08.08.13 |
Technology |
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The now shuttered Google Reader and many alternative feed readers (e.g. Feedly, Digg Reader, Feedbin) still have a lot of fans in the tech community: they make web browsing more efficient by aggregating content from a bunch of web sites under a single interface. But many argue feed readers are dated, that Twitter and other social media forms have “killed” the need for a dedicated feed reader.
I disagree. While the tech isn’t for everyone, I think much of the dismissiveness comes from those that setup a feed reader poorly. They add a bunch of high traffic, big name sites (e.g. The New York Times, The Verge, The Awl), get overwhelmed and quit in frustration.
Some can handle, even prefer this very high velocity setup, but I think it’s rare. There’s a better way to set up your feed reader. Start small, start wide, move through articles rapidly, and have an effective way to save the articles that are of interest.
Start small
When you set up a feed reader for the first time, keep the velocity – the rate of which new articles get aggregated to your reader – low. I like to start with a “10 by 10” rule: pick up to ten feeds that each post no more than ten times a day. Remember this is only a starting point; as you get use to your feed reader of choice you can always increase the velocity later.
Start wide
One of the strengths of a feed reader is its ability to pull content from sites you don’t pass through during your daily web browsing. To put it another way, effective feed readers widen the net. Keep that in mind when you’re picking your first set of feeds. A good rule I like to use is actively include content that’s different than what you normally are exposed to in your day job. Alternatively, focus on sources that give a unique spin on content you normally read elsewhere. For example, if you like politics, instead of adding feeds from big sites like Politico and Wonkette, subscribe to individual columnists you enjoy from smaller markets.
Move through articles rapidly
You can move slowly through articles one at a time in a feed reader, but I think this can be a flawed approach for several reasons. First, remember many sites truncate their feed content, which prevents a full article display within the reader. Second, feed readers are rarely optimized for reading; you often get a big list of unread items taking up significant screen real estate. Also, the article itself is cramped and there’s often a bunch of feed reader UI on screen that distracts from the content. Third, a slow approach means there’s a much better chance you’ll leave your feed reader with a lot of items unread.
I’d recommend configuring your feed reader into a “summary only” view where the focus is on scanning headlines, not full articles. Move quickly, and if any article sparks your interest, open it up in a new background tab or otherwise save for reading later (keyboard shortcuts can come in handy here.)
Have an effective way to save for later
After you process unread items in your feed reader, you’ll want a way to go back and read the titles that caught your attention. Generally there’s three ways to do this: flag the article with the feed reader’s built-in system (e.g. stars, flags, highlights, etc.), keep the article open in an external tab or save it in a dedicated “read it later” service like Pocket. I highly recommend relying on the latter two options only: new external tabs for quick items you’ll read immediately and a dedicated “read it later” service for everything else.
Overall, don’t shy away from feed readers due to their “power user” reputation. By following a few simple rules, almost anyone can benefit from adding a feed reader to their workflow.
08.08.13 |
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Tested’s Norman Chan:
At the point where your goal is to have a review out as soon as possible, you are absolutely compromising the quality of the review and your editorial credibility–those things are absolutely mutually exclusive. Those reviewers may as well camp out in a Best Buy and use a product on the shelf for a few hours and call it a review. The sad thing is, I don’t think we’re too far away from that.
Reviews serve to give purchasing advice to readers who want to know if something is worth their money. Tests, benchmarks, and the sharing of a reviewers’ personal use experience are the means to that end–but they are not the review. A review is a conclusive statement: buy this product or don’t, and why.
Completely agree with Norm here. As much as I enjoy The Verge overall for tech coverage, this notion that after only a day or 48 hours with a device you’re able to form a comprehensive, definitive review is ridiculous. I really felt this come through in the Verge recent reviews for the Nexus 7 and Chromecast. Both felt underdeveloped; I would have happily waited at least a few more days to get a more comprehensive take on the device.
08.07.13 |
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A terrific first person account from The A.V. Club’s TV editor Todd VanDerWerff, writing here for Grantland:
Through the rest of the evening, when people find out I was in Hall H, they ask me how it was, in terms you might usually reserve for a theme-park ride, and I have to admit that it was a lot of fun. But it doesn’t really last for me. It’s a series of carefully constructed moments, designed less to be long-lasting memories than in-the-moment staccato bursts of emotion. The reason to go to Hall H isn’t for the proximity to stars or the exclusivity of the footage — it’s to go to Hall H itself, to add this experience to the memory bank. For me, the day already begins to fog over, turning into a muggy haze.
08.06.13 |
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Nifty jsFiddle example originally tweeted by developer Lea Verou. If you want to animate a block level element from a fixed height to height: auto, rely on max-height.
08.05.13 |
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If there’s any single point to take away from Henri Bergius’ essay, it is this:
The web is its own platform, and as such it is foolish to try and mimic traditional desktop applications. It will never feel quite right whatever you do.
It is a lot better to accept this and fully embrace the unique advantages of the web platform.
I also really enjoyed his remarks regarding the workflow between developers and designers. In short, design for mobile first.
08.02.13 |
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Director Nicolas Winding Refn, interviewed by The Dissolve:
Television has gotten much more aggressive, and much more mind-expanding and progressive than cinema, which is still the crown jewel, and will always be the crown jewel. We need to remember that cinema is not just about, “How much money did you make on Friday to Monday?” but also, “What is your actual interest?” Filmmaking is an art form, and the art can inspire. But if everyone’s afraid of standing out and risking polarization, which essentially means it’s a singular vision, then the world will become less interesting.
It’s a well spoken point. Among the film critics I follow on Twitter, TV discussion comes up again and again; we’re truly in a remarkable time period. I just haven’t seen film take the same risks over the last year or so, at least compared to years prior.
Alas, Refn’s “singular vision” reached a point of near parody in Only God Forgives. I’m generally a big fan of Refn’s work, and Only God Forgives is a visually striking, haunting film with a great Cliff Martinez score. But by the end the style excess and lack of dialogue felt suffocating.
08.02.13 |
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Macaw looks very impressive. As the narrator mentions in this twenty minute video demo, you can get into dangerous territory when a web design tool tries to also be a full WYSIWYG code generator at the same time (maybe I’m just picky, but as cool as Sketch is as a program, it’s HTML/CSS export options are not as great as I’d like.) Macaw seems to take a really balanced approach: fundamentally a design tool, but with most of its settings and tools rooted in HTML/CSS fundamentals.
Perhaps most importantly, while the app is native, it apparently renders all of its content in actual HTML. No more gradients, font styles and other “Photoshop only” actions that look very different once they actually get rendered in browser code.
I’m keeping my eye closely on this one.