Google Reader – Twice Rejected

Back when Google Reader first came out, I decided to check it out. After all, Google’s pretty good at online stuff. Maybe they’d nail the online RSS aggregator the first time around.

Nope.

However, I did a presentation last Friday for the BME grad students here on using PubMed with RSS, and used Google Reader as an example online reader. In the process, I ended up trying it out again. It was looking much better than last time. The interface for reading feeds on my Treo is great as well. However, it still has one fatal flaw.

Yesterday, Amanda asked me about a LiveJournal post she had made. Amanda’s LiveJournal, like mine, is now “friends-only” and requires authentication to access the feed. I hadn’t seen her post. In fact, I hadn’t seen any LJ posts from friends-only journals all weekend. It turns out that Google Reader still doesn’t support authenticated feeds. I tried faking it out with TinyURL and a Yahoo! pipe thing that someone made, to no avail. Back to Gregarius I go.

It’s really too bad. I loved the updated Google Reader interface. However, until they allow authenticated feeds, I can’t migrate.

Mmm, pie.

I was just reading a scientific paper, and it mentioned a pie chart in one of its figures.

“mmm,” I thought, “Pie.”

I miss Fafblog and its weekly dose of Friday Pie-Blogging. I’ve been planning to start Friday Heart Blogging, and it will start this evening.

Cutting back on e-mail checking

I’m something of a pioneer of on-the-go email checking. Maybe pioneer is too strong. Let’s say “early adopter”. I used to check my email using my WAP-enabled phone when I was on vacation. It was painful, but it worked. Eventually I graduated to a Treo 600 with Chattermail for always-on IMAP-push email notification (equivalent to Crackberry service, basically). This was before everyone and their cousin had a Crackberry.

On the Treo, when I get new mail, the little green light starts blinking rapidly instead of its normal once every two seconds or so. Over the last 2.5 years or so I’ve apparently developed a habit of glancing down at my belt holster, looking for that rapid flashing to see if I have mail.

Lately, people have been talking about the benefits of shutting down the auto-updates and instantaneous reminders. It seems like all the cool kids are doing it.

I’ve started trying it. The email on the phone is generally turned off. If I’ve been away for a while or I have time to kill (waiting in a long line or whatever), I’ll fire it up. At work I check email as a break after I’ve finished a major goal or a big block of little goals, and after lunch. I’m keeping it down to once or twice in the evenings at home. So far, it’s been mostly okay.

I find myself doing odd things. I look down at my phone, even though I know the email program is off. I bounce my mouse down to the dock in Mac OS X, looking for the little red circle with a number on the Mail icon to tell me I have mail. Occasionally I actually open the Mail app without that being my original intention. Hopefully after a week or two I’ll be able to break those habits.

How often do you check your email?

100-Word Rants by Dave

Dave (who shall remain lastnameless) is the father of a friend and co-worker of mine. He’s a tall, friendly guy with a resonating voice who, in minutes, can have everyone at a party on their knees laughing so hard they can’t breathe.

Imagine my joy at being told some time ago that he now has a blog.

Dave writes a lot of ad copy. As he puts it in his description on blogger,

Decades of writing prose to fit the oddly-shaped blotches of greeking with which designers decorate their pages have left me with the freakish ability to write to an exact word count. Hence, the one hundred word rant. A fast-talking radio guy could read one of these aloud in thirty seconds. If you can read without moving your lips, you can do it quicker.

While not quite as side-splitting as his more prolonged in-person rants and stories, the rants so far have at the very least been amusing. It’s worth checking out for a once-a-week compressed look at a wide range of subjects. Go subscribe now:


100 word rant