My feeds are out of control and I like them that way, thankyouverymuch
Posted on February 26, 2007
Filed Under Internet & Technology | Leave a Comment
Download Squad has a post with strategies to clean up one’s feed list.
From the comments:
I also have a problem with the feed thing. I find myself chronically adding feeds to Google Reader and not spending enough time editing my feed list.
I wish I could understand why editing the list is so important. So what if there are unread articles? Do you feel bad if you don’t read every paragraph in your favorite newspaper or magazine? RSS feeds aren’t email. I read every non-spam email in my inbox (or at least give it very serious consideration). I feel no such compunction to read every sentence that comes through via RSS, and I resist any feed reading application that counts my unread articles. I don’t want to know. I don’t care. To me, it’s a buffet that has all my favorite foods. Some days I’m hungry and I eat everything in sight. Some days I’m only in the mood for one or two dishes. What I don’t “eat” is refreshed and served again tomorrow.
I have about 20 or so feeds that are in a “must read” folder. When I’m a feed-reading mood, I start there. After that folder is empty, I hit other folders depending on where my head is at. I am careful to categorize feeds accurately when I subscribe to them, so all my feeds on certain topics are sorted together. If what the feed has to say is important enough, other sites will talk about it (and usually those sites are in my “must read” folder) so I’ll go back to it.
I recently switched from Newsgator to Google Reader. I couldn’t get a rhythm going with NetNewsWire, and it was a bit of a pain to fire up FeedDemon in Parallels. I wanted a feed reader that worked comfortable in a browser and on my phone. Newsgator Online is painfully slow on a good day. On my phone, I don’t want to use a stand alone application. With 700+ feeds to skim, it takes too much overhead. I want the speed and ease of a mobile browser interface, while retaining the ability to star/clip articles. Google Reader fits that bill. I looked at going back to Bloglines, and I was amazed at how little it changed in the years since I last used it. Seems like Google Reader is where it’s at now, so I’m giving it a go. I appreciate the trends view which tells me which feeds have “died” so I can remove them (usually the only way I unsubscribe from a feed)…this is something that the desktop applications, particularly NetNewsWire, do very well.
Best of all, Google Reader stops counting at 100, simply reporting (100+) unread articles in any folder or feed. Google wisely understands that folks may have 15,000+ unread articles and after the first few thousand or so, it probably doesn’t matter.
Sadness
Posted on February 24, 2007
Filed Under Nonprofit | Leave a Comment
I’m sitting here with Eric in a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. Fancy, new evening gown hanging in the closet. We’re here to support 4 of our advocates who have organized a fundraising gala at the Citadel for colorectal cancer awareness and treatment in South Carolina. C3 was thrilled to help sponsor the event.
While at the airport in New York this morning, I got word that one of our most treasured advocates, Rebecca Dague, lost her battle to the disease this week. We featured Rebecca in our newsletter last Fall. I spoke to her a few weeks ago. I knew that she was fighting a losing battle with Stage IV colon cancer, but I had no idea she was that sick and would go so quickly. She sounded great on the phone. She was all set to come to Washington, DC in March for our Call-On Congress lobby day. We’re bringing 30 advocates to DC for advocacy training and meetings on Capitol Hill. I simply can’t grasp that Rebecca won’t be there. Last year, she came to our training and lobby day for the first time. She had a visible rash from the treatment she had that morning. She told us that she happened to have been on the same flight with one of her Senators, so she chased him down at baggage claim to tell him why she was coming to DC. That’s just the kind of woman she was. Incredible centered, friendly, intelligent and a joy to talk to.
I don’t know exactly how old Rebecca was, but my guess is that she was in her early 30s. She leaves behind a husband and two young children.
I know this is an occupational hazard. Rebecca isn’t the first lost soul that I’ve cried over, and she won’t be the last. But it still hurts every time. I don’t know how medical professionals do it. Would I be better off doing something else with my life so I wouldn’t be faced with all this sickness and death? No, I don’t think so. I need the hurt to balance the incredible feeling of seeing the work we’re doing make a difference. When I stop crying over the losses is when I know it’s time to find something else to do.
It takes a village
Posted on February 18, 2007
Filed Under Kids, Life | 3 Comments
So Steve Jobs thinks the same iron fist mentality he has over Apple would work on education?
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions Friday, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers.
Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.
“What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good?” he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.
Uh huh. What kind of person could you get to work for a small business if you told them that they could only work for 6 hours a day, and then work on their product would be turned over to folks who don’t have the same training and who are maybe working two other jobs. Maybe they’re even turning their product over to someone who doesn’t speak the same language as the employee, yet the employee is responsible for making sure that the lines of communication are open. The next morning, they get the product back and they’re expected to pick up right where they left off as if those hours away in someone else’s hands made no difference. How long would it take before they started phoning it in and giving it half effort? After all, what’s the point if there’s little chance of having anything positive to show for it?
Jobs gave up some control to Motorola and we got the iTunes phone. Ha! Now he learned his lesson and we have the iPhone, so closed-off it’s amazing that he didn’t start his own carrier and shut Cingular/at&t out completely.
Education isn’t only about the teachers and schools. It isn’t only about the technology and the curriculum. It’s the parents. It’s the kids. It’s the community. All the pieces have to work together. Yes, there are some tenured teachers who should have retired years ago. But I don’t think they started out thinking, “how am I going to ruin some kids today?” They’re human, they’re frustrated, they’re disillusioned and I don’t think paying teachers six-figure salaries is going to make a difference if all aspects of the childrens’ life aren’t working in partnership putting education first.
You can’t run education like a business. For starters, there is no single person in control…a concept that is foreign to Steve Jobs.
Starting March 11, you’ll be an hour early…or late
Posted on February 15, 2007
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For as long as I could remember, we set our clocks forward one hour the first weekend in April, and set them back one hour the last weekend in October. This year, that all changes as a new law moves Daylight Savings Time to begin the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November.
The goal is to increase daylight hours and therefore save money on energy. We’ll see if it does that. For now, we just have to deal with the havoc the change will cause to our computers that are set to automatically update for Daylight Savings. Software written before 2005 didn’t have a contingency plan for if the Daylight Savings time changed on the calendar. It’s not quite the panic of the Y2K bug, but it will still be interesting as folks are caught in its net from March 11 until early April.
Microsoft has gone as far as being quoted on the subject:
For three weeks this March and April, Microsoft Corp. warns that users of its calendar programs “should view any appointments … as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees.”
Microsoft already has a patch for their computers (set to push on Tuesday according to the AP article above), and steps one should take to update a Windows Mobile device. Apparently, Apple has already patched OS X 10.4, but if you’re running an earlier version of the operating system you may be on your own.
I’ll update mine and ours, and you’ll update yours. But this isn’t going to be a mess because of what you and I will do. It’s going to be a mess because of what the “other guy” will do. You know, that guy who just uses his/her computer to get stuff done and ::gasp:: doesn’t read blogs or tech notes. That guy who entered that 3 pm appointment on March 15th you made months ago, that has now become the 2 pm appointment (or will it be the 4 pm appointment? I always get that confused) on his calendar because his copy of Windows updated but he hasn’t run the Office update to fix Outlook.
How a Tuesday can feel like a Friday
Posted on February 13, 2007
Filed Under Life | Leave a Comment
When the weather report looks like this:
It’s not that bad, but it’s the first significant winter event this season. I don’t remember ever making it to mid February with maybe a couple of inches of accumulation. I made the girls do their homework and fill out their valentines, but I will be absolutely shocked if they have school tomorrow. If you hear painful screaming coming from New Jersey tomorrow morning, you’ll know it’s because the wind suddenly changed and my girls are standing out at the cold bus stop.
Thankfully, my Mom heard my painful screaming and she came a few days early to help me out. So if the girls do have a snow day tomorrow, it will just mean more quality time with Grandma for them. A win-win-win situation all around.
