How to read and keep track of blogs, news, the web in general

I realized that a lot of people read blogs every once in a while then forget about it. When they remember, they find a lot of new posts have been made.

There are many disadvantages to getting fresh content this way. With blogs, one, you miss the chance to comment on the blog (about which I will talk later) when it is fresh and have people involved and talk about it. Two, you might forget for a while and when you get back there might be one too many articles to read. Compound this with some more blogs, and you got yourself a lot of missed articles.

The same thing with news. Most of us go to our favourite news site and read the headlines. We scan through headlines page after page, section after section, and if we find it interesting, we proceed to read the article. All this takes a lot of time, which is why we are forced to stay with one or maybe a few news site.

Tada, there has been something thats been conjured just for your. Syndication. The technology available to us are various implementations. e.g. RSS, Atom. Instead of me explaining it, I found a video made by commoncraft called RSS in plain english. I highly recommend checking it out.




Now you may ask what do I use, RSS or Atom? Both are ok, but if you are given a choice choose Atom. Atom is an open standard whereas RSS is not and has begun stagnating. Moreoever Atom is fast gaining popularity. But for most cases Feed readers support both so you don't have to worry about choosing one or the other.

 Ok, now that you know about RSS/Atom feeds, how do I get them, and after I get them, how do I read them. There are many ways to get them. Some are explained in the video below. It also explains how to use Google Reader which is what I use for reading feeds. Its also by far the most popular. You need an account with google for which you will be offered an option. There will also be a link "Take a tour", I encourage you to check it out too.



Once you have subscribed to the feeds you want to read, you can organise them into folders by clicking "Manage Subscriptions" in the bottom left. Its just like putting your mail in different folders. Just go to http://reader.google.com to start using it.

So lets say you come across a new blog or a news website and you want to add it to your Google Reader. If you use Firefox, then in the right corner of your adress bar you will see a orange icon.

If you see that icon that means that site has a RSS/Atom Feed. Click on it, and you will see either "Subscribe to RSS feed" or "Subscribe to Atom feed" or both. click on Atom feed. You will be redirected to another page. I use Linux, so I dont have a description of how Internet Explorer 7, or Safari will behave. I presume they do something similar. Anyway, copy the link from the address bar. In your Google Reader or any other reader, click Add Subscription and paste that link and click Add or Ok or whatever. If you are using Google Reader, it fetches recent content from the site and will present it to you in the right pane. You can assign this new feed to a folder by selecting one of the folders from the "Folder Settings". Also, you can view the articles either as a list or expanded. You can change it by choosing one(above the right pane on the right side).

I think you are all set. One word of advice, initially you will feel overwhelmed at the amount of content presented to you. Dont worry, its normal, and believe me you will get used to it. What I did was, used the "list" view, and would do a quick scan of the headlines, if I find it interesting, then I click on it to read the synopsis, if I am still interested I click the title which opens the article in a new window.

For those who are interested, you will find my Google Reader's shared items in the Links section on the right hand side. It is a feed. You can add it to your reader and you can read what I find interesting. If you have one already, please feel free to share.

Also if you are not interested in this whole reading feeds and feel it is a tad too much, I have a "Subscribe by email" link on the right hand side. Most other blogs and news sites have it too. What it does it will send you an email everyday, only if there are new posts.

This is my first attempt at writing a tutorial. Let me know if you have any comments on how I can improve.

You can probably try this if your two wheeler runs out of gas

I want to share a fond memory(from about 7-8 years ago) which came to me when I was riding back home from work. A little bit of imagination is required to enjoy it.

First, a little bit of a background. My house is located at the corner of the first turn on a U shaped street. So if you look from the intersection section you will see our apartment. and it will look like the street ends at it.

This part is also related to the story. I had rescued two kittens which I rescued from the telephone exchange building behind our apartment. Chinna Pappa and Periya Pappa. The older one is Chinna pappa(Named after the characters in a tamil sitcom). Chinna means small and periya mean big, and pappa means child. Yes, thats how it is in the sitcom, the mother-in-law is chinna pappa and the daughter-in-law is periya pappa. They fight all the time and is seldom funny. Anyway, at the time of this story the kittens were about an year old I think and they mostly stayed outside. They kind of knew when any of my family members or myself come home everyday. They would wait at the intersection and when they see us they would race us to our apartment. It was almost a daily routine.

We had this moped which I borrowed from my cousin since I let ours get stolen. Yup, it was purely my careless behaviour that led it to get stolen(I was too lazy to lock it when I went to my friends place). So whenever I give a ride to my mom, somehow this thing started that when returning home, I would accelerate as I enter the street, cut the ignition halfway and then bet with my mom if the moped would roll on and reach our apartment building. I would ask her "Gummaaa Gummaadhaa", it got condensed from Pogumaa Pogaadhaa (Will it or will it not go[all the way])? She would always answer Gummaadhu(It wont go[all the way]). Now, as soon as it starts to slow to a crawl, I would start giving it thrusts with my hip, giving it that little extra to get it home(picture yourself on a office chair (the one with wheels under it) with your legs off the floor, hands not holding on any other object and then imagine trying to move it).

About these two kittens. You see, they have a peculiar way to race, they will race you in such a way they are always only just ahead of you. So, if you slow down, they slow down, if you stop they stop and wait for you to start moving again.

The whole thing went like this for a while, and by the time of this particular memory they had gotten very much used to my shenanigan. This is what happened that night.

- The kittens see my come, they get ready.
- I hear the meow(thats their call for get-set-go), I accelerate, and they start running.
- I was feeling lucky so a little before halfway, I turned off the power. A few seconds later, I can see the two kittens have noticed me and are slowing down too.
- I am close, but down to almost crawling speed. I was beginning to have doubts for the first time if I was going to make it. The two kittens meanwhile have stopped and waiting for me to come closer. They wait and wait, and I am there heaving. They look at each other then look at me and then start playing. I am like, "hey wait, I am still moving, arent I !?", determined to make it, no matter what. By the time I reach the gate, I had been concentrating so hard that I didn't notice the two have vanished. I guessed they probably got bored or lost faith in me. Well, they had not totally vanished, there they were, now waiting at the stairs for the next leg of the race, up 4 flights of stairs to our apartment.

As I was writing I realized, I do have one of the coolest gummi. We had so much fun those days. Even now when I call her, we almost always end up laughing.

P.S: I still havent lost that bet.

Question: How many things does it take to tell a river is frozen?

 

I actually saw a 60 something guy pick that brick(bottom right)  up from a building nearby and throw it with two of his friends watching and cheering :). I actually once found a shoe! I would have paid to see how that came to.

Spanish translation guide for Emegency personnel

I recently ran a call for a Motor Vehicular Accident where none of the passengers spoke english. It was by pure luck that one of my crew members spoke Spanish and I was able to cope with the situation. But it got me thinking how to avoid that situation in the future and after a little bit of searching around, I came across this iPhone app called Emergency Medical Spanish Guide. It has Spanish translations for most common questions you need answers for in these situations. I am planning on creating a cheat sheet with these questions and putting them in each of our ambulances.

In case you are curious, the person thankfully did not appear seriously injured.

It cant be that crowded

but wait...

The city estimates about 2 million showed up for the inauguration. I also read somewhere that the TV networks sensored the booing when Bush came up on the big screen, but you should have been there to have experienced it. Its like the videos below only a lot louder. :)

This is for you Bush.


Cheney


And finally, when Obama stepped out

A Neologist is born

I was talking to my sister after a couple of months and a word that I used to taunt her with when we were younger propped up in the conversation. We started reminiscing all the stuff I had come up and surprisingly enough my mom remembered a lot of them.

People who don't know tamil might not find this amusing. Actually, I don't know what lauguage most of them are, so maybe you will.

For my Sister:
1. loosaandibulbul - loosu means idiot. bulbul is a bird.
2. AK,YK, JS, SS - Archana Kali (Archana is my sisters name and Kali is the goddess of death), forgot what YK stood for, I cant tell you what JS stands for(my sis will kill me), and Sori Saami(Sori means itch, Saami means God). I remember having a longer list at that time which I would use only on special occassions.
3. Poikari Pookari - Poi means lie, Poo means flower and kari refers to someone female. I used it when she told a lie or blamed me for something she did. (I even called my mom this.)
4. This one is my favourite. I would get her everytime. You read it fast and like a song. Dhadhichi, Gundachi, Yaanachi, Paeyachi, Madachi, Sadachi, Vadachi, Archee

Btw, all this doesnt make me a mean brother. You have no idea about my sister. I didn't called her Kali for no reason. :)

For my Mom:
1. Annayae - There used to be this show called Veer Hanuman which was dubbed into tamil. Little Hanuman used to called his mom that.
2. Aatha - Slang for mom.
In the following you can clear see the etymology
3. Ammi Jaan - Means dear mother in Urdu
4. Gummi Jaan - The Gum in Gummis is pronounced  like boom, just replace the 'b' with 'g' and shorten the 'oo'. Gummi is a completly new word. No idea how I came up with that.
5. Gummi
6. Gum - I still call her this.
7. Gumthalakadi - My latest, Its a word thats part of many folk songs. Doesnt have any meaning. I call her this when I really need her to listen to me. Its like being called by the full name when you make mischief and get caught.

I know theres a few more, but cant recollect any at this moment.

My uncle who's even more creative, came up with these:
1. Gubbaccha - Apparently his son when he was a child tried to say "Book padichen" but came out something like this.
2. Takilimuthu - No idea.
3. Kootha, Guppa - Again, no idea.

I understand that for a third person, these may seem strange and childish, and maybe they are, but in a family its endearing. You know what, long after we have stopped using them, when we talk about it, it certainly brings a smile and maybe sometimes, even a tear.

Do you have any such names or came up with one in your life?