Virtual Adept

Google has put out some pretty incredible free software tools lately. The one I want to talk about today is Google Reader. Reader is a web based RSS reader, much like my old reader of choice, Bloglines. Reader has a bit slicker interface, however, and most importantly it has some very nice article sharing features. While reading my feeds, I can click a button to “share” that article, and that article will then appear on my shared news items page. Even better, Google has a little javascript thingy I can add to my blog which will put the articles from my shared news item page directly onto my blog page — see the “News Bits” over there in the right column. Google even creates an RSS feed just for my shared items, so if you want to subscribe to a feed that shows the articles I think are worth reading, then subscribe to this feed here.

If all of this RSS mumbo-jumbo is confusing to you, do yourself a favor and go try Google Reader right now. The web will never be the same for you. It’s frickin’ awesome. And be sure and add my blog to your feeds. Check the RSS feeds links to the right. And hey, if you do start using Google Reader, like you should, then once you get some feeds and read some interesting stuff, be sure and use the sharing feature and come back to tell me the link to it so I can find out the articles you think are worth reading.