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For a while, I searched high and low to find a good FireFox extension for handling RSS. What I ideally wanted was something that could queue up unread items and inform me via the status bar and a notification pop-up. I have an extension for my Gmail account that does this, and a matching one for RSS would have been perfect.

Everything I found seemed to have a little bit more or less than what I wanted — I just couldn’t find something that seemed to work right.

A sample Google Reader interface

So after searching thoroughly, I realized that the best solution came from the same company that seems to do most everything right — yes, I’m talking about Google.

Google Reader can combine all of your RSS subscriptions in a nice, easy-to-read interface, and the FireFox extension Google Reader Watcher can display your unread items in the  status bar, popping up notifications upon new posts. The addon is pretty simple but very customizable, giving you a good amount of control over how your feeds are handled.

Google Reader Watcher and Gmail Notifier side by side in the status bar

Finally, all my woes are solved! I can now keep much better track of what I have (or haven’t) read, and now I can be updated when new posts are made.

Before I was occasionally missing out on posts by blogs I like to read, and I was getting pretty frustrated finding ones that I’d missed.

This may be helpful to a few of you who might be looking for a good way to integrate RSS into your browser. If you use any other method, please tell me!

Web design galleries are the best sources for inspiration

Whenever I’m in the mood for inspiration for web design, I always immediately flock to web design galleries to try to get some ideas. Since these sites feature the up and coming best designs on the Internet, there’s no better source for ideas and inspiration out there than a quality design gallery.

However, there are countless CSS galleries on the Internet, and finding the best ones can actually be pretty tough. After hunting around for a while, I’ve come up with a list of my favorite 35. Keep reading »

Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and others are always a ton of fun. Nowadays, they’re used more than ever to communicate with friends online and to meet new people. If you’re reading this blog, chances are pretty good that you have a profile on Facebook or MySpace.

The problem with such social networking sites is that they provide immediate access to your information for someone who only knows your name.

Everyone hears talk about stalkers, pedophiles, and sexual predators online, and by now we’re all used to the warnings about disclosing information to absolute strangers. This is nothing new.

But what about people who are just interested in looking at your profile to learn more about you? People who don’t really know the real you, but want to? Yeah, secret admirers will do this, but can you think of anyone else who might want to learn more about the real you?

How about colleges? How about possible employers?

Keep reading »

Many high school graduates receive the lucky gift of a brand new computer for college after graduating. Some kids already have one, others save up for the money to buy one.

Regardless of how you got your computer, nowadays it’s pretty standard that kids should have a computer if they are leaving for college. Most people are quick to realize this, and so chances are good you’ve got the computer issue covered.

But do you have the software you’ll need? A lot of students will buy a computer but completely forget that a computer needs good software to do anything. Computers usually come with trial versions of popular software (Norton Antivirus, Microsoft Office, etc.), but what do you do when these trials run out? Either you purchase the software (expensive), or you have to live without it.

Living without some better-known names might sound tough, but in fact many wonderful free alternatives exist that will not only save you money, but might actually work better for you.

Keep reading »

Does August seem a bit early? It’s not.

As students start to decide where they’re going to go to school, paying for that starts to take shape and scholarship applications start to become a priority. So, around that time, the competition for scholarships becomes much steeper because of more applicants.

Don’t believe me? Check out the pattern of Google searches for “scholarships” over the past few years:

The blue line designates the amount of searches. Notice how this amount jumps up around January.

As you can see, more searches are done for scholarships in the first few months of the year than any other time. This is generally the time when most kids are hunting around for scholarships.

By getting a start on scholarships early, you’ll have far more opportunities to get money than the average person who procrastinates.

Here are some good tips to help you get more free money: Keep reading »

Throughout middle school and high school, whenever someone would ask the classic question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, my mind would always blank. Sure, I had dream jobs, but nothing realistic ever came to mind. I never thought it was very urgent, so I always put off starting to make that decision.

Come November last year when it came time to start applying to schools, I had to start narrowing it down in order to have something to put down as a major on my applications. Some schools hold a lot of weight to what you put down as your major: at some colleges, you’re stuck with whatever you put down on that application. You definitely don’t want to choose the wrong one, that’s for sure.

The best thing you can do is to try to start having an idea of what you’d like to do as a career way before you begin college applications. The more time you take now, the less you have to take later.

But where do you start? Well, the place I started was Google News, to be honest. Keep reading »

If you’re starting to choose a college, the best place to begin looking for information is always the Internet. Several websites have a quality “college finder” or “college search” to help give you some ideas of where to go to school based on your preferences. Most of these will ask similar questions about what you’d like in a college, such as your major, ideal distance from home, size of campus, sports, and so forth.

A lot of these websites are also great for providing general statistics about colleges or universities, such as male/female ratio, tuition, average age, ethnicity distribution, and so forth.

Much like the Student Search Service, a lot of the college searches are only helpful if you don’t already have a school in mind. If you’ve already narrowed it down to a few, the searches won’t be too helpful to you. However, the information that these sites provide is useful no matter who you are.

Keep reading »

Since finding out about it, a lot of teachers have developed a vendetta against Wikipedia. I’ve known lots of kids who use it as their only source in a research paper, and teachers go bonkers when they see that. This is because Wikipedia is editable by anyone, making it an unreliable source for a formal report.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Wikipedia as much as the average person. Like any Internet hipster, I look up information on Wikipedia all the time. I know how much the regulars over there guard pages against any harm, but I also know that anyone who looks around long enough will find some incorrect fact on a page. I have found many, and I regret to say that Wikipedia isn’t as flawless as we’d all like it to be.

Now that teachers wag their fingers at Wikipedia as a source, it’s time to go back to the old-fashioned way of finding information online without it. Keep reading »