Poof! Blog Reading

Blogs have revolutionized the way we disperse information. Blogs can represent a personal diary, a list of tips, a way to publicize a cause, a means for companies to reach out to investors and a slew of other uses. I previously used Wizz RSS Reader to check on my favorite sites. I say previously because as of this past weekend I have started using Google Reader. There are lots of goodies so I'll try to talk about what I have noticed so far.

First of all appearances. If you like the look of GMail, then you'll like Google Reader. They fit together like they're in the same family as it should be. There is a "List View" which displays the blog entries just like emails show up in GMail and you can star entries just like emails. And if you like the backgrounds and themes of various blogs, you can open up a new tab or window to view a post from the original site by clicking the double arrows at the end of an entry.

You'll also notice the simple navigation on the left of the window. Choose how you want to sort posts, subscribe to blogs by adding the feed url or searching, view only updated blogs or all, and categorize your favorites. This portion was, for me, to be expected from Google, now on to the ooey gooeyness that made me want to switch.





First, I am a Google Homepage user and Google Reader has a widget that can be added and lets you see what new posts you have to read in a
glance. I don't have any new posts in the picture, but if I did they would be listed similar to emails in the GMail widget. This tidbit made it easy for me to try it out. What I really like about it is that I don't have to click on every blog feed link to see if there are new posts and I don't have to open up a new page either. I just open up my web browser and right there on my homepage it tells me if there are new items to read and what blog they're for. This also allows me to take my blog history with me. What I mean by this is that no matter what computer I'm on, Google Reader knows what posts I have already read and has them marked accordingly.

I have to say that my favorite part of Reader right now is the expanded view. This shows all of the posts in order so that you can scroll right from one to the next and the best part is that as you scroll past the posts, Reader marks them as read... niiice.

The auto marking may be my favorite right now, but there are several features that I'm excited to dig into more. Reader's settings even has a section called "Goodies" that several of these are in. One, like most web tools, is that you can read from your phone. The bookmark link is one that I haven't noticed anywhere else before. It allows you to bring up the next unread post by clicking a single bookmark. This would be a very simple way to move through new posts without even going to your homepage or navigating to Reader. I think I will continue to prefer seeing my new posts listed, but this is a cool idea. The next goodie listed is "subscribe as you surf". Simply, if you're chugging along popping through new blogs and find one that you want to add to Reader, you just click this bookmark and it gets added to the list. I'll definitely be using this one.

The last feature I'm going to mention is one that I'll also be using. It's the Share option. This can be seen in the left navigation area and it lets you share posts with friends, family, and the world. One thing some of my co-workers were discussing today was the lack of searching or saving in Reader. While this isn't the best solution, one thought I had was to share posts that had information I wanted to remember or use again, or posts that I wanted to save. This would make them easily available and "save" them for future reference. Again, not the best, but I think I'll give it a try when I'm playing around with this feature.

Poof! Bluetooth

Bluetooth: useful technology with a lot of potential.
Problem: the average non-techy Joe is easily caught up in some of the hazy workings of Bluetooth (see the RadioShack commercial).

Scenario: you run out to fight with the shopping crowds to grab the great deals. You snatch some $9.99 Bluetooth headset/$100 Bluetooth headphones/$40 Bluetooth keyboard. You bring it home, open the packaging and attempt to read through the directions. They say to charge the device for 2 hours (damn impatience!). You watch the blue/green/red light as the energy flows. It's done! Then the instructions say hold down the big button, flip the doohicky up and down three times, and sing row, row, row your boat until a light blinks morris code in various colors. You make a mistake and sing Mary had a little lamb instead and you get an f-you beep from the device. You end up feeling like you just lost a game of Technology Twister. So you go through the steps again and sing the correct song: it's visible now! So you grab your laptop/cellphone/PDA and try to search for your new toy only to find out that the blue light doesn't mean that your laptop has Bluetooth/your cellphone doesn't support some A2DP thing (wtf?), and you have to type some magical passcode on both your keyboard and PDA and then hope that they dig each other just one of the times that you run through the steps.

Holy crap, you just wanted to get rid of a wire! Your new toy to help simplify your life has just given you the gift of a migraine and doubt that technology is really on our side.

Never fear young grasshopper! Bluetooth is not perfect, but not much is. Look at history, most technologies had their bumps in the beginning and the ones that got it together moved past that. The Bluetooth SIG has been working hard at improving the user experience including icons (again, not a perfect solution in my opinion, but a step), and working on simple pairing techniques.

In my opinion, the simple pairing would make the experience worlds better. Imagine not having to know anything about Bluetooth, nothing about profiles, not having to push and hold and wait, and blink, but instead taking your new, exciting toy, turning it on, and with maybe a simple push or touch, Poof! Bluetooth. *Sigh* what a wonderful world it would be. Until then, practice your right hand on red button twister move.

Poof! Skills

Have you ever wished you could just snap your fingers and gain knowledge or skills for something? Well this evening I had a similar experience, but from a different perspective. I had the pleasure of going to my cousin's elementary school orchestra concert... ouch my ears. Honestly, it was better than I expected, but I still had the urge to be able to wave my hands and magically make them sounds less painful.

I can distantly relate it to times when I've stood witness to someone doing something for the first time, and see them struggle like a child learning to walk. I know I can't just do it for them, they have to learn, but there is still that urge deep down inside that just wants to at least show them how easy it will be once they learn it.

Another example is my mom and ebay. She's used ebay to buy things several times and now she wants to start selling things. I haven't actually done this myself, but I know it isn't that hard. However, she has herself convinced that it will be complicated and that makes it sort of scary, as in right before you jump into a pool and find out if it's cold or not. She has even bugged me repeatedly to convince my good friend Aaron (ebay whore enthusiast) if he will sell her stuff for her. Now at first he considered it, but after we pondered a bit, we both realized that this is definitely something that she needs to do herself; a character building experience if you will.

This got me thinking about how one could make those firsts in life easier. There are things that help like having an older sibling or a friend that has done something give you tips or let you know what to expect. With so many things posted online these days, it's pretty easy to research stuff before you have to do it. But what about the things that aren't covered by these aids? Well after about 5 minutes of concentrated thought, I have decided that there shouldn't be a "safe" way all of the time. In fact I identified situations where I was nervous or unsure and paused for sometime to worry about it and that made it more thrilling, think of the slow ride up to the top of a roller coaster (worst part of the whole ride). Once I actually started in on my "first" it was more fun and more satisfying.

So while sometimes I may wish to be able to make someone more improved to save my ears, I have also decided that it may not always be a good thing to have a magic wand that I could wave and go Poof! skills.