Those of you who love to read blogs in a quick, easy manner, probably use Google Reader. For those of you that end up visiting blogs just by clicking on the link in your bookmark or favorites list, using an RSS Reader can allow you to read tons of blogs in one small place, almost like email.

In fact, I wrote a big tutorial on it last year, and helped a few of you guys migrate to it. You can read it here.

Well, if you’ve been using it for awhile, suddenly today you went to it and things looked a bit different. Google has streamlined a few things and added some bells and whistles. In case you weren’t sure why they did it and what they added, you can go read their official blog post on the subject.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

This is just a useless post to test out threaded comments which are now supposedly a built-in component of the new Wordpress 2.7.

Hope it works on this thread, otherwise I don’t get it.

Good friends of mine (or even general acquaintances, people on the streets, complete strangers) know that I am a huge fan of Gmail and Firefox. In fact, if you are still using Internet Explorer instead of Firefox, I urge you to switch to something better, faster and free.

And then there is Gmail, another free service that now comes with 7.2gb in storage that costs you nothing. Why is it so good? Ease of use, fast, sleek and available anywhere you go. Get rid of that old email client (Outlook, Eudora, what have you) and get on the web.

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Since a bunch of my readers use Gmail now for email, I wanted to pass along this tidbit. If you don’t use Gmail, you can read my blog about why I switched and what it can do for you.

Googling Google has reported that the user interface for Gmail may be undergoing an overhaul. It’s essentially remained the same since its inception in 2004, so a redesign or enhancement is likely to be right around the corner.

Hopefully it wont change much or at least the redesign will end up being cooler. I’ve gotten used to how it is, but perhaps there are a few improvements that could be added. For example, I’d like an easier way to tell Google to check my accounts for email. Right now, you have to go into Settings > Accounts and then “Check Mail”.

[tags]Google,Gmail,email[/tags]

I read about Google alerts briefly over at ProBlogger.net last week and I breezed over it as my Google Reader has become a bit overflooded with subscriptions. In fact, I’ve even deleted a bunch over the last month, but new ones always seem to make their way in. But I digress.

I saw it again today while I was browsing through Google’s seemingly infinite supply of tools and applications. I saw Alerts and remembered it, so I gave it a shot.

After having used it for only about six hours, I really feel it’s an invaluable tool, especially for us bloggers. I know a few of you who blog and some that may be getting into it down the road. So this is definitely something you might plan on using.

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Today is a very special day. You wouldn’t know it to look at the day. It’s just September 19th. Big deal. Heck, the biggest thing happening this week is that Fall starts on Friday, but that’s still two days from now. What is it then?

A birthday!

I had no clue until I started seeing things popping up around the blogging world the last few days, but today is the 25th anniversary of Scott Fahlman typing the first ever ‘ :-)’ into an email.

The smiley face! Started by some guy named Scott! I wonder what it’s like to be known for this, and also to totally embrace and advertise that you did it. Well, you can find out by visiting his website and learn how it all started. The picture to the left is the email he sent out.

So hats off to Scott E. Fahlman for his wonderful invention, and thanks for making our email lives easier by giving us a way to convey a joke in a textual manner.

Since I’ve done so much writing on Web 2.0 and how you can move your internet life OFF your computer and onto the web, I want to keep passing on new things that should help further this evolution.

Google Docs has been around for awhile already. I wrote about how you can use it for writing documents and doing spreadsheets. The cool thing is that they are kept on the web, so you can work on them from anywhere, and also share them with anyone and the latest version is always the one you see. No need to email documents to people anymore…just send them the link to the published version on Google Docs.

Anyways, this week Google finally released Google Presentation, which is their answer to Microsoft PowerPoint. It now gives you even MORE reason to move all your document creation and development online. Most of their Google Doc apps allow you to save them in Microsoft format if you wish, so it’s easy to share will people in your Microsoft-based office.

And if you are interested in how it works compared to PowerPoint, Mashable has already written up a comparison blog about it. Check it out.

So there you go…exciting news if you get into this stuff.

Okay, I know some of the women may not be interested in this one but it was a huge step for me. If you don’t know what Linux is, think Windows but free, faster, more reliable and cooler.

I’ve never wanted to make the switch to Linux. Why? Well, it takes a bit more work to make things go sometimes. It’s not for computer novices. You can’t run Windows programs on it, like Word, Excel or whatever.

However, when I wrote about my switch to Web 2.0 and Google Mail, online chat, online backups, etc., this final step was needed to totally complete the move. I never talked about it, but the thing is, Linux is free! And it’s getting better all the time.

There are various forms of Linux out there, like Red Hat or Ubuntu. I am using Ubuntu, which is an African word for ‘Humanity to others’, or ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. This Ubuntu project is run by a billionaire who hired people to do this. He isn’t making a red cent from it, he only wants to help further the open source movement. Free stuff.

Anyways, now both my home and office computers are running Linux and I couldn’t be happier.

And this completes #53 on my 101 in 1001 list!

Edited: I am just editing this because of comment Scott made below. I made the point about not being able to run Windows programs, like Word, Excel, etc., but the thing is, Linux has their own programs to do that. Like OpenOffice, which does all the things Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access does. Windows has Photoshop that costs about $500, but you can download “The Gimp” for free on Linux and it does most of the same things.

In fact, with Ubuntu, I can search for programs in a Universal Database, right from my desktop, check mark them and hit apply. It downloads, installs and tells me when it’s done. And I’ve yet to encounter one that makes me reboot afterwards.

It’s pretty slick.

Some of you use Google Reader now, and if not, read all about what I wrote awhile ago on why you SHOULD be using it.

If you do, they’ve just added a sweet search function to help you find information from all your feeds. Read about it and enjoy.

I get to be a beta tester for this new comments system called Intense Debate. Some of you comment now, and it’s okay, you put in your name and email and reply. I respond, but sometimes, who knows what I’m responding to unless I mention you by name.

This new tool for blogs will let you guys have a lot more fun. You can register with it, have threaded comments (meaning you see a discussion thread for replies, etc), track your friends, vote for them on popularity, etc. Also, when this gets popular, you’ll be able to be logged in and comment on other blogs using the same Instant Debate login.

Regardless, I really want to use this on my sports blog, but would like to test it out first. So this is the first post with the new comment tool and let’s see how it goes. Feedback welcome. Have fun with it!

So you love what you read here huh? But you aren’t tech savvy enough like a few of my pupils, such as Jina or Scott, to use a fancy RSS reader like Google Reader, or Bloglines in order to be notified of new posts I make. That’s okay, I understand…not everyone is going to want to make that change.  However, if you want to, be sure to read my tutorial on the matter.

The great thing is, now you can subscribe to this site by simply entering your email address and clicking Submit! Easy! And everytime a new post is made, you will be emailed a link to it.

So visit my new Subscribe page and subscribe to this awesome blog, because I know my life is just so insanely cool that you all want to stay updated.

Also, on a side note…if you do use an RSS reader to read this site or the new email method, please add a comment and let me know what you use. I know SOMEONE out there is using a Thunderbird reader to get RSS feeds from this site and I’m curious who that is