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Let’s face it! Google Reader was a pretty slick interface before they went and made any changes this week. I wasn’t expecting it (probably was mentioned on the reader blog RSS feed) but it is a welcome update.

I am a huge fan of clean looking interfaces. I supposed that is why I like OS X and some of the simpler applications out there. They have taken away some of the colouring that they had on the left side and replaced it with white backgrounds. The sections are separated with lines rather than a background colour difference which looks much nicer. My biggest pet peeve of the old version was the green background under the ‘add subscription’ button and now it’s gone.

Before:

After:

I have been using Google Reader for quite some time as my RSS reader. It’s a great way to read RSS feeds and I like the fact I can log in from anywhere with internets access to take a peak if I have time. It’s nice to know that Google is keeping an eye on their existing products and trying to find ways at making them better.

Some of the other cool features include the ability to collapse sections on the left side, the ability to turn off unread counts, updated friend sharing tools and they have added more bundles to their list.

I must say that I am happy with the graphical update and look forward to making use of the new features. If you don’t use Google Reader and are looking for a good web based RSS reader, give it a chance. You won’t be disappointed.

This upgrade looks exciting. Can’t wait to try it out.

Although tentatively scheduled for November, WordPress 2.7 looks to be as big of a release since WordPress 2.5, perhaps even bigger.

First Look At WordPress 2.7 | Weblog Tools Collection.

I have installed Google Chrome, as has every other geek in the world. There are so many news articles about the release it’s getting crazy.

It has been a while since we’ve seen such a high profile browser release. Google’s position alone means that anything they release will get a lot of press but I don’t think that this is bad. It seems that everything I used of theirs just works. I like things that are simple in design and interface and do what you expect them to do, and so far Chrome isn’t letting me down.

I am sure that the only fault that I can come up with is one of the reasons why the rest of the browser works so well. I love the fact that in Firefox you have the option to install a myriad of extensions. I have more than one machine, so I would definitely miss Foxmarks which syncs your bookmarks between copies of Firefox on different machines. I also love the BetterGmail extension which makes Gmail look that much “better” ;). When you add some of these extensions to Firefox it makes the browser slower and affects the user experience.

Google has put in some features that I have seen as Firefox extensions which I like. One of them is the new tab page which is similar to Fast Dial in FF. This is cool because it makes your interaction with the browser faster. Press Crtl-T and you are presented with a bunch of large icons, each a screen shot of the website it is representing. They are a list of your most visited and most recent visits, click on one and your there!

Another thing that Google is using is the same rendering engine as Safari from what I have read. This has to be the reason that it is so fast, and I mean FAST! Speed has been a pet peeve of mine with FF and also IE. I am not an IE fan what so ever as it does’t offer any plus over FF. With the FF plugin called IE tab you can use the IE engine within a FF tab.

Chrome is also missing some things that we are used to but without them you get a much larger viewable space. There are no window dressings at all, no side borders, no top boarder, no File/Edit/etc. menu. The first thing at the top are the tabs, then the address bar, then the favorites and after that it’s all web content. It’s a nice clean interface.

Google's new browser - Chrome

They have also added their own task manager to the browser. Now if a tab or a plugin becomes unstable or crashes, you can right click on the tab bar, go into the task manager and kill it. That’s a huge feature if you have any trouble with a java script or something similar.

Their features page has a lot of information and shows you how the browser is different from it’s cousins. I urge you to check it out!

I have been looking at http://regator.com for a bit now and I like the site. Something a bit different in style from other blog sites out there. So I recently submitted http://www.thesleepygeek.com to them so they would add my posts to their site. It’s new to the public and I wanted to see if they wanted some new additions, as I am sure a lot of other people tried as well. This is part of the response I got back:

My apologies in the delay in getting back to you about the status of your nomination. When we opened to the public on Thursday, we had a sudden flood of submissions, and it has taken our editorial team a little while to review them all. Thanks for your patience.

It was simply nice to get a response all together but they go one step further by sending a response to me directly. This is much nicer that receiving the standard forum letter for sure!

After all that, I didn’t get added to their site which is fine. They are looking for more up to the minute news type blogs which I am admittedly not. I do like to talk about current issues and products but if you want to know what the latest IT gadget is, someone else will find that first I am sure.

Anyhow, take a look at the site because they deserve it. I will continue to go there for some reads and I suggest you do the same… after you stop here first and click on my ads MWAhahaha!

When starting out hardcore on this blog a month and a bit ago I was trying to find a couple of good sites to help with the networking aspect of the whole endeavor. I chose a few different options, one of them being twitter. I like the simplicity of the interface, and everyone and their dog seemed to be on there tweeting away.

I am slightly disappointed with the service however. Many people have written articles about their up time. That for some reason didn’t bother me as much as not receiving an email when a person starts to follow me.

In a serious effort to gain a following an build a community, those email notices become quite important. This allows me to see who is watching, what type of reader I am attracting, etc., etc.

So my vote is to work on that outbound email system. It is an invaluable tool for myself and I am sure other people in my boat.

I have been waiting for Chris to release his new social media theme called WicketPixie for a couple of weeks and it looks like he might have to put that off for a bit while he helps out his folks. So try and get something working that looks a little nicer than the plain one I had installed, I went searching

I came across a theme called CorporateID and the basic colours made me look twice. So I have taken that and made a few minor changes to make it something more me. I have put back the TheSleepyGeek picture at the top, a shot from the balcony at the cottage. Then I removed some images that are the background of the sidebar titles. They were too flashy for me.

So there you have it. Until Chris has the time to work on the final versions of his theme, I think we are sticking with this.

Comments?