Robert Vrabel

To understand Google Reader you will have to understand RSS. Like anything doing certain routines get old, and newer ways are created. Instead of going out to all of your favorite sites to see what new things are posted, why not have the news come to you? RSS works by simply subscribing to a website feed, and anytime something new is posted it gets delivered to you similar to how e-mail works. The next time you login to read things it shows all your new items and automatically marks things as read as you read them. This saves time by not having to go out to a website and try to figure out what the new information is posted. It also saves time because ALL of your favorite sites are in one spot organized however you want it. Here is a very useful picture to explain RSS.

Sign up for Google Reader before continuing. Now lets discuss how to subscribe to a feed.

Subscribing to a Feed

Using almost any new browser will display the RSS icon in the URL address. Simply click on this and add it to Google Reader. It’s as simple as that!

Tips

1. Organize your feeds by adding them to a folder. Personally, i have some folders setup called News, Gaming, Web Development, Blogs, etc..
2. As you scroll down the list you will notice the items being marked as read (the number should decrease). Anytime you see a number next to a feed name, that means you have unread items in it.
3. You can easily share stories from a feed by clicking “Share” (this will send it to anyone in your Google Address Book who uses Google Reader. Next time they login to Google Reader they will see your share) or by hitting the “Email” button which will allow you to e-mail the article to anyone.
4. Reading an article that you would consider a favorite? Simply hit the Star button next to it to add it to your favorites. You can see all of your favorites by clicking “Starred Items” at the top.
5. You can also search all of your new and past read articles by using the google powered search input at the top of the screen.

According to joystiq, the Pixel Junk Monsters expansion pack is heading our way late april, less than a month away! Needless to say I can’t wait to see what they deliver. New levels, new towers, new monsters, online support…? Looks like we will just have to wait and see!

UPDATE: 

Some new information has been been revealed about the expansion pack, check it out!

How many times have you wished you had your bookmarks with you either at work, or a friends house? Most people use the old method of bookmarks using the one built directly inside of the web browser. Lets take a different approach to see how we can store our bookmarks online so they can be accessed from anywhere.

Online Bookmarking

1. Download Firefox (explained here).
2. Install the del.icio.us extension.

Upon installing the extension, firefox will need to restart and you will see new buttons.

The new buttons are the “Del.icio.us” home button, and a button caled “Tag”. To use this, hit the del.icio.us home button and sign up for the website. Once you are signed up, you simply just hit “Tag” on a web page you want to bookmark. Upon doing this, you can type in (or select recommended tags) to categorize your bookmarks. The more tags you create, the easier it will be to find your bookmarks in the future.

Finding Your Bookmarks

Visit http://del.icio.us/yourusername to visit your bookmarks. To see an example, visit my bookmarks. You will see on the right hand side a bunch of tags, which you can click to filter the list down to those bookmarks. Now all of your bookmarks are online and can be accessed from anywhere.

Tips

1. You can hide your bookmarks so they are not open to the public. Just checkout the “settings” page when visiting http://del.icio.us/
2. You can subscribe to someones bookmarks by visiting their page at http://del.icio.us/username .
3. You can add friends to your account by also visiting their page.
4. You can recommend a bookmark for a friend by clicking “Tag”, then under “your network” select the person’s name and hit “save”.

The Rock Band drum sticks tanked last light… pretty nuts! Its almost just like the real thing… except we didn’t have a “real crowd” to throw them into!

Firefox is simply the best browser available mainly because of its large library of extensions available. Users are able to create their own extensions and submit them to be downloaded. There is a handful of useful extensions i use every day that when i use a browser without them, it kills my productivity. Here is a list of extensions i use often.

Extensions

• Validate HTML (PC) or Validate HTML (MAC)
• Web Developer Toolbar
• Link checker
• Fire Bug
• Del.icio.us Bookmarks (Article coming soon on this)
• Dragfile

Most of them are web development related but the bottom two are very useful ones. To check out the full list of extensions visit the official extensions website.

Tabs

If you are still using Internet Explorer 6 then you probably have no idea what tabs are and you should definitely listen up! How often do you find yourself with 10 different web pages open at the same time in different windows? Or maybe you just use one window but would like to have multiple web pages open at the same time to compare things? Using tabs (hit CTRL + T or apple +T) it will open a new tab directly inside the same browser window. This keeps all of your open web pages in one window as opposed to having multiple windows open.

This will be one of the many posts in the near future of websites i use on a daily basis. The main focus of these articles will be to go into detail on what features i use on the site that make my life easier and/or how those features saves me time. Lets start with Google Mail.

Anyone can use an E-mail client, but are you getting the most out of yours? Using filters inside of Google Mail can help keep your inbox neat and tidy. Lets say for example you receive e-mails from Amazon on a weekly basis. You enjoy reading these e-mails but would rather them not show in your inbox. Lets setup a filter to handle this situation.

Filters

1. Open up the settings by clicking “Settings” in the upper right hand corner.
2. Click “Filters”
3. Click “Create a new filter”
4. Inside the “From” Field put “*@amazon.com” (no quotes) and click “Next Step”
5. Checkmark “Skip the Inbox(Archive It)”
6. Checkmark “Apply the Label” and choose a label. Call this label “Amazon”
7. Checkmark “Also apply filter to x conversations below
8. Click Create Filter

Now every time an e-mail comes from Amazon.com it will automatically skip your inbox, and apply the label “Amazon” to it. To access all your Amazon mail, simply click on the “Amazon” label under the “Labels” section. Labels are different than a folder as an e-mail can have multiple labels. The benefit of this is you can get to your e-mails in multiple ways.

Experiment setting up rules for the types of e-mails you receive. By simply setting up filters to label your e-mails automatically, all of your mail will be neatly organized automatically.

Searching

How often can you NOT find an e-mail you are looking for? Well using the “Search” feature quickly brings up e-mails realitive to what you are searching for with the power of Google Search behind it. I am sure you are familiar with how good Google.com searches, now imagine that power with your e-mails!

Never delete e-mails again

Google Mail offers you tons of storage space. Never worry about deleting that e-mail from Grandma to save space. Simply Archive it and forget about it. You never know when that e-mail will come in handy in the future and its extremely easy to find it again if you have it labeled or by searching for it.

Signing up for Unknown Websites

How often do you visit a website, and don’t want to signup because you are afraid you will receive spam from them? If you were to signup for a website using yourusername+signup@gmail.com you can simply setup a filter to filter e-mails that are TO yourusername+signup@gmail.com. Using this you can automatically send spam from websites to this label as opposed to signing up for a whole another e-mail account!

Google Talk

Almost all of my friends are using Google Mail now. I am able to chat directly inside the browser when needed. Having this integrated into the browser has been a huge help in communicating, especially if you are on a computer that you are not able to install a chat client on. This also saves all of your chats in the “Chats” section on the left. You have no idea how many times i have had to reference past chats to obtain information. Of course, you can go “Off the record” if needed to NOT save past chats.

Contacts

A feature i use all the time is creating Groups with my contacts. I created a group called “Family” which when i want to send an e-mail to my whole family i just type “Family” in the “To” address and select the option i provides. Never have to worry about remembering everyones e-mails, or leaving someone out.

Conclusion

Using the concepts above using E-mail has been more rewarding than ever. I never waste time with useless e-mails inside my in box as everything is automated and with Google’s spam filters, i hardly EVER get spam inside my inbox. Don’t fight with your e-mail client, switch to Google Mail today.

I stumbled across this article today which i found very interesting.  I agree 100% with this, i never understood the whole “Customer is Always Right” philosophy.  There are a lot of dumb people out there who try to take advantages of situations, why feed their stupidity with rewarding them when you know deep down inside they are wrong?  Oh well, just some food for thought…

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• Thrasher - Evile ($2)
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The original Starcraft is by far one of the greatest games ever created. Still today, 10 years later it is one of the most popular games played. We have waited YEARS for a sequel to come out, and this year is finally that time and I am psyched to get back into this game. A number of videos have came up lately that demonstrate the awesomeness of the new game. Here are the Zerg, Terran, and Protoss videos, Enjoy!

Ever wonder why Traffic Jams happen for no apparent reason? I thought so. Check out the video below, its an actual research project that was conducted.