How to Tame the Google Reader Beast
I cannot live without Google Reader, but I've heard from quite a few of my rss-friendly friends lately that they are overwhelmed by their reader. Fair enough. It's not easy when that tab in your browser is taunting you with "Google Reader (1000+)". On top of all the responsibilities we have, the last thing we need is to feel guilty about all the reading we have to get to.
While I have had the cursed 1000+ appear, I am not daunted by this. Here's how I cope without simply hitting the "Mark All As Read" link.
1. Make sure feeds are organized in a way that makes sense to you, so that you can go to what you need to/are most interested in, most quickly. I work for an education nonprofit, responsible for web marketing and production. So, here's my list: "education", "marketing", "nonprofit", "search", "web" and the very important "life" category.
2. Always make time for the feeds in your "life". For me, this folder includes Bostonist, Mint.com, CNN Political Ticker and (I'm not ashamed to admit this) Pop Candy. I think it's really important to take a break from the constant web work and have a little fun or even just deal with the other priorities in your life, be it finance, politics or pop culture. Yes, I know we should still go for a walk, but sometimes it's more convenient to go for a mental walk instead.
3. Skimming is necessary. The beauty of the Google Reader is that it's designed for skimming. It's amazing the way our brains can adapt to bits of information rapidly flying through the screen. I've managed to go through hundreds of feeds, finding the ones that are really relevant to me, or that I want to learn more about, pretty easily. Now that I've fully converted to Mac, I've found that one of its wonderful features is the two-finger touch scroll. Wow. Talk about skimming. I can fly through TechCrunch feeds like Evelyn Wood.
5. You can still hit Mark All As Read, but be selective here. Go through your feeds in each folder, by each website. See the ones with the big numbers? Be honest with yourself. If you've got 400 posts from this website, will you ever really go through all of them? If you think you will, great. Set aside some quality time and do it. It's really important to you, so you'll make the time. If you think you won't, hit Unsubscribe. It's better than hitting "Mark all as Read" all the time, because the chances of you getting to 1000+ will lessen. Also, chances are if you're subscribing to similar web sites, you'll get duplicates anyway. Choose your favorite(s) of the similar ones and unsubscribe from the others. If you want to delve deeper into a post you read about, do a blog search and you'll likely end up finding more good stuff. And who knows, maybe you'll find out about some other great blogs!
Twitter and Facebook and Blogs, oh my
I've finally caved and now belong to the world of twitter. God, I feel so generic. Everyone I know who is on twitter now has had this dilemma and has eventually "succumbed" to twitter. But there was a confluence of events that brought me to it.
- My ED started talking about it. I feel like at that point, I'd better get on things.
- Boston Girl Geeks are all over it.
- I do status updates on facebook... so clearly I already know how to write short sentences.
So great, now you can find me there @remtheory and I have more places to add useless information in short spurts. I can't wait to see what's next.
What I wrote to Joe and Barack on their website
Wow, this is incredible. Joe, I had a crush on you in high school when you led the Clarence Thomas hearings and never did I think this could be a reality. Two amazing politicians who believe in so much of what I believe on the cusp of running the country. I couldn't have dreamed of a better ticket and after the pain of the last eight years, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that there really is hope. Barack, you've reaffirmed my belief that you do want progressive change by bringing Joe on the ticket. Joe, go eat up any Republican VP nom in the debates. I know you'll have room for more. I can't wait!
Fight the Smears
Absolutely fantastic. Another reason I love Obama and his campaign style.
The girl geek in me LOOOVES this
Oh Hil, why couldn't you speak to us? Are you too busy talking to the white working class democrats? Telling your man to hush up and stop stealing the limelight? Have you forgotten about us liberal intellectual gals who rock the Web? Barack hasn't. Just more evidence that just because someone may look more like me, doesn't mean they represent me better.
My first post on girly geekdom
Why limit myself to REMTheory when there are other fabulous girly geeks like myself with a desire to write nerd?
You can read about my experience at the Berkman@10 Conference there.
John McCain is old, but this website really puts it in perspective
Does this smack of ageism? Perhaps. Is it fun AND educational? Most definitely. Who knew penicillin has been around for less time than McCain?
My new favorite website...
Obama is substance, not fluff… see?
Okay, we know Barack is a wonderful orator and he's managed to make the primary election anything but inevitable.
But guess what... it's not just a show. He's got smart people supporting him and he's great on the issues, too. I for one am getting a little tired of all the complaining going on among Hilary fans and camp about how Obama lacks experience, how he doesn't have a platform, how he's all fluff and no substance. I'd like to thank Paul for putting this great collection of Obama links together that might help stop this ridiculous rhetoric. I know it's hard to believe that someone can be a great presenter AND a great intellect. It's been a while, eh?
Obama and Super Tuesday
2004 was, I felt, a watershed moment for the American people... in a bad way. I somehow have managed to find some hope after the Iowa caucus. Elections really aren't inevitable. Every vote really does matter. And given all the crap that's going on today, some of us can even manage to find some hope. Here are two videos I hope you will watch. I hope you vote for Obama if you think he can make a difference.
Library of Congress and Flickr – what a beautiful match
This is so exciting! I use Flickr to house my own photos and I'm thrilled to say we use Flickr at work, too, but what the Library of Congress is proposing is really revolutionary in that a very large, extremely credible and federal (!!) institution is venturing into the world of online community and social tagging and encouraging other libraries and other cultural institutions to do the same by using all that Flickr has to offer.
You can see the collection of over 3000 gorgeous photos (one set from the 1930s and 1940s, the other from the 1910s) here.
It's great for the LOC because they're getting free help with their metadata. It's great for everybody because everyone will have better access to more complete information about a particular photograph and be able to directly contribute. Very exciting! Have I already said it's exciting? 
LOC writes about it here and Flickr writes about it here. David Weinberger (who I found out from) writes about it here.