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Posts tagged Google Reader

Google Reader Shiny-ness, Part II
May 13th
About a week ago, I mentioned my love of Google Reader, and how it contributes significantly to my web design process.
Well, it got just a bit better for me today. While using Google Reader to follow one of my favorite blogs, I ran across a brand-spanking new AIR-based application that brings the functionality of Google Reader to the desktop.
This new application is ReadAir. It is really nothing more than HTML and JavaScript, but it is shiny. And the functionality–on the whole–is pretty good. At this stage, it is still a bit buggy. Unread feed counts do not update when an article is viewed, and it is also a bit slow. However, the project is open-source, so hopefully others will come along and expand upon it to make it better.
So if you like Google Reader, take a look at ReadAir. Oh, and be sure to let me know what you think about it!!
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Google Reader: An Essential Tool for the Web Designer
May 6th
I wish I could express how critical Google Reader is to my web design process. How does an RSS feed reader aid my web design, you ask?
I'll tell you!
There are approximately 13.25 billion CSS design galleries currently on the world-wide interblog. In my experience, each gallery updates their gallery with approximately 5-8 new designs every 3 days. So, in the course of 3 days there are 60+ billion websites featured on design galleries, give or take a handful.
Obviously, I kid, but the truth is not far off. There are a lot of CSS design galleries out there, and they are constantly adding new sites every day. Morever, there are hundreds of really talented designers out there that have incredibly creative ideas about good web design.
Now let's be honest: creative web design is never done is isolation. I personally find a lot of great inspiration from others, and attempt to distill the best of what I see into my own designs.
So where does Google Reader fit into this? Well, imagine trying to follow each of these sites (I currently follow over 108 galleries, and design-related blogs). Live bookmarks is unthinkable. Visiting each site would be an absolute nightmare. So I need More >