Google Reader

"I recently read an article that said..."

That is an oft-used phrase of mine that you'll no doubt hear when passing time with me. I normally read for at least an hour a day, frequently in the range of two to three hours. My RSS feed reader, Google Reader, says I've read nearly 5,000 items over the one and a half years I've been using it. Of course, those 5k items do not include the in-line links in the article's text, nor the tangent subjects I read about because the article happened to mention it, which usually results in a lengthy visit to Wikipedia. Tangent: I wish I had statistics on the Wikipedia articles I've read—they would probably be quite interesting.

Other than my edification, I don't directly benefit from this reading; it is just something I do. You might have heard about those people who get 100% of their news from the Internet. I'm one of them. Here's how I do it and keep track of what I've read and what I haven't.

In the past month or so, I have had a few family members get interested in Google Reader—they see me on it constantly and want to know how to use it. I won't get into the "how to use Google Reader" part, since if you reading this page, you already know enough to figure out Google Reader.

What Google Reader is:

• An RSS feed reader. It collects all the RSS feeds you have told it to follow and shows them in one place.
• Accessible anywhere you have internet access. Not sure about mobile, though, as I do not have a mobile capable of accessing the Internet.
• Quite addicting. As I mentioned earlier, I read a lot.
• A way of being notified when I post another great post on Rampant Intelligence that you want to read.

While meaning to be a explanation of the RSS feed format, this video does a pretty good job of showing how to set up a Google Reader account. RSS in Plain English

Once you have an account set up, subscribe to everything! You can always unsubscribe later. The more subscriptions you have the better chance of finding something you will find very relevant to you, because, let's face it, the Internet is full of stuff you don't care about. Google Reader lets you filter through to what is important to you.

Here are a few feeds I follow closely. I'll use plain-text and you can use the "Add a subscription" button in Reader to find them.

• New York Times
• The Christian Science Monitor (national newspaper)
• Ars Technica (The place for general computer news.)
• The Tech Report (Great place for CPU and other benchmarks, as well as good system guides.)
• Lifehacker
• Dilbert Daily Strip (comic)
• xkcd (comic)
• Creation Ministries International Daily Article
• You Are Not So Smart (Hard to classify, but the name is very apt.)
• Greedy Goblin (WoW blog semi-turned into philosophical and moron psychology.)
• Just Shooting Memories! (My cousin's blog (at least, I think he's my cousin—I can never get the family ties/title correct). Cool pictures, bro.)
• Rampant Intelligence

Remember I said this is addicting? I just got sucked in reading several You Are Not So Smart articles for half an hour while trying to compile that list. At least this kind of addiction is good for me.

It is not a complete list by any means; I currently have 57 subscriptions, after all. However, these are the ones I read the most. And, yes, I follow my own blog. Mainly to ensure that everything looks good from the end-user's point of view. You can use the "Subscribe to" drop-down menu on the right to subscribe to this blog.

This post feels more and more like I was paid to write it by Google... I wish! I simply couldn't live without, err, am fond of Google Reader as a tool to get more reading done and want to share it with you.

A few tips I've picked up while using the service:

• The "Expanded" view is near worthless—select the "List" view in the top-right corner for a easier time figuring out what to read.
• Don't put more than one tag on a subscription. At least, I thought they were tags in the beginning. They are actually the name of the folders the subscription is in. Perhaps you like having a single subscription in many places. If so, put as many tags on it you want.
• When scrolling with the mouse, you don't have to scroll all the way back up to the top of the item to collapse it back down to its headline again. You can press <enter> and it will collapse it down. Also, use the enter key on the keypad if your mouse is right next to your keyboard.

Bah! I'm doing it again: reading more posts. MUST. FOCUS. Wait, I'm pretty much done writing this post... In that case... <eyes begin moving back and forth quickly, focused on the other webpage>