Driving > Disco

Well, if you've been wondering where I have been, it is not surfing the net. (I've actually been remarkably busy at work, but that is beside the point.) The reason I'm not surfing the net, aside from work, is that Jessica has, for all intents and purposes, killed the internet for me. How could lovely Jessica have done such a thing as "killed the internet," you ask? By introducing me to the Google Reader. All it does is read rss feeds from web pages. I know there have been programs to do that for almost as long as there have been web pages. There is just something so simple and functional about Google Reader.

Obviously, if you have a Gmail account, you automatically have a Google Reader account (not to mention Blogger ;-). Not that it would matter, since they're both free anyway, but it is nice to already be signed up. Next, you can put all your favorite pages' rss feed addresses in there, and it'll show you whenever they have a new post. No wondering if you missed something over night; no scouring the web in your daily "routine" to get up to date; no more juggling 20 tabs and trying to remember the order you want them placed in (as well as checked in). None of that. Reader gives you one page, with all the content you normally check, kept up to date for you. Another nice feature is basically a "stumble upon" type of discovery system, that shows you feeds that Google thinks you would be interested in, based on what you already have in your reader.

Like everything else, its not perfect. I've actually seen it take a while for a page to update in Reader, that I know has already updated in the real world (although there is a refresh button, for you nervous types). Also, in my experience, I've found that if I'm on the Reader page for a website, and that website gets updated, the update will sorta get stuck in limbo: it'll tell you there is a new item, but you can't see it without changing the view to "new items only." Not a show stopper, but plenty annoying.

Check it out. You'll save time, get more work done and wonder what all the fuss over this "internet" is all about.