Category: Technology

Have you tried Google Reader yet? If not, you’re really missing out on a great tool to keep track of all of the news and information that’s important to you.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Google Reader is an RSS reader. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Basically, an RSS feed allows content providers to syndicate their content through a standard file format that can be read by any program that has been designed to read that format. Many programs and web sites support RSS. Some that you may have heard of are My Yahoo!, iGoogle, Newsgator, and of course, Google Reader.

I have used most of the major RSS feed readers out there, but I’ve never found one that met all of my expectations. I used Newsgator for a while, and I liked it, but it never really made its way into my every day routine. Recently, I gave Google Reader a try, and I’ve been using it ever since. It provides a simple 2-click process to add new RSS feeds, and it displays information in two different views: an expanded view and a list view. When reading a post, you can add a star (just like Gmail), share the post through your Shared Items page, email the post with direct access to your Gmail address book, and add a tag to the post. All of this functionality is built into a very clean and simple interface.

If you’re looking for a tool to keep track of all of your favorite news sites and blogs, I highly recommend Google Reader. You’ll find yourself getting through your news and views faster than ever before.

Meebo is one of those web apps that kind of sneaks up on you. I tried it a while back, and I thought it was a pretty cool idea. Then I tried it again and again, and now it’s something I use every day.

For those of you who are not familiar with Meebo, it is a very easy to use web application that allows you to connect to all of your instant messaging services on one web page. Meebo supports MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Jabber. You can sign up for a Meebo account and save your settings for all of your IM accounts and use one sign on for all of them. When you have an account with all of the major IM services, using one account to sign on to all of them is pretty useful.

I use Meebo most often when I’m out of town for work. I don’t want to install a ton of IM software on my work computer so Meebo really provides a great service so I can communicate with my family when I’m away from home. I’m actually finding myself using it on computers where I have the IM clients installed. It’s really that good. The site is even designed to work perfectly on an iPhone if you’re lucky enough to have one.

Try it when you have a chance. You won’t regret it.

The guys over at TUAW hipped me on to a new tool for Mac OS X and the Internet that makes it possible to automatically create Dashboard widgets for Mac OS X. InnermindMedia’s WidgetWizard can take any RSS feed from the Internet and make a great looking Dashboard widget.

The tool for Mac OS X comes in the form of a Dashboard widget. So, yes, a widget is used to automatically create another widget using the data from an RSS feed. The Internet version has the same functionality, but the Dashboard version seems to be more polished.

I really like this tool because it makes it very easy to create widgets for the RSS feeds you like to read the most. As a blogger, I’ll be able to provide a great looking Dashboard widget for my readers.

Thanks InnermindMedia for creating such a useful application!

For all of you out there with iPhone envy but little tiny bank accounts (like ours), I read some good news over on TUAW the other day. Apple is now offering Apple Certified Refurbished iPhones at The Apple Store for $399 for the 4 GB model and $499 for the 8 GB model. That is $100 off the list price for each model! If you just couldn’t bring yourself to spend $499 for a device with only 4 GB of storage, perhaps $399 sounds a whole lot better. Unfortunately for me, I’m still out of the market for an iPhone mostly because I have a BlackBerry through work, and I suppose the price tag is still a bit out of reach right now as well, but I bet there are a lot more people out there considering an iPhone purchase with the lower prices for the refurbished models.

To add a little perspective as far as Apple’s iPhone pricing is concerned, I ran out in October of 2001 and bought an iPod for $399 because I was (and still am) an Apple freak. That $399 bought me a devise that could play music, and that was it. Sure there were some other little features like a game or two, but the iPod was predominately a music player. Now, the iPhone is a music player, a video player, a wireless Internet device, and a cell phone. That’s a lot of functionality squeezed into a stunning little piece of machinery. So I guess $399 doesn’t sound all that bad after all.

Now, what did I do with that Powerball ticket?

I read on TechCrunch this morning that Google Maps now provides the ability to embed the results of a Map Search, Business Search, or Directions Search in a web page without having to mess with the Google Maps API. This is a really great tool for anyone who wants or needs to show a map on a web page but does not have the technical know how to work with an API. This is very similar to the way YouTube and other video sites make it possible to show videos directly on your web page. This seems especially useful for businesses of all shapes and sizes as well as individuals who are planning parties and events.

Google really could not have made it easier to get the code to embed a map into your web page.

First, type in the location, business, or directions you need to find, and then click the Search button.

Second, click the “Link to this page” link, select the text box labeled “Paste HTML to embed in website,” and copy the text.

That’s all there is to it. You now have the code to add a map to your web page. Google has also provided the ability to change the size of the map with presets for Small, Medium, and Large as well as an option to enter a custom width and height. The custom option provides the greatest control over the map so you can really make it blend in well with your site.

With this new functionality, Google has provided another great free service for all of us to use.

OK, so maybe Microsoft Windows didn’t really break Skype, but this is a great story. As most of you have probably already heard, Skype had a huge outage late last week, and the system was down for about thirty hours. Skype is a P2P network which means it uses resources from all over the world. It turns out that new patches were released through Windows Update last Tuesday that required a reboot to finish the installation. When all of these millions of computers rebooted at about the same time, and the users tried to log back in to Skype, the loss of P2P resources and the massive number of log ins overwhelmed the system. Skype claims to have fixed the bug so hopefully something like this will not happen again.

I still think Skype is an incredibly useful tool, and it provides a service that allows individuals and businesses to communicate around the world at a very reasonable price. I just couldn’t resist the fact the Microsoft’s Windows Update brought one of the Internet’s most widely used communications systems to its knees.

(via GigaOM)

A lot has been said lately about the state of gaming on Mac OS X. Most recently, a lot of noise has been made about the amount of time it took EA to ship some games for the Mac platform even though they had pledged to release the games at the same time as the Windows versions. They have finally shipped four of the six games with the other two coming later in the year.

I personally have very little interest in gaming on my Mac or any other PC because I am too busy with work and family. The time I do spend on the computer is usually spent creating and consuming content for the Internet, and as a Mac user, I am not alone as you may have read earlier this year. Mac users are just more likely to be engaged in other activities with their computers that it is no surprise that EA and other game makers tend to keep the platform on the back burner. There are so many other interesting things that you can do with a Mac that it seems a waste to spend time playing games on one.

With that said, I do enjoy playing games from time to time, but it’s not on my Mac or other PCs. I prefer gaming machines because the experience is so much better. Machines like the Playstation and Xbox are specifically designed for gaming, and they have the horsepower to make the games come to life. Why play games on a computer that was designed to do something else when you can use a gaming machine and have the best user experience? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

So, I’m reading through my email last night, and I come across this week’s edition of Circuits from the New York Times. David Pogue wrote what was basically a huge rant about the new version of iMovie from Apple. iMovie has been completely re-written and re-positioned as an application to quickly create and share movies. This is quite a change from the intent of the previous versions of iMovie, but it also goes along with today’s YouTube-crazed world. Pogue wants his iMovie back so he can make professional movies at a bargain price. Someone in his position should really be using at least Final Cut Express anyway, and I’m sure the New York Times can afford to buy a copy for him.

Fake Steve Jobs has a theory about why Pogue is so upset. The iPhone was so perfect that Pogue had no chance to give any negative feedback. Of course, it was in his contract to only say wonderful, positive things about Apple’s latest creation.

I will reserve judgment on the new version of iMovie until I’ve had a chance to create a few movies, but it can’t be nearly as terrible as Pogue makes it sound.

I read on TechCrunch this morning that Sun’s StarOffice is now included in Google’s Google Pack software package. While I agree with Duncan Riley that Google will help add some credibility by association, I really don’t think it matters all that much in the grand scheme of things. StarOffice, OpenOffice, and other products like it seem incredibly clunky to me, and I have never had a positive experience with a product that uses Java (Documentum, Business Objects, etc.). Now, I have to admit that I have developed some insanely cool document automation products using Microsoft Word, but I am a Mac user at heart so I have no love for Microsoft. With that said, there are other quality alternatives to Microsoft Office like Apple’s iWork and Google’s own Google Docs and Spreadsheets that I would use before even bothering to download StarOffice or OpenOffice. You can bet that as soon as Google figures out how to incorporate the presentation product they bought and make it possible to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets offline, StarOffice will come off of the list of products available in the Google Pack. Sun will have to enjoy the extra attention while they can.