How To Read 120 Blogs

I love blogging. I love reading friend's blogs. I have an obsession with reading the news. Perhaps I love these things because I get addicted to checking things that change often - like blogs and news sites. Some sites update several times a day - like news sites. Others might go months without an update - like this blog. Isn't it really annoying to always keep coming back to check on sites again and again and again? It takes a lot of time, and it chews up bandwidth - which in Canada is very expensive. (Not only do you have to load the article, you have to load all the templates, ads, etc.)


Too bad there wasn't a way to know when a blog/site/comic gets posted, so you only read them when they get published so you don't have to keep going back.  Too bad there wasn't a way to read those sites easily and efficiently without loading all that extra stuff. Wait! Maybe there is! (Cue cheezy infomercial visual wipe.)

I keep up with 120 blogs/news sites. How do I do it? I use a feed-reader. A feed-reader is a piece of software that keeps track of all your blogs and news sites. It keeps track of what articles you've read, and which ones you haven't. Instead of going to every blog individually (which takes a lot of time and bandwidth), the feed-reader does the leg work for you.  It tells you when a new article, comic, blog post, or whatever is published.

It's kinda like Facebook.  When you log into Facebook, you see your friend's status updates.  It would be a big pain in the neck to go to each of your Facebook friend's profile pages to see if their status has updated, or if they posted pictures.  Instead, Facebook tells you what your friends have done recently.  It's like each person on Facebook has a blog, and by adding someone as a Friend you're subscribing to their blog.

I use Google Reader. I always keep Google Reader open in a tab in my browser at work and at home. When I find a blog or news site I want to keep up with I subscribe to it using Google Reader. That's how I keep up with 117 of my 120 sites. (The remaining 3 sites are made up of 2 work blogs that aren't available on the Internet, and one friend's blog who has seen fit to disable his RSS feed so I have to remember to check it all the time. I don't often remember, so when I do I end up reading about a month's worth of postings at a time.)

Whenever I explain the concept of a feed-reader to people they usually shake their head and say something like "It sounds really complicated." It's not.  It's about as complicated as making a Peanut Butter and Jam Sandwich.  Maybe I'm just doing a bad job of explaining it?

Here's how to do it:

1. Go to Google Reader (http://reader.google.com).
2. Sign in to your Google Account. If you don't have a Google account, click "Create an Account" on that page and follow the steps.
3. Optional: Bookmark Google Reader and/or make it your homepage when your browser opens. You'll want to go there a lot.
4. Go to a blog (like this one) or a news site and look for the RSS logo ().  It may be in the address bar of your browser, or somewhere within the site. (Stinkin' Mozilla took that out of the address bar of FireFox as of version 4.)   Click on it. It should give you subscription options. One of them should be to use Google Reader. Select that option.
   
   Or
   
   Copy and paste the URL into the textbox that appears when you click "Add a subscription" in Google Reader.
5. When you go to Google Reader to read your feeds, make sure you have "All items" selected on the upper left menu under "Home", and just the "New items" at the top of your feed list.
6. Play with some of the settings. There's lot of key strokes you can learn to make things go faster, like "v" opens the feed that you're currently reading in a new tab or window, and "r" refreshes the list. Even without knowing all the ins and outs, it's a very efficient way to keep up with your favorite blogs and news sites. As you learn more, you'll discover all sorts of wonderful things (starring, sharing, liking, emailing directly from Google Reader, etc.), you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

There, now that wasn't so hard, was it?  I listed 6 steps.  One of them is optional.  The first two could really be counted as one.  The final two are really about the settings of the reader.  Really, its:

1. Log in to Google Reader,
2. Subscribe to Feeds,
3. Read feeds in your reader, and
4. Learn to speak Swahili with all the free time you now have on your hands.

Here's a video (from RSS Day.) that explains everything in a bit more detail:

Computer Network, No Strings Attached (Part 2)

A while ago I needed to get a new router. I asked some people what recommendations they might have. I summarized their replies in a previous blog entry. I also said I would write about my decision. Here it is.

I walked into FutureShop looking, probably, for a Lynksys router. When I got to the computer section there was a table with "Open Box" specials. These were items that had been bought, then returned, and being resold at a discount. There was an Apple Airport Extreme. It's normally $199. The Open Box price is usually $179. This one was listed as $149. Plus, I had a gift-card to use at FutureShop. The Apple Airport Extreme ended up costing me about the same as any other N-router. I was also told that FutureShop had a 30 day return policy. So I had a month. So I bought it.

Setup was easy. At first I had a problem getting connected to the internet. It turned out that the cable modem was the culprit. I reset that, and badda-bing, badda-boom! I was on the internet.

I have been very happy with my purchase. The Apple Airport Extreme is a highly configurable router. I was able to give my laptop a static I.P. address. I was not able to do this on the Sympatico router. I was able to forward ports to my laptop. I was able to use several different types of encryption for network security.

Speaking of network security, I did try using an Access Control List, without any form of encryption. I was still able to get on the network even when my network card wasn't listed as one of the permitted ones. That wasn't so good.

My only real problem with it is I'm finding it has variable signal strength. On my Mac, I have a maximum of 4 bars of strength. When I'm in my room, I will have anywhere between 1 and 4 bars inclusive. One minute it will be at 3 bars. The next minute it will be down to 1 bar. 30 seconds later it will be at 2 bars. When it's down to 1 bar, things tend to run pretty slowly.

There could be many reasons for this, such as, I live in a big house, and I might be on the edge of the range. The placement of the router might not be the best. It maybe too close to the computer/monitor in the living room. Perhaps my laptop, when on my desk is sitting around all these other electronic devices which may be interfering with the signal.

I tried connecting a USB harddrive to the router. The data rates were slow. Other than that it worked like a charm. I couldn't seem to share a printer though. That may be because it was a Dell printer that my Mac doesn't recognize.

The Apple Airport Extreme does have one feature that I haven't seen advertised. If I knew it had this, I would have bought it right away without even thinking about another router. It can also act as a bridge. There may soon come a day when I will need a bridge in this house. I finally have one! Of course, when that day comes, I will need to get another router. Well, actually the McQueens will get the router. (They don't need the power and awesomeness of the Apple Airport Extreme. Any G router will do fine.) It's nice to know I can use the Airport Extreme as a bridge.

Computer Network, No Strings Attached (Part 1)

Last week I arrived home to find out the McQueens were thinking of switching internet service providers. Before they did, they wanted to check with me for technical consultation.

Right now, we're renting a wireless router from our current ISP. In order to save $5/month with the new ISP we're not getting a wireless router from them. Instead we'll get their basic modem, and we'll buy our own wireless router. After about a year, the wireless router will have paid for itself.

I have never bought a wireless router before. I know the one the McKays have at home stinks. It crashes whenever you try to watch a YouTube video. I emailed my friends who might have recommendations.

This is a summary of what I was told:

1. Don't get the Apple Airport Extreme.
2. Get the Apple Airport Extreme.
3. The Linksys WRTG45 (what Criag and I had in the Sault) is good. I liked this one. It did everything I wanted it to without a fuss. I find it hard to find right now.
   
4. The Linksys WRTG54 sucks.
5. The Linksys WRTG54 is good.
6. The Linksys WRTG54 is a "bug" in it that won't work with Macs.
   
7. The hardware in the Linksys WRTG54 has been changed so much that the model name doesn't tell you anything.
8. D-Link sucks.
9. D-Link sucks.
10. Stay away from D-Link.
11. The D-Link DIR-625 works fine.
12. No matter what kind you look at you will see positive and negative reviews.
13. Oh, they're all good.
14. Netgear is the only good kind.
15. Netgear is good, but hard to find in stores.

I also ended up at Staples, Business Depot, and the computer guy there told me these falsehoods:

• "802.11n routers will only work with 802.11n network cards, so if you have 802.11g network cards, they won't work." - Everything I've seen suggests the 802.11n is backwards compatible meaning 802.11g wifi cards will still work.
  
• "If you get the Airport Extreme, it will only work with Macs." - It says right on the box of the Airport Extreme "Mac + PC."
• "Any external hard drive will do," when asked if he had any routers with USB ports for sharing hard drives as well as printers. - The only one I've seen that can actually do this is the Airport Extreme.

So, I won't be buying from Staples.

If you have any recommendations, please, leave a comment, or email me.

Looking For A Perl Of Wisdom

Learning new technologies can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, lots of free documentation is readily available on the internet. On the other hand, most of it is not written by writers, but by techies. Techies (like myself) tend to make terrible writers.

Right now I'm trying to deepen my knowledge of a programming language called Perl. There's tons of useless documentation on Perl.com. I say it's useless because it's not written very well. It's riddled with spelling mistakes. Spelling mistakes in technical documentation can be bad. The right kind of error in the right spot makes you ask the question "Wait...is that a typo, or does that word actually mean something special I don't know about?"

And you can't find the documentation from the home page. I had to find it by Googling something specific.

It's also not the most clear. I'd wager that it's written by programmers. Technical writing is a special talent. In order to be a good technical writer you need to be able to understand technical concepts. You, then, need to be able to communicate that to the masses in writing. And you need to make it simple and understandable.

I think programmers approach technical writing with certain assumptions of the reader's knowledge. A good writer makes no such assumptions, at least without stating the assumptions.

I find a great divide exists in technical writing. There are three broad levels of expertise. I'll call them "beginner", "intermediate", and "advanced." Documentation written for beginners is necessarily simple. It's aim to get the reader from knowing nothing on a subject to being functional.

Documentation for advanced people seeks to inform of things little known, or advanced tricks. It assumes intermediate knowledge. It assumes more than what basic documentation will give you. It intends to make you a guru.

Documentation for intermediates is to bridge the gap between beginner and advanced. It assumes you're familiar with beginner level concepts.

In my experience, very little intermediate documentation exists. I'm in the unfortunate position of being intermediate on many computer technologies. Books for Dummies and Complete Idiot's Guides don't do much much good. Many other books would require a lot of research effort just to read.

Where's the documentation for intermediate's like me?!

The Cost Of My Time

One of the problems with being a professional is that people want your services, and often for free. If you're a doctor, people want you to tell them what their ailments are. If you're a real estate agent, people want you to tell them how much they could get for their house.

Being a computer guy is no different. When people find out you're a computer _________ they want you to fix their computer. (Most computer professionals aren't technicians.) I am a web programmer. I don't fix computers. I hate fixing computers.

So, instead of telling people "I'm a computer programmer" I tell them "I develop web-based database driven applications." When I tell them "I'm a computer programmer" people hear "I am an expert at fixing your computer and I can't wait to help you with any problems you may be having." But when I say "I develop web-based database driven applications" they hear "I blah blah blah blah."

But that doesn't work 100% of the time. Sometime people hear "I develop web-based blah blah blah" then they ask me to make a web page for their cats. Then I tell them my price. Then they say "Oh. Ummmm.......we've been getting a lot of rain lately, haven't we?"

In the past couple of months I've gotten two "clients" and I've hardly looked at the work I said I'd do. But these are not paying clients. So my motivation is somewhat lacking.

If you remember my typical week you'll remember I don't have a lot of disposable time. I work for 8 hours a day on web programming. Minus sleep, eating, bathroom breaks, and commuting, I have exactly 37 minutes and 23 seconds to myself each week, and I don't want to spend it doing your work!!!

If you have work for me to do, fine, but understand it's going to cost you. Not only are you buying my skills, you're buying my time. And my time is in short supply. When I had more time, I charged $25/hr. But my time isn't as plentiful now as it once was, so I'm upping my rate to $50/hr. However, if I can solve your problem in 15 minutes or less, I'll give you the 15 minutes for free.

Since I hate fixing computers my rate for that is even higher. (That $50/hr price is for development work.) I have to charge $75/hr to make it worth my while to figure out why you're not getting your email. But, since I don't use Windows I don't have much experience. So my expertise is probably worth about $15/hour. So, your best bet is to go ask someone else. Besides, I'd probably accidentally erase your hard drive.

Why I Switched

I have a confession to make. Well, it's not so much a confession as a proud proclamation. I don't ever use Microsoft Windows by choice.

In 1996 I moved away to college taking a 486 DX4 100 with me. It ran DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1. That's what I used for a year and a half. But I started getting tired of hardware problems, configuration problems, and general usability and overall coolness problems.

I talked to my friends who had switched to Linux. They told me "Sure. You wouldn't be having these problems. Instead you would have a whole other set of problems to deal with."

At the time I didn't want to make computers my career. I was on the road to be a pilot. At the Christmas of 1997 I had enough of Windows 3.1 I went home, taking my hard drive with me. I asked my brother to upgrade me to Windows 95 and while he was at it, could he install that Linux thingy?

So he gladly did. Then he gladly showed me my way around Linux. He showed me the virtual terminals and explained how you didn't need graphics to use to operating system (sort of like DOS, but way more powerful). He showed me X Windows, including several desktop managers including Gnome, KDE, OpenStep, and a few others. At the time Gnome and KDE were more than my memory could handle, so I stayed with OpenStep. But the point was not lost on me. Unlike in Windows or Mac, I was not locked into one graphical desktop manager.

At first I had no idea how to use Linux. I would have to call my brother up, long distance and ask him "How do you get a directory listing at the command line?" But it got better. Apps became more plentiful and easier to use. At first I did all my work in Windows 95, but would go into Linux just for fun. Just to do little more than look at it and double-click random icons to see what they did.

It all changed when I learned to get the internet working under Linux. Then there was very very little reason for me to go back to Windows. I set my computer up as a web/ftp/ssh server that I could access from school.

So I was a confirmed Linux user from 1998 onward. My friends were right. A lot of my DOS 6.2/Windows 3.1 problems had disappeared. But a whole host of new problems came along. Linux does support a lot of hardware. More than what you may think. But, when you buy something, unless it's a piece of networking equipment, it almost never says it works with Linux. In my experience I have less hardware problems with Linux than Windows. But you become really cautious about buying hardware.

The worst part was software installation. With Windows when you install something the Windows Installer holds your hand through the process. In Linux not so. A lot of times you just get the source code. You have to compile and install the program yourself. It's been my experience that it will compile only half the time.

The help docs are terrible for this. They seem to be written for the programmers with 15 years of C experience or something. Not for the average person trying to get once piece of software installed.

Package managers don't make things much easier. They're always whining about "failed dependencies". That means the program you're trying to install requires another program to work, but you don't have that other program, or it can't be found. So then you go and install that program, but it has failed dependencies. It turns out to be a huge vortex and you give up before you find the solution.

But it's still a lot better than using Windows. I had no fear of virii. I had decent security. I knew there were more than one way to do each thing I needed to do. I could administer things in X Windows, or at the command line. I knew that if a program did have problems, then people were working on them. And also, 99% of what you could want to run on Linux is free as in speech, and free as in beer. I could also be one of those smug Linux users.

Then, in 2004, when I was to first move to Ottawa for four months I needed to take a computer with me. I thought I might be doing a lot of moving around so I wanted a laptop. I still wanted to avoid Windows. And I was worried that if I got a laptop with Windows pre-installed, then when I would try to install Linux it might have some piece of proprietary hardware that wouldn't work in Linux.

I knew Mac OS X was built on Unix and came with Apache web server, MySQL, and PHP, so I could do my work and install many of my favorite apps. It came with an X Server, so I could run my Linux programs, from my Linux box on my Mac! And best of all, it wasn't Microsoft! And since it was for my business, come tax time it was a business expense!!

So I bought an iBook G4 and very quickly fell in love. There were a few things at first, which I will write about later, that took this ol' Linux user some time to get used to. Installing applications was a breeze. And if hardware supported Mac, the box generally said so. The software, specifically iLife, was great!

For the non-Mac users, iLife is a suite of software including: iTunes as a music player. No. It's not just a player. It's a music management system. And now it does video, movies, and TV shows. Plus internet radio, and podcasts. iLife also has iPhoto which is a photo-management system, iDVD for making DVDs, iMovie for making movies, and GarageBand for recording music with incredible ease. Since then iWeb has been added to allow you to easily create a web site. iLife has great integration within itself and the operating system. The integration, the little things they thought of, amaze me to this day.

I still like Linux. Ideologically Linux is the best. That position is very hard to argue with. My desktop computer (which hasn't been on in months) still boots into Linux. I will probably stick with both Linux and Mac for a long time yet. Each have their place in my computational world.