google reader and igoogle

google reader is my new best friend ... and maybe my worst enemy.

i read blogs. i read a lot of blogs. i may or may not read too many blogs.

a few months ago i decided i would start following the ones i really like, because i would forget to check them for a while and then i would feel like i was missing out on something. and i don't handle that whole "missing out on something" thing very well. i had heard of google reader, but i didn't really understand what it was all about, but when i started following blogs i realized that every time one of the blogs i follow has new posting it shows up in my reader.

so for a while, about once a day i would go to my gmail account and check my reader. on most days there would be about 25-30 new posts for me to scan through. a nice little treat!

now, don't get me wrong, i do not really read each and every one of those, but i do scan through them and look at the ones that interest me.

you can even star the ones you think might want to reference again, and i've found that very handy as i try to remember exactly how someone did a project or the name a product they used for something.

you know what i found out today?

you can search in you reader.

and it searches all items in your reader. so i was sitting here thinking - i have seen 5,000,000 (or so) banners on blogs lately, i want to look a bit closer at them, as i am planning to make one for a shower, so at the top of the screen i found this:

i simply typed in "shower banner" and up popped every entry with the word banner in it.

if you remember which blog it was that you saw something on, you can search specific blogs, too. that's handy!!

if you add igoogle to the mix (where you can customize your google page by adding news, weather, and tons of other things including your google reader!!), you can (as i do) see what's new on google reader every time you connect to the internet.

this could be dangerous!

man, i don't know who thinks up these things, bu i'm sure glad they do =)