This just keeps getting better!

If you Command-Click (not Ctrl-Click) or click-hold the Auto-Click RSS folders in the Bookmarks Bar, you can see each individual feed that resides in your RSS Bookmarks Bar folder. In the screenshot below, you can see that I have all my Tech blogs that I read daily listed. I can just click one of them to see just that feed, or I can click “Open In Tabs” to open each feed in its own tab. In case I hadn’t checked a feed in a while, the number of unread items would show up in parentheses to the right of the title.

So, in the morning I click the RSS folders to get my morning updates, but throughout the day, I’ll click-hold to read just the updated feeds. Yet another way that Safari RSS is one of the best ways to read your daily feeds!

Hmm, something else I just noticed is that if you click-hold and choose a feed, it opens in the current tab. If you Command-Click and choose, the feed opens in a new tab. I guess that goes along with Command-Clicking any other link or folder of links to open in tabs, except that the same is not true for clicking “View All RSS Articles.” This option saves and then replaces all currently open tabs. Click the Back button to restore your tab session.

As an added bonus, check out Pimp My Safari’s article on changing the layout and appearance of Safari’s RSS articles.

Yeah, I’m still using it.

I have fully adjusted to using Dvorak, and I love it. My typing speed has increased, I don’t look at the keyboard nearly as much, I have much less stress on my wrists and fingers while typing, and I have retained my QWERTY typing speed.

It’s quite funny to see people at work struggle with it when they try to show me something on my own computer. I have a hot key enabled to switch between Dvorak and QWERTY, so it’s not a hindrance, but it does make me laugh. On my Mac I have the layout set so that all commands that use the Command key are mapped to their old keys, so Cmd-C copies and Cmd-V pastes. However, Windows does not have this option (or at least not one that was visible to me. Anyone have any tips?), so Ctrl-I and Ctrl-. have to be used, respectively. It’s interesting switching from Windows to OS X and back again, but it keeps me on my toes and I don’t mind too much.

I recommend this layout to everyone and anyone who wants to learn to type quickly, properly, and comfortably. If you have two weeks to memorize the new layout (yeah, that means students who just got out of school…), you should at least give it a try.

I found a not so friendly bug in Google’s Slasdot aggregation. It seems that Google has asked for a little too much here!

Otherwise, this newfangled Google homepage looks to be very promising.

So Apple’s OS X 10.4 Tiger has been out for a week and a half, and I’m sure that everyone has been blogged silly about how great it is.

One decision I had to make when I upgraded was whether or not to use Safari RSS or continue to use the amazing Firefox. I came up with a method of reading Safari’s RSS feeds that was even better than FF’s amazing Sage RSS aggregator.

What I did first was re-bookmark all the Sage RSS feeds I had previously in Safari. Apparently, one can export the OPML feed from Sage and import this to Safari, but I did it the long way.

Using the very nifty All RSS Feeds folder in the bookmarks sidebar in Safari, I dragged my daily must-read RSS (and Atom) feeds (as in, all the feeds from Sage) into the Bookmarks Toolbar folder. Once you have all of them in the toolbar folder, you are free to organize them however you want. I put all my RSS feeds into “Safari RSS” and then organized them into subfolders, such as News and Flickr.

OK, wowee, I just moved some bookmarks around so I could reach them with one less click. Well, here’s the clincher. I checked the “Auto-click” box next to my feed folder. Yay! This now opens all the RSS links contained in the folder in one nicely presented Safari RSS tab. I then told Safari to Sort By New, Recent Articles by All, and made sure that Source was All. If I wanted to see just the newest Slashdot or Lifehacker posts, I just click the feed’s name in the Source list.

Another nice benefit of this is that (if you have the “Automatically update articles in: Bookmarks Bar” box checked in Safari’s RSS Preferences) you can also see the number of new RSS articles displayed right on the Bookmarks Toolbar, instead of in a sidebar like Sage. Which is most important for 12” Powerbook users.

Feet By The Creek Originally uploaded by Third.

Flickr is a still-in-beta photo sharing portal. I’m sure that everyone has heard of Webshots before, but Flickr is infinitely better. A Flash-based interface (sometimes annoying but very well done) is used to display individual images, along with a multitude of options with which you can organize.

The best part of the site, however, is the social tagging features. You can see everyone’s photos (as long as they are marked as public,) and sort through them with tags. A lot of tags are worth checking out, such as memory maps and transparent desktops.

Also, you can blog about any picture that you are looking at while logged in. This picture is of Meghan by a creek on her campus, and this post was made on Flickr’s website. Give it a try.

Donnie Darko is an amazing film. I didn’t find out about it until December 2004, three years after it orignially hit US theatres, and I am ashamed for it.

On the surface it seems to be a teenage story of a confused kid and his visions. A second and third viewing reveal this movie to be much more. Although it comes across as a rather pretentious film, the symbolism and imagery are just too vivid to ignore. A quick (or involved) visit to the web site gives you an inkling of what this film entails.

I’m not going to post a plot summary here; you have to go out and watch this film yourself. Do yourself a favor and watch the original first, followed by the Director’s Cut a day or two later.

–

“Donnie Darko? What the hell kind of name is that? It’s like you’re some sort of superhero or something.”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

Mapquest? What is that?

Google Maps is a new tool from Google that does just what you think it’s supposed to do: it gives you maps of pretty much anywhere in America. The really neat part is that you can drag the map, zoom in and out, and view waypoints on the map without having to reload the map every time you change something.

They have a few examples on the page itself, but you really should try it out. For example, I searched Blacksburg, Va, for Chinese food, and, lo and behold, we have even more Asian food possibilities than even I knew about here in the old ‘Burg. A search for free wifi yields similar results.

Driving directions are intense! Try clicking the number next to each step of the directions. Amazing!

Google continues to be a paragon of software and business awesomeness.

Well, hello again. Moving back into school went smoothly, and classes are going great already. In all the hustle and bustle, blogging was not too high on my list of priorities.

My Dvorak learning experience is also coming along quite well. Chatting online and typing homework assignments really helps out. For once, practice makes perfect. That damn F key really gets me though. It’s in such an awkward position that I don’t know with what finger to press it.

I bought some speakers a few days ago. These little aliens have an amazing sound, no matter if we are playing Halo, watching Fight Club, or listening to Intertiatic ESP. What really baffles me is the amount of sound that can come out of such small speakers. They look pretty spiffy, too; it’s a shame that the Vaderesque subwoofer has to stay under my desk.

The Wikipedia is a free public encyclopedia. The premise of this project brings open source ideals to general and public knowledge.

I could delve into lengthy histories and explanations, but there are some great sources out there, in particular Wikipedia’s own About page.

There exist a number of non-English Wikipedias, attesting to the success of the project’s core goals.

The very idea of common knowledge in this context is limitless. To edit knowledgebases in real time, relying on the common desire for correct information is, if not revolutionary, certainly given a new meaning when combined with the global connection that is made possible by the internet.

Recently, Wikipedia has garnered a lot of attention, and, as a result, many visitors and contributors. Larry Sanger, one of the co-founders of Wikipedia, wrote an interesting article on the prevalence of anti-elitism in the contributing community. In it, he describes some faults of the current moderation system (of which there is none,) and the failure of many contributors to give enough respect to the knowledge of masters of a particular field. It’s an interesting read, and has many interesting comments; Sanger has responded to a few of them.

Another, somewhat related issue is that of neutrality. Obviously, some issues are more controversial than others. Because of this, a neutrality dispute system has been implemented. Political articles are also under close watch, as the article on George W. Bush was locked both before and during the 2004 election in response to vandalism on the article.

In time, the problems of the Wikipedia will solve themselves, but the idea of open source general knowledge is pretty cool regardless of those who don’t respect it. The community grows each day, bringing with this growth myriad new experts that are willing to let the world know what they know.

Here are some articles that I found particularly interesting:

• Falun Gong

• The Dyson Sphere

• Firefox

• Gray Goo

• Chuck Palahniuk

If you can read this post, it means that I am now able to post to my blog by emailing a special address. Neat, huh?