Comments on: The Three Online Wells of Knowledge

By: raj

raj — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:55:08 +0000

Hello Scott, Thanks for responding and that you like the idea.

I’m still working backwards through your posts. So may be you’ve already covered this. But another thing that distracts me is the DVR. Couple of years before, I’d watch something if I’m around TV and just ignore other stuff. But after starting to use DVR, I tend to record everything that I remotely like, and then again, all of them appear too good to be deleted. I’ve ended watching marathon sessions of episodes over the weekend simply because I couldn’t get myself to ignore them. Lately, I’ve come up with rules like programming the DVR to keep at most 3 episodes of programs related to current events, and 5 episodes of other content. It’ll be interesting to hear your views on that.

By: MooNWalker

MooNWalker — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:16:26 +0000

I don’t have Mac. I’ve tried hackintosh, dropped it because of driver issues. Debian Linux is my main environment, though lately often use Windows because have to deal with MS Office. My boss uses Mac and he has Chrome over there as a primary browser already for at least half a year. Haven’t heard a single complaint from him.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:07:24 +0000

Oh, got it. I see. Glad I informed you of list view!

How do you like chrome for mac? I’ve stuck by safari; but use chrome when I’m using a PC.

By: MooNWalker

MooNWalker — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:02:39 +0000

What I’m saying is I somehow didn’t notice “list view” until I’ve read about it here. Until Chrome came out I was using RSS reader built in the Opera browser and I was happy with it. Google Reader move was forced, since there is no extension or built-in reader for Chrome, so I started using it only recently.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:36:03 +0000

Hey MooNWalker – You’ve definitely been using RSS longer than me. Wow. That’s a long time! What do you mean by missing “list view”? Google Reader has list view so that you can weed through irrelevant posts (based on headlines). Is that what you’re saying?

I really like your habit of checking it only once per day. I find that if I check my Reader more than once per day, I tend to spend more time scanning, and less time digesting good articles.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:33:17 +0000

Hey Raj — Thanks for the insight. Sorry for the late reply. This passed under the radar!

That’s actually a really good point, and idea Raj (regarding the 5 feed items). Perhaps making a rule that there’s only 5 premium traffic leaders.

I’ve also thought about a service that mails you the most valuable RSS items on a weekly basis. A best-of RSS digest, if you will. I haven’t seen a service like that, so in the meantime, I get by with the Focused Syndication plan above. I’ll definitely need to revisit your 5-item rule. I like that concept a lot.

By: MooNWalker

MooNWalker — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 03:53:12 +0000

I’m using RSS since 2004 or so. Google reader since Google Chrome release. Eventually came to this tips myself through trial and error – subscribed to too many feeds, cancelled those that give me dopamine fix but don’t really provide any food for thought or valuable info. Now I have only few interesting blogs, few news websites, and few sites that inform about their updates through RSS. And I made it a habit to check it only once a day in the evening instead of checking every time there is new entry. One thing I missed though is list view – helpful tip, allows to weed out useless posts within overall good blogs/sites faster. BTW, there is embedded sharing feature in Google Reader, though it seems to be visible only to those who have google reader or buzz account.

By: raj

raj — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 02:01:42 +0000

I came here through lifehacker and find this really valuable. Thanks for writing this.
I use RSS pretty heavily, and have not found a way to filter it. All of them look pretty good to me, and these are not news flashes or sound bites, but really good content. But there is too much of them. For example, I am a fan of Paul Krugman and I subscribed to his reading lists using the google reader. They are all pretty informative and interesting to me, but I am overwhelmed pretty soon. I have unsubscribed to all feeds in the past and then re-built the list to prioritize them, only to do it all over again. I am not sure focused syndication would work unless you put a hard rule and just say only 5 feeds are allowed, or something like that.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:17:34 +0000

Glad you enjoyed the chapter, Boscan! If you have any feedback or ideas, feel free to let me know.

By: Boscan

Boscan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:36:52 +0000

Wow… this is black and white. I am going to follow your site from today.

Cheers!
Boscan