haggaret.com

Way back when, Boris told me about something called RSS and showed me how I could use it to bring information to me, instead of having to go out and look for it myself. It took a while, but eventually I ‘got it’ and started amassing RSS feeds from all over the place – starting with my friends’ blogs, and then later finding feeds from newspapers, tech blogs, and even Environment Canada (for local weather updates). I tried different desktop clients as my RSS aggregator (or reader) for a while, but then eventually found out about, and started using exclusively, Google Reader. I love it, and one of the things I like best about it is ‘Shared Items’ – both being able to share with my friends as well as being able to see what they are sharing. Even better, with some recently introduced features, I can even add a note to items that I share to explain why I’m sharing them. FriendFeed takes this one step further and allows you to have conversations (in the form of comments) back and forth about shared items. I signed up for FriendFeed and have it aggregating some of my stuff (Flickr photos, Google Reader shared items, and Twitter posts) but since nobody else I know is using it – I’m not really making use of it all that much. My FriendFeed feed is here. Anyways, if you’re not using Google Reader yet – I highly recommend it. My shared items page can be found here and there is even an RSS feed for them – although if you’ve got me listed as a contact in your gmail, then you’ll automatically have a feed for my shared items anyways. [...]

Following Duane‘s lead, I decided to go ahead and generate a QR code for haggaret.com using the link that Duane referenced in his post. Will it ever get used? I can’t imagine what for so probably not, but there it is anyways. I think the first time I heard about these things was from Chris Foo, who was talking about using them for HungryTable. He was thinking you’d have one for each restaurant that would be visible in the window or whatever and it would link back to the reviews on HungryTable. That way you’d be able to scan it with your phone, and then quickly check out the reviews before deciding if you want to go inside or not – a cool idea if you ask me. [...]

Well I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, but Flickr has finally introduced video! Now I just need to sort through all my old videos and maybe clean up a few and start uploading! Here’s a sample of things to come. :) How awesome is this?! [...]

Amy just got back from a trip to Syracuse. While she was down there, I asked her to pick me up an AirPort Express at the Apple store. I could have ordered it online, but even with the Nortel EPP discount it was still more expensive than buying it in the states. Argh! Anyways, Amy was kind enough to buy it for me and smuggle it back into Canada. :) Funny side story about Amy’s experience in buying this thing for me: She went into the store with a printout of the webpage I had sent her to show her what to pick up. She said, “I have no idea what this is, but do you have these?” and showed the guy the printout. His eyes lit up and he responded with, “Yes, and it does everything you could want it do!” To which Amy replied, “You mean it’ll vacuum and clean my house for me?!” The guy sadly didn’t get the joke. Anyways, I’ve unboxed it, plugged it in and tried it out. It’s frickin’ awesome! The only reason I bought it was for the ‘air tunes’ or iTunes music streaming – the plan being to have an easy way to pipe music to the back yard for when the deck is built (or being built I guess). True, I could have just used my old squeezebox but this thing integrates so seemlessly with iTunes that I just couldn’t resist. Instead of having to use a web interface to control the squeezebox, I can use iTunes on any of my computers (including the new MacBook that is on the way) and I get all the great features like Party Shuffle! The other great thing is that iTunes allows you to output to both the airport express AND the local computer simultaneously which means I wont have to miss any tunes if I go from inside to out or vice versa. Awesome! I’ve only played with it very briefly so far, by using the speakers I’ve got plugged into the iMac, but I’ll be heading to future shop sometime in the next few days to pick up a set of speakers (and subwoofer) to be used exclusively with this thing. I did a quick check and it looks like I can get a decent set for like $40 so… I’m psyched!
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Wow – it seems everyone is getting themselves a blog these days. Just in the past week or so I’ve added 3 new blogs to my “Friends” block. Alyssa recently got back on the blog wagon after having let her last attempt at a blog wither and die. Lets hope this one lasts a little longer. Since she’s got a new baby now, I’m sure she’ll have lots of stories to share, but perhaps not the time to share them. :( The Lawsons also recently started up a new blog. Already they’ve put a few posts up and it looks like Grant will be providing some comedic relief in his posts. Check out his story about Maya’s tea party. And last but not least – I received an email today from Julie saying that her and Trevor have started up a blog. She is wise to start their blog by saying that she makes no promises on the number of posts and the time in between each of them. I get hassled a bit for my lack of posting but that’s just the way things go. We can’t all be like Steve and write a post a day for Pete’s sake! I’ve also subscribed (in Google Reader – my aggregator of choice) to a bunch of other blogs which I find interesting, not necessarily friends of mine, but acquaintances like Duane and Lloyd. Lloyd is expecting his first baby soon so I always enjoy reading about other people’s experiences in that part of their life. Anyways, keep up the good work folks – I enjoy reading everyone’s stories and keeping up to date however I can. [...]