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Filed under: Blogging, Productivity

Strategies to clean up your rss feed subscriptions - Readers Sound Off

OverwhelmUgh. I'm buried under unread RSS feeds. Right now if I look down at Google Reader Notifier (a Firefox Add-In), I see that I've got 1927 unread items in my subscriptions.

I thought I was being responsible; I've got my feeds split up into logical categories, including one called "Now", which is the stuff I told myself I would always stay current on. Google Reader won't tell me exactly how many unread items are in that folder, but it's more than 100... that's for sure.

While there's nothing you can do about it if life simply gets too busy to stay current, there should be a way to pare down what you're reading to a manageable level. In fact, Google Reader's Trends page will show you what you are (and aren't) paying attention to, who hasn't posted in forever, and which feeds simply bury you under too much content. One click on the garbage can for any of the feeds in here will unsubscribe you.

That helps.

But it's not enough.

I still need help determining what is and isn't important to be following. I'm currently subscribed to almost 300 feeds, and that's after some heavy pruning. I need to be down around 100, but it depends on the feeds themselves; if they're relatively low traffic, I can carry many more.

So - Download Squad readers, Sound Off! Tell us how you mercilessly keep your feed subscriptions lean and mean. Hit up the comments!

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Windows Mobile, Web services, Google

Google Reader gets UI face lift, settings page


Google Reader has received a major UI overhaul and joined its sibling Google apps with the introduction of a full-blown "Settings" page. Users finally have a powerful management panel for their Subscriptions and Labels, allowing batch operations for deleting, renaming and shuffling subscriptions around. The Google Reader team even went so far as to allow you to toggle whether animations play when you're using gReader.


The face lift doesn't stop at Google Reader's settings and preferences though. There is a new Labels menu to accompany Subscriptions, and both are ripe with AJAX-y pull-down goodness. Gone is that clunky Subscriptions section that folds out; now they're both handy menus that allow you to chose single feeds or entire labels. But if you aren't a menu and mousing kind of reader, the translucent label selector you can access from a keyboard shortcut (g + l) is still present.

All in all this is a spectacular (and necessary) update to my personal favorite of the online newsreader offerings. Call me crazy, but I think this finally makes Google Reader feel like it has the necessary features to stack up to the competition - even though it's still in the Labs.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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