Top 5 RSS readers for serious and extreme readers

I consider myself one of those people that monitor 100s of RSS feeds daily and actually read a large portion of the articles I see a day. So when it comes to using a feed reader, you need it to be very good at what it does. At one point I used Opera’s built-in reader but with the amount of feeds I had it wasn’t running very fast and so I ditched it. Firefox is the same way, I can’t use their live bookmarks or feed reader extensions because I already bog it down too much with extensions.

I’ve gone through all of the RSS feed readers I can find online, I can’t use the feed readers that are local software because I need to be able to access my feeds from work, home and on the go with my Treo. It is also handy for when I am using my laptop at Coffee shops and Cafes. So using an online-based service is paramount to me when it comes to making a decision for RSS and Atom feed readers. So here is my list of my favorite online feed readers.

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Weekly web design and marketing links for 1-11-08

There have been some great posts over this past week from all over. It really can take quite a bit of effort to sort through the articles you read and receive through email to pick out the best to share. There are always a dozen more articles that I think should be included in my weekly list but these are the ones for the week I found most interesting and applicable other web designers and web professionals.

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Back after the holidays

I’ve been sick over the past few days and with the holidays and the new year coming up I haven’t had any time to write any articles. So expect everything to return back to normal on the 1st of the year. Everyone have a fantastic rest of the year.

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Testing out my blog with a language translator

I recently found a WordPress plugin that allows for the translation using Google translate (or babelfish) of my entire site. I know that I get quite a bit of traffic from all over the world and so I thought it may help to have a translation available in various languages. I only speak English so it is tough for me to tell how well the translator is working. I think it is a very rough translation but probably gets the point across better then most can translate from English to their native tongue. At any rate my site is now available in Italian, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, and Russian. My web design news will hopefully be better understood in all of these languages.

There should be more coming in the future I’m sure. The WordPress plugin I have used is called Global Translater by nothing2hide.

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Clicky web analytics is 50% off today only

I have been using Clicky for my day-to-day analytics for some time now. I like that they give you an embed that you can easily use within your own site so that you can type something like dustinbrewer.com/hits/ and see what your current traffic is. They are pretty accurate and give a ton of information that is well organized. I still use Google analytics but only for the monthly view, they don’t give the options to see live statistics. Which makes me crazy. Anyway, I was checking my traffic and discovered that they are offering 50% off their premium service, which is already cheap. Thought I would pass the message on.

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FreelanceSwitch releases “How to be a Freelance Rock Star” book

FreelanceSwitch, the popular freelance blog, has finally released their long awaited “Freelance Rock Star Book” with all kinds of great chapter for web designers, writers, graphic designers and photographers. It is a fantastic resource for anyone that is in the freelance business. It is an accumulation of what they have been writing about in their blog over the past year.

I have already ordered mine so I don’t have a full review of how it will turn out yet. But I’m sure it is a great book to get or to give away for Christmas. It is the freelance source for this Christmas season (and probably 2008). Chapters are as follows:

  • Getting Started
  • Your Brand
  • The Working Day
  • Getting Your First Jobs
  • Scoping and Time Frames
  • Pricing Yourself
  • Doing the Job
  • Clients
  • Getting Paid
  • Marketing Yourself
  • Building a Business

A great list of chapters that all sound right on topic for what most of us freelancers are looking to focus on. You can buy the book from this site.

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What do you want to know more about?

It can be hard from time to time to come up with ideas for what my readers want to learn about or read about on the site. So, I think it would be nice to hear back from some of you what you want to see on the site. Whether it is as general as having more CSS examples and tutorials or something specific, like getting a certain exploding browser to cooperate.

I can talk about any design topic that you want to know more about or even inform everyone better on what to do and not to do when it comes to SEO.

At any rate, the more specific you are the more likely I will be to write an article about it. Also, if you would prefer note that you would like a poll instead of an open forum. I thought it would be nice to not have restrictions on ideas to really give you, the reader, control over what you read.

*Also, expect a redesign this week. I have a complete revamp coming that is going to blow this crappy design away.

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I’ll be at the Webmaster Jam in Dallas

I’m leaving for Dallas tomorrow for the 2007 Webmaster Jam and thought I would just drop a note to anyone else attending and let them know that I would gladly have a drink with anyone interested in chatting. I should arrive at the Adam’s Mark Thursday sometime around 9:00-10:00PM.

It should prove to be a fun time.

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Nominated for best blog layout

I was nominated in the Okie blog awards for the best blog layout. The Okie blog awards are a local, Oklahoma-based blog community and apparently I have got the attention of the members within it. I thank you to all who nominated me and I hope to see those same people vote me to the top in the category also. I would greatly appreciate any of the votes I receive and would like to invite any of my readers that reside within Oklahoma to vote for me as well.

Due to the nature of the Okie blog awards, only Oklahoma-based bloggers can vote for the nominees. So if that includes you, please visit the Okie blog awards page and help me and my fellow Oklahoma bloggers out. Thanks.

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I’ve been staying too busy

I know it is typical this time of the year to see blogs kind of go dead for a bit and I apologize I’m another one of those guys. But it happens, anyway… I’ve been busy at work with some big projects that we are trying to get live. Late nights, long hours the whole bit.

Hopefully I will start finding more time to add some new content and stuff up here. At any rate, I’m preparing my link round up and hopefully a nice article about CSS design structure to add to the mix.

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About Dustin Brewer

Dustin Brewer

Dustin Brewer is a freelance web designer based out of Oklahoma City, OK passionate about web standards, and beautiful web design. Dustin Brewer has been in the web design industry for over 8 years through freelance and professional experience. If you are interested in hiring Dustin Brewer please visit the web design services page to find out more information. You can also checkout my web design portfolio.

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