Bloglines is still better for Power Users

Unless I’m not a Power User. But I do have 293 feeds to which I’m subscribed. I would think that’s enough to put me in the Power User category.

Maybe I just read my feeds wrong or something. Is there a disconnect between the way I like to go through my feeds and a way that would be more “efficient”? Well, technically yes. More efficient would probably involve me using the so-called River of News view, and just going through all the feeds in the order of either newest or oldest posts. I don’t really like doing that. There are feeds that are of a higher priority to me, and I like to read those before I get to other things that can wait. And I don’t like the idea of “starring” things and coming back to them. That’s never worked for me. I tried it with Gmail, and I end up just forgetting about/ignoring things.

Speaking of newest vs. oldest, am I missing something here too? I like to read the news in the order it’s printed. If there are rumors about KG being traded, I’d at least like to see those before I see the news of an actual trade. I like having that history. It also helps for reading blogs that like to refer to their earlier posts. If I’ve seen the earlier post, then I know what they’re referring to, and that would seem to be more “efficient” than having to open up the old post, scan it, and then go back to the original post, only to come across the old post later in the feed.

I can see how Newest First makes sense for bloggers who need to be on the latest tip (mostly tech and entertainment bloggers, no?) so they can write about a news item as soon as possible after it’s published. So, maybe those guys (and/or gals) are the real Power Users, and I’m just a sucker with 293 feeds.

All that aside, if Google Reader would add one little thing, it would be the best and fastest RSS Reader. I already prefer their method of opening news items* to Bloglines method**. But if you don’t want River of News, you have to use Shift+J, and then Shift+O to get to the next folder of feeds. In Bloglines, you just press “s” to get to the next subscription in the folder, and if the folder is empty it goes to the next one. Can you see where this is going?

(* Pressing “v” to open in a new background tab - I think that probably only works for Firefox, though)
(** Middle-click to open in a new background tab)

If Reader would just go to the next folder when the current one is empty, everything would be SWELL. Can’t I just “j” my way through all of my feeds? How hard would that be? It would certainly be A LOT easier for me. It’s been suggested via the Google Reader Google Group more than once.

Weird Habits Besides Biting My Nails

It’s odd… because it’s usually pretty quiet in my/our home office. In fact, the new clock we picked up from Office Depot has a much louder second hand than the previous one. You think that would get to me enough to put on the headphones immediately. I mean, right now, it’s nearly all I can think about.

But… when I work at home, I don’t get that urge to turn on the music until about 2pm. And when I do, I usually just listen through the computer’s speakers even though the sound quality is extremely low.

But… when I work downtown, I get the urge almost as soon as I sit down to put the headphones on and open up iTunes. Even when it’s totally quiet and nobody is on a phone call or talking to someone else about their project. I want to put them on even when it’s as quiet as a Buddhist temple. I resist because I do actually like the quiet. When I make myself aware of it, it’s quite peaceful and relaxing (and it works out because, for some reason, I feel like I should save my music time for when there is actual external noise to drown out).

That and I bite my nails a lot.

Someone forgot to tell Gmail

… that Google Spreadsheets is now called Google Docs & Spreadsheets:

And Picasa is online now as well under Photos.

Of course, this will all be old news as soon as I hit the publish button. Actually considering it’s 9:34 am and I haven’t opened my RSS Reader (aka Google Reader), it probably already is old news. Mmmmmmm! Stale!

Google Calendar

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,
And their like
It’s better than yours,
Damn right it’s better than yours
- Milkshake, Kelis

Well, since I was so excited (and subsequently disappointed) by the release of the Yahoo Mail Beta… I feel obliged to post about Google’s launch of Google Calendar.

While I have continued to be re-astounded by Gmail (after being disappointed by the new Yahoo Mail), Google Calendar hasn’t hit me the same. Yes, it’s fast, and I like the invitation system built it, but it hasn’t made me want to switch over from AirSet yet. AirSet is just too robust and well designed. Google Calendar doesn’t feel as solid yet. The fact that I can’t get notifications from any calendar except my primary one is also a deal breaker. The ability to set reminders on other calendars is something that will probably come when they address getting more notifications, but it was something that confused me a lot at first (until I realized I wasn’t getting reminders for those events anyway).

On the plus side, I was able to import my calendars from AirSet quickly to allow me to evaluate Google Calendar very easily. The Agenda view is, for some reason, nicer than the same sort of view provided by AirSet, but the starting day seems to jump around a bit at random. I also like the ability to set the custom view to a smaller number of days than the next week. The biggest plus is that it shows the coming events starting with the current day. For some reason, AirSet doesn’t do this (although I have suggested it to them), and it’s pretty annoying to be checking the calendar on Saturday and have the past week of events in the view instead of those coming up.

I imagine that in another few months - maybe when the contact management and to-do list have been built up and added, respectively - I will be ready to switch over to Google Calendar. Until then, I’m sticking with AirSet (and not maintaining 2 calendars… tried that for a couple days and it was not fun).

Multitasking Really Works!

Guess what? Your computer doesn’t multitask.

Yup. That’s right. All those applications in the Start Bar? They are not all running at the same time. Your computer just makes you think they are.*

What’s the point?

Don’t multitask. Yes, your brain can do about a million times more calculations than your computer, but do you think you can handle all that consciously? I’m guessing that the majority of the human population does not have that capability. Your computer can make you think that it’s running all those programs because it’s designed that way. But you and I all know what happens when you are trying to run too much stuff on there and your computer starts to run out of RAM… it starts to perform like Vince Carter in Toronto. The same thing is going to happen with your brain. But worse. You can switch back and forth between programs on your computer easily (especially with Alt+Tab), but when you are trying to do a million times as many calculations, it’s not as easy to make that switch. Maybe you have a memory that earns your mind comparisons to steel traps. I know I don’t. I can’t easily store the context in which I am doing one activity, switch to doing something else, and then resume the first activity without any productivity loss. Neither can you. Trust me. It doesn’t happen.

I know we all want to get on that phone conference, compose a blog post, and watch some TV (on mute) at the same time. There’s a reason this post has the title and date that it does. I’m just warning everyone, because there was a day a few weeks ago where I did so much context switching and psuedo-multitasking that I seriously burned my brain out. I had that fuzzy-type, can’t-really-think thing going on. I don’t want that to happen to you (or me, either).

* I’m making an assumption that you have not yet acquired a dual-core machine. I believe if you have more than one core, then you can actually run more than one program at once.