Like many, I use Google Reader to process way to much information everyday. So much so that it feels like an addiction and probably is. But that is not the purpose of the blog post.
Some feeds just have too many items that come through each day and overwhelm the other feeds so much so that I feel like I am always reading the feed with many entries. I wish there was a way to throttle back the amount of entries that come through on a given feed.
Comments(1) Do you know Plaxo? You should.
Plaxo is an online address book, calendar, and task manager that syncs with Microsoft Hotmail, Google Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL, Mac, Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook, and your mobile phone.
The initial idea behind Plaxo was to have other contacts signed up for the service as well and therefore your address book would be updated automatically if the person ever made any changes to, for example, their phone number. Oh but it can do so much more than that.
There is no need to mention their excellent online interface because as soon as you get Plaxo set up you won’t even noticed that is working. It seamlessly works in the background to sync all of your data.
I currently sync Plaxo to Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, Work Outlook - Exchange Server, and Home Outlook. My Home Outlook is then used to sync to my PDA/phone (T-Mobile Dash: excellent phone by the way). It works like a dream and cannot imagine my life without it.
I definitely will not neglect to tell you all of this is covered under their free service! See the Free vs. Premium services breakdown below.
Comments(0) Let me weigh in my thought on the Yahoo!/Microsoft talks. Although it sounds like for the time being that the talks are over and Yahoo! is not interested, this did raise a lot of eyebrows. You can read other articles on the clash or benefit of the potential Microsoft and Yahoo! merger but I would like to think about an alternative: Google buys Yahoo!.
This partnership seems to be more in-line with both companies cultures. At least more in-line than a Microsoft/Yahoo! merger. A couple of creative powerhouses (Google -> Yahoo!) more concerned with innovative and pleasing customers and letting the money follow rather than forcing customer into things and thus sucking the bucks right out them (Microsoft). Don’t get me wrong I think Microsoft has done some great things as of late with their web initiatives, but they are just not quite on the same page as a Yahoo! or a Google.
Geocaching.com has rolled out new feature to search using Google Maps to display the caches in your area. When you are logged in you be able to filter out ones you have already found.
Another great feature that just rolled out was this as was mentioned in the latest newsletter:
Almost since the start of Geocaching.com, the ability to get a list of caches along a route has been the #1 requested feature for the site. This puzzle has finally been solved by the creative coding of Raine, Groundspeak’s chief expert on Google Maps and Google Earth. With the use of Google Earth and other mapping tools you can now upload a route to Geocaching.com and create a Pocket Query of caches within 1 to 5 miles from your route. You can also share your route publicly so others can create their own Pocket Queries against it.
The Microsoft Visio killer is far from ordinary. Gliffy (http://www.gliffy.com) is a free online webapp that allows you to do all the things you might expect to accomplish in Visio minus the cost and the download!
Moving to a new apartment…try laying out the floor plan in Gliffy;
Making a complex troubleshooting guide…check out this free online tool
Bottom line = Gliffy is a funny name but there is nothing funny about making a complex free online webapp that will challenge the likes of Microsoft. Just a thought - might Google want to buy this company?
Google has come out with a fantastic extension for firefox. It syncs all your settings for the browser between your multiple computers. ie: between your laptop and desktop. I give it a definite install rating.
I prefer Yahoo! My Web over Google Notebook. I see them as similar services and Yahoo! has come out on top for me. Yahoo allows you to save pages at a click of a button and add tags to those pages and later search the pages and tags through their standard search and if a page is in 'your' web then it will display in the results.
Google on the other hand allows you to save certain snippets of a page which could be useful in some situations but seems to me as a hassle. When saving an entire page you get just the url. And as for searching you would have to goto the notebook page and search there.
Google Notebook is a little better integrated into Firefox and it makes it easier to save something with a couple clicks whereas Yahoo! My Web has a pop up to fill out, submit, then close. Hopefully Yahoo! will stop with the silly confirmation after you have submitted and close the window or make it a little more web 2.0
Ah was I the last to know about this? Google just rolled about some new toys and features! Google Notebook looks cool but it won't be out till next week. Way to go the Goog. I say the Goog because we are tight and are on a nickname basis. Goog calls me allnerd.
Official Google Blog: Yes, we are still all about search
http://calendar.google.com
I didn't ever hear about this release I just stumbled across it. I guess I was in the dark. If you are too then check it out. You can add events similar to 30 boxes; write a phrase and it places it. It even has the ability to link up to any existing calendars you may have (outlook, yahoo calendar, etc).
http://toolbar.google.com/firefox/extensions/index.html
Check out:
