purpose of viewing content updates from many different websites in one convenient window. While Reader isn’t the only application capable of displaying web feeds, far from it, it is one of the most comprehensive and easy to use.

With a growing number of companies and media outlets providing more of their content to a web audience from more conventional sources like print, it may be overwhelming to keep track of all the headlines. Fortunately it is possible to monitor the updates through a small piece of embedded code which alerts the outside world of its existence. More specifically, certain programs, commonly called readers, are able to pick up the code and organize it in a reader friendly-way. Google Reader is one of those programs.

What makes Google Reader special is you are able to see exactly what you want to see, when you want it. Some key features:

•An option to automatically save a feed as read when you scroll past it
•A well displayed (automatically generated) summery of the update that will avoid clicking on articles that are little more than a catchy title
•Organize feeds by folders which you create and name. Hence you can only view selected feeds if you are crunched for time or otherwise.
•Option to automatically scroll to the last unread feed. Note: Newer feeds appear at the top.
•Search for new feeds by keywords, categories, or selected staff picks
Data and charts on your reading habits; frequency, category read, etc..
•Mark feeds as favorites and shared. You are also given your own Shared page so others can see your selected articles


Google Reader works on handheld devices, computer desktops, and of course the conventional internet browser. While it is able to sync between all of your devices, the browser version has the most comprehensive set of features.

Expanding idea creation through source development

Developing an idea for a nonfiction piece of writing can often be more challenging then it seems. While many times it takes that one special moment of clarity for a great idea to be born, it seems to fade out just as fast. It is important to understand the “nature” of a specific idea in order to retain and develop it. It is useful to think of it as a two-fold process. First, one must reflect on his familiarity with the topic of the said idea. Secondly one must determine both the type of piece, and the outside sources to utilize for maximum effectiveness. With very little time and a bit of brainstorming it becomes possible to retain an idea and have a base to go off of when pen does finally hit paper.

Many times a writer realizes he is not as familiar with the piece as he though once he begins to write. By reflecting on his familiarity with the idea for the piece before writing he is able to set himself up for success. Asking oneself such things as “what do I need to know to write a quality piece,” will prepare the writer when he does expand on his original thoughts. Furthermore, reflecting on ones knowledge about a given idea helps determine whether the author will be the main (or only) source, or whether outside sources will be necessary. When the author begins to write he will avoid hitting certain roadblocks if he has a good idea of whether or not to consult outside sources for various parts of the piece. Not only does reflecting on ones knowledge of the piece help avoid obstacles but it also helps determine the appropriate type of piece and the outside sources (if any) to consult.

Different types of pieces require different levels of familiarity with the subject matter. An opinion piece for instance, requires less knowledge of the original idea then an information piece because the author is giving his views of the subject matter based on his own understanding. On the contrary, an information piece needs to be fairly well supported because the author is educating the reader. A mix of different styles may also strengthen a piece, but a thorough understanding of one’s own familiarity with the idea, as stated earlier, will be invaluable in setting the tone of the piece. Similarly, determining the outside sources to utilize will affect the type of piece produced. Asking such things as “Should I use one internet source, like Wikipedia, to give some background information, or should I look into a few different sources and gain different angles on the idea,” will help the author set the tone and establish the type of piece to write.

You and the rise of social media

In his articles, Dan Schawbel points to the importance of building an online brand for yourself and using it to leverage that for career success. How to: Leverage social media for career success, discusses a six step solution to building an online brand. From step 1, "Conduct a Situational Analysis," to step 6, "Monitor your reputation," this guide is a worthy read to discover the "digital you."

The relevance of this article goes beyond simple career tips (at least for me), and extends to a discernible rift between those who accept the inevitable spread of social media and those who unyieldingly pursue the traditional hand-shake method of social networking. While I cannot understate the importance of face-to-face methods of communication, likewise the traditional ways of interaction in general, advances in technology are changing the basic social structure we have grown accustomed to. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others give us the ability to share our lives with not just acquaintances but total strangers. Furthermore, the magnitude to which we are able to exchange information under these conditions not only changes how we share our lives but the image of ourselves we portray to the world. As Dan Schawbel put it, "Your digital assets — blog, podcast, and social networking profiles — are your online identity and how people discover and connect with you. " Unfortunately, "digital assets," are slow in being claimed and often close an important avenue for those who don't claim it.

Case in point, being a recent college graduate I had the unique experience of seeing the blossoming of social media before my eyes. When I started college in 2005, Facebook was just beginning to spread around campuses. Before photos, chat, and many other features, Facebook was just a way for college kids to connect with one another outside of the traditional academia settings. Fast forward to 2009, Facebook has grown to a massive network of students of all ages and backgrounds, companies of all sorts and sizes, celebrities, as well as average Joe's (and Jane's) looking to get in on the hype. What is truly remarkable though, is everyone is able to connect with everyone else. College kids are able to communicate with celebrities and give their input to companies, companies on the other hand are able to get a direct perspective and opinion of their products, even celebrities are able to stay in touch with their fan base more efficiently then ever. As networks like Twitter and LinkedIn popped up, many individuals (and brands) were able to integrate these networks to increase their web presence and market their brand. Sadly, it is a trend which (from my experience) individuals, from my generation especially, that has been slow in coming. There are many reasons for this and I won't speculate on them in this post, but the evidence of this is plentiful.


My Facebook homepage is often filled with mundane and thoughtless status updates such as "can't wait to get hammered this weekend," or "Me + Bed = Sleep." While that in itself is perfectly normal for college age kids, I question whether that is the image they want to project about themselves to the world. Even though I am aware that close friends probably find these nuances cute and appealing (more power to them) there are better ways to say the same thing. More importantly however, is the inability of individuals of my generations to embrace the social networking revolution. Many people wrongly assume that Twitter, for instance, is used solely for telling people what you are doing every five minutes of your life. Most of these people are unaware of the importance of building a brand for themselves and increasing their web presence, especially as they prepare to enter a competitive job market where more often then not, innovation is king. It is very likely that an increasing number of companies will look towards social media to fill their employment needs. It is the individuals that stay connected and stay ahead who will have the upper hand as we continue to push the boundaries of technology.

Sketches Galore!

I found a big box with my old sketches and comic books. When I left for college (4+ years ago) I stashed it in the closet, and re-discovered it last night. There is some pretty good stuff inside which I scanned into the computer. By clicking on any image you can see the full size version.

Roughs of Pinky and the Brain...and Tweety.

A random puppy, I don't remember what the source for this was.

This is a character from an old Super Nintendo game. Chrono Trigger is it?

Scat, from the original "Ice Age." I remember after reading a book about Blue Sky Studios I drew this in a moment of inspiration.

Mushroom village retirement home

Great image of the Mario crew in their ripe old age. Bowser chases Princess as he clings to some kind of fluid bag while Luigi dreams of mushrooms. Poor Yoshi, the only thing left of him is a headstone.

Best (free) Wikipedia apps on the iphone

Image via Wikipedia

Anyone who has ever looked for information about anything has probably come across Wikipedia before. With it's expansion onto the iphone and ipod touch in a formatted, easy to read version, Wikipedia is more accessible then ever. I took a look at 3 different Wiki apps; Wikipanion, Wikiamo, and Wiki! lite.

Wikipanion - is a comprehensive Wikipedia app with many features and a gorgeous interface. Wikipanion gives you a suggested list of entries as you type, along with a one sentence preview of the entry. There is also a useful feature of searching for certain terms within a page and looking up something in Wiktionary without losing the page you are on. Wikipanion has the capability to view the pages you have been to offline (although without graphics in the free version). Standard options include the ability to email entries, and personalize the bookmarks within custom names and entries.

Wikiamo - has nearly the same functionality and look as Wikipnion but it lacks a few features the latter program has. Most notably, the options to search within a page and look up entries in Wiktionary are lacking. One small advantage of this version is the text is slightly better formatted making it bigger, though this is not enough to make a significant difference.

Wiki! lite - has a huge advantage that the other apps, (and every other Wikipedia app in the App Store), disappointingly lack. The ability to look up entries in other wiki's outside of Wikipedia gives Wiki! lite a distinct advantage. There is no shortage of wiki's, they include; 9 different ones such as, Wikinews, Wikiquote, and Wikibooks, to name a few. However, there is a lack of features that the other to apps have such as the ability to organize and customize book marks and browse through history. Offline viewing is not available either in this free version. The interface is also a little clumsy as it moves text below the images.


The verdict: Despite its shortcomings Wiki! lite gets my vote, with the ability to view the full repository of Wiki's outside of Wikipedia. However, if you want to stick strictly to Wikipedia, Wikipanion is the way to go. It's array features makes it a nice app to have. (On a final note, these apps are useful when utilized interchangeably too!)

Everything I learned about blogging (so far) - The list

In my last entry I talked about my experience with blogging and what I learned from the many failed blogs that I have had in the past. I put together a list of what I believe are helpful tips for starting a blog and being a successful blogger. Here is the list which I included with my last entry as well.

1) Have a general concept in terms of subject matter established. Even if it changes later, you will be able to better control how that change happens.

2)Post! The more you post and the more you see your blog grow the more you will want to keep it growing. Set a posting schedule, like once a week to help keep you on task.

3) Find something you are naturally interested in, something that you either know a lot about or are always looking to learn about. This blog for instance, is a repository for the most interesting stuff I come across as I scour the internet, as well as stuff that I have been thinking about and want to expend upon or look into.

4) Write to be heard. I cannot stress this one enough, even if nobody reads your writing you want to write as though you have a million hits a day. I believe one of the biggest reasons new blogs fail is because the author sees no purpose in continuing to write when the world wide web already contains everything one wants to know.

5) To expand on number 4. Be original, be creative and be you. If you believe in what you say and you write to convey a message all else will follow.

6) Use new technology. This option was for the most part unavailable to me when I started my first blog back in high school. With the advent of the internet new ways are being constantly developed to better convey the right information to the right audience. Blogger for instance has hundreds of gadgets to use in order to customize a page, everything from simple text boxes, to games, videos, and news feeds.

7) Make your page yours. By playing around with the HTML templates a little bit, it is possible to change just about every visible page element, widen the display area, move the sidebar over, change the main heading, etc.

8) Get your name out there. There is no shame in putting links out on Facebook, Twitter, or by simple word of mouth. Even if people don't come out and say they will check out your blog, at least you plant that seed in their mind. By reading this rule, I hope you see my point.

9) Don't get bogged down with detail. Get your ideas out in the open while they are still fresh and exciting, then worry about polishing them when you have a solid base established. The reason my early blog failed so often was because I spent to much time trying to put in counters and insignificant stuff (at least for a beginners blog), that I lost interest in the content.

Everything I learned about blogging (so far)

Many a times I have attempted to start a new blog. Each new blog brings with it a distinct excitement of bringing to the world something new and (generally) my own. Like a child's toy gathering cobwebs in the closet though, my old blogs sit in the dashboard of my blogger account going unopened for months and years at a time. Just like the said child who uses begs his parents for the toy, using every opportunity to hint at it, I work out all the details of the blog before I put pen to paper, so to speak.

And then I actually start working on the blog and a strange but all to familiar thing happens, I lose interest. There is no shortage of the reasons behind my loss of interest. I know less about the subject then what I originally thought. There are better resources for what I blog about leading me to question the blogs purpose. I often underestimate the difficulties of focusing an individual blog losing scope of the main purpose in the process.

Unsurprisingly, I am not alone in this matter among my fellow bloggers. It may be obvious to an individual starting a blogger blog that, blogger is a blog graveyard(try saying that 3 times fast). Registering a .blogspot domain often proves difficult, even seemingly obscure domains i.e. seekingbeta.blogspot.com, are taken. The most upsetting part is these blogs often become one-hit wonders, where the author stops writing after a few posts.

With that said, as I work on my latest blog, I have more experience to build on now then when I started with my first "Great Idea," experience I will gladly share to anyone who wants to listen.

1) Have a general concept in terms of subject matter established. Even if it changes later, you will be able to better control how that change happens.

2)Post! The more you post and the more you see your blog grow the more you will want to keep it growing. Set a posting schedule, like once a week to help keep you on task.

3) Find something you are naturally interested in, something that you either know a lot about or are always looking to learn about. This blog for instance, is a repository for the most interesting stuff I come across as I scour the internet, as well as stuff that I have been thinking about and want to expend upon or look into.

4) Write to be heard. I cannot stress this one enough, even if nobody reads your writing you want to write as though you have a million hits a day. I believe one of the biggest reasons new blogs fail is because the author sees no purpose in continuing to write when the world wide web already contains everything one wants to know.

5) To expand on number 4. Be original, be creative and be you. If you believe in what you say and you write to convey a message all else will follow.

6) Use new technology. This option was for the most part unavailable to me when I started my first blog back in high school. With the advent of the internet new ways are being constantly developed to better convey the right information to the right audience. Blogger for instance has hundreds of gadgets to use in order to customize a page, everything from simple text boxes, to games, videos, and news feeds.

7) Make your page yours. By playing around with the HTML templates a little bit, it is possible to change just about every visible page element, widen the display area, move the sidebar over, change the main heading, etc.

8) Get your name out there. There is no shame in putting links out on Facebook, Twitter, or by simple word of mouth. Even if people don't come out and say they will check out your blog, at least you plant that seed in their mind. By reading this rule, I hope you see my point.

9) Don't get bogged down with detail. Get your ideas out in the open while they are still fresh and exciting, then worry about polishing them when you have a solid base established. The reason my early blog failed so often was because I spent to much time trying to put in counters and insignificant stuff (at least for a beginners blog), that I lost interest in the content.

I will wrap it up with a final thought. The challenging thing about blogs is they are an unfamiliar concept of our notion of idea sharing. Their not like journals with which one keeps their personal feelings (though they can be). Yet they are not elegant websites meant to draw in hordes of traffic from all over the world (though they can be that too). Perhaps a way to look at blogs is not like a medium to share ideas at all, but as an underlying set of tools and concepts meant to serve a purpose to the author whether it be practical, commercial, or anything in between.

130-megapixel camera from a scanner

This is pretty freakin cool, even if it's not practical. The resolution is light years beyond what normal cameras have. Check it out here.

Comparing two RSS readers on the iphone

RssRunner vs. Xfeed

Well first of what is an RSS? It is simply a piece of code associated with the XML internet programming language and inserted into websites. It is used as a "data feed" in order to stream content from a frequently updated websites like blogs and news. RSS readers are able to interpreted the code and update the content of the website whose feed it is reading. Think of it as subscribing to many different magazines simultaneously and having a new issue delivered on specific intervals (15 minutes or 1 hour).

There are two different readers I have been playing around with and both are free and have their own unique set of features.

RSSRunner - has a clean simple interface that makes it relatively easy to read feeds on the small screen. Every headline of every feed has a preview that is readable without an internet connection. Moreover the ability to search for feeds using keywords is an excellent feature not available on Xfeed. It is also able to read feeds from Google Reader or an OPML file from another feed reader.


Xfeed - has the ability to sort out and read feeds by many different categories. It comes with a large number of preloaded and categorized feeds from major media sources, a pretty nice feature to have if you want to explore a lot of material right out of the gate. Xfeed also allows you to add feeds to favorites, particularly useful if you often read feeds from different categories.

The verdict: Both programs are very good and it comes down to how one will use them. RSSRunner has a clean simple readable interface useful for quickly going over the headlines. It's search feature may prove invaluable to finding new feeds and it also has the ability to share a headline through email. Xfeed is loaded with features for a free app. It's major strength is the ability to categorize feeds and sort them into categories. The preloaded feeds are very helpful as well.

I would give a slight edge to RSSRunner. While it is not as rich in features it has a nicer design and slightly easier to read.