Quick Google Reader Subscription Update Tip
The biggest problem I have with Google Reader is how it acts sometimes when you have a ton of feeds (I’ve got 200+ feeds I read daily). I’ll go through them all, then the feeds will update, but the ‘new’ ones are actually after the ones I just read. Yesterday I came across a feature in Google Reader yesterday that makes updating your feeds a little easier, and will hopefully solve this problem (fingers crossed).
Click on the actual ‘Subscriptions’ text in the left hand side
This should run the ‘Refresh’ action that you can also find in the small drop down arrow next to Subscriptions, this is just nice and quick.
I’m testing this by making sure I click this everytime before I read my feeds to see if it clears up the issue I was having. Anyway, just a nice quick tip to make Google Reader even more useful.
How To Lose Friends and Alienate People…
…that was what you were looking for wasn’t it?
Man, The Google can really read our minds can’t it?
Enabling Gmail Offline Access
Gmail is the best online webmail by far IMHO. It’s biggest problem is that it needs to make some inroads into the business market so it can start making some money and start to push out Yahoo!Mail and Hotmail (or Live Mail or whatever Microsoft is calling it this week). Google has taken a big step towards being a viable alternative to things like Exchange or Zimbra by way of Offline Access.
Google is going to be doing a soft rollout of this labs feature so if you don’t have it yet, keep checking back. If you do have it, here’s how to enable it. I believe it will download up to 10,000 messages to your desktop, including attachments. You’ll be able to use Gmail almost exactly as you would if you were online including being able to search your mail like normal.
Awesome Interactive Photo Game On YouTube
Just came across this on BoingBoing. It’s an interactive YouTube game using images of Oscar movies. After you press play you will see two of the same image, but with one difference. The screen on the right is divided into 9 sections. You simply click on the section that has whatever is different between the two images. Pretty much the same as any of those games you see at bars, but just on YouTube.
There are 30 levels to it. How far can you get?
Google Changes It’s Favicon…Again
Google changed their favicon again today. They seem to change it more often than Puff Daddy changes names…or is it P. Diddy? Pappa Diddy? P Poppa Diddy Pop? Whatever his name is today.
I prefer it to their old one mainly because it fits their logo/brand better. The old one was a bit boring and dry with the very colorful Google logo.
What do you think?
In case you forgot what the old ones looked like, here are all three side by side
Also read the official Google post about the initial favicon change here.
Gmail Gets a New Loader
Went to login to my Gamil account today and I saw they added a new loading screen. Google has found the perfect middle ground between new technologies (mainly AJAX) and using them correctly/not abusing them.
I wonder if this is why Google seemed to be down off and on for the past two weeks…I hope they have a better reason than that.
A Rant About Viacom and Internet Video On YouTube
There’s a saying in the internet marketing realm. If you’re not on Google, you don’t exist. I believe this same saying goes for YouTube. If you have a video that’s not on YouTube, you may as well keep it in your sock drawer next to your “One Night In Paris” videotape.
Recently Viacom has told YouTube to take down all of their copyrighted videos, which was around 100,000+. This includes anything on MTV, Comedy Central, BET and VH-1. That means all those Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart videos, poof.
Let’s rewind real quick back to “Lazy Sunday” from SNL. No one gave a damn about SNL because they’ve not had anything funny in years. They were old, stale and as much fun as Tim Hardaway at a Gay Pride parade.
Gaw Gaw Goooogle
So Google made news today for something other than another unfinished beta product. It seems one of the new functions in the upcoming Internet Explorer 7 has got Google crying foul (literally). Microsoft has added a serch bar feature in the upper right corner of the browser that defaults to MSN. But what’s this? In Firefox there seems to be a weird bar at the top right of the window that is used for searching that upon installation defaults to…Google! So whats the problem Google?! Ran out of crappy, under-acheiving betas to release so you thought you would go complain to the Justice Department and EU to stir up the water? Well congratulations, you are now no longer my home page or my “default” search engine. The reason why so many people respected you was because you stayed out of all this stuff and just went about your business making good, clean-looking software.
