Anyway, I just found out a friend of mine hadn't yet experienced the holy trinity of RSS: Your Favorite Feeds, Google Reader, and an iPhone. I just can't think of a better way to stay connected!
If you're wondering what I'm talking about, it's pretty simple. First, do you know what RSS feeds are? If not, I envy you, because the world's about to open up to you and your days of a thousand bookmarks and your list of sites to go to every morning just disappeared.
[Noob alert... skip this part if you know what RSS feeds are]
RSS Feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way of sending out updates and receiving them without having to visit the site everyday to see if something's changed. Got a friend on Flickr and sometimes forget to check their photostream? Read a webcomic (xkcd.com ftw!) but get tired of checking in to see if a new comic has been released? Listen to podcasts?
Anyway, I avoided RSS for a long time simply because I didn't get it. I'm like that with a lot of new technologies... either I am rabid about it because I do get it (which doesn't happen often), or I'm one of those people who just sit slack-jawed on the sidelines and say "whuh?!" when people talk about it because the implications pass right by me.
[ok, Noobs, you've been schoold a tad on what they are. Any questions, check out What Is RSS?]
Google Reader
Anyway, Google reader is a very functional RSS aggregator and reader. I am going to show a bit of my geekiness here and say it is my favorite simply because it has vi-like keystrokes so that you don't need to use your mouse as much. Seriously, I will never deny being a geek.
The iPhone
So why google reader on the iPhone? Well, it's simply because of the amazing interface google has on the iPhone. I went to the config tab (labeled "More") on my iPhone and made the Reader one of the tabs across the top. Now when work's got me down, I'm only seconds away from my rss feeds...
The Benefits
One of the coolest benefits on the iPhone vs. the computer is that they stay in synch. Anything I read on one is automatically marked read, so I don't spend any time wondering "Ok, does the phone know I read this on the computer?"
Second, the interface is great. When I find a feed, it's simple as pie to add it in Firefox to my google reader
Third, sharing or marking items is easy in Google Reader.
Fourth, the interface for Google mail/reader/news is so slick on the iPhone that it makes a great bragging point to people who only use their phone for SMS!
What are the RSS Feeds I have? I'm not going to put links in... half the fun is finding them.
- Lolcats (icanhascheezburger.com) (Yeah, I like cats)
- /. (slashdot.org) (great tech news)
- TWiT TV (This Week in Tech. Podcasts I trust and enjoy listening to)
- xkcd.com (a web comic for people with schooling) (And Me!)
- Calvin and Hobbes Unofficial stream (old C&H cartoons)
- Daily Dilbert (because I work for a living)
- Quote of the Day
- 43folders Blog (43folders.com)
Enjoy! If you already know about RSS, that's great... If this helps, then I'm glad, because it helped me save a lot of time and that silly little "this is my primary list of bookmarks" page that I wrote way back in 1998.
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