Sure, I had my iGoogle start page with a few sites I followed: Lifehacker, Slashdot, and a friend’s blog or two, and that worked fine. That is, until I saw Bradley Robb speak at WordCamp in Richmond. In his presentation, he advised bloggers of the importance of RSS, and setting up Google alerts to get the latest news from the topics they’re most interested in. And my whole outlook on RSS changed.

So like a good little blogger, I rushed home, setup my Google Reader account, and made a few generic alerts: “photoshop tutorials,” “illustrator tutorials,” “graphic design” and “web development.” Within an hour I had over 100 new items to sort through. Yeah, there was a lot of noise, and Bradley warned us of the signal-to-noise ratio…and assured me that the process of refining keywords would help. And it did.

But still, I had subscribed to a number of RSS feeds since the event; I was begining to suffer from Information overload. Something needed to be done. And Google Reader’s ugly interface wasn’t helping.

I downloaded the Flock browser, which helped to manage all of my social media accounts, but didn’t really deliver feeds in any sort of useful way. And then I found Feedly.

Feedly is like a magazine for your RSS feeds. You are given multiple views for your data: Cover, latest articles, and Digest (my personal favorite). It delivers news to you in a way that doesn’t make you feel overwhelmed by it. It brings the joy back to reading the news.

After installing the add-on (Firefox, Flock), you will be asked to provide your google reader information. This may (reasonably) turn some of you off to the service, but there IS a reason they ask for it: Feedly will tie in with your Google Reader account, and stay synchronized with it. In addition, it makes use of some of Google Reader’s features.

Once you tie your accounts together, you will begin to see your pages fill up. To the left is an example of what my digest page looks like (click for full view). As you can see, it pulls in my feeds, and lays them out in a mash-up format that’s a little more visually appealing than your typical RSS Reader (you can also view each feed source individually if that’s more your style). Tie it to your Twitter account, and you will find your Twitter stream and the top trends in addition to your featured (favorited) news sources. Further down the page, you will also find a break down of your feeds by topic and source, who is following you (in Google Reader), and an interesting little “Explore” section, where you are given site feeds that seem to do a good job of relating to your topics of interest. For media streams (photo/video feeds), it does a good job at laying them out in album format.

What else does Feedly do? Besides basic Google Reader functionality (sharing, favoriting), how about integrating with your FriendFeed account to share with that network? Facebook? It does the same there. Twitter: same. Delicious also plays nicely (as you would expect). It even does a good job of hooking into Digg so you can tune into whatever inane chatter is going on over there about what you’re reading. And all sharing services also allow for you to add your own annotations, which is nice.

So give Feedly a test drive at http://www.feedly.com. I’ve been using it for a few days now, and already find myself getting more out of my RSS feeds.

Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, MyBlogLog…there are so many tools to keep virtual friends these days, it’s a full-time job just keeping up!

But I’m going to make it easier on you.

Why would you want to follow me on these sites? Why, so I can do the work for you! Many times I’ll share stories, tutorials or other interesting tidbits that don’t make it to the site on these services. I’ll also post whenever there is a new post here on Twitter, but the best way to get those is still good ol’ RSS.

So go ahead and follow me on any of these services- you’ll be glad you did!

Check out the Goodtree & Company blog here.

Please, let me know what ya’ll think below! Comments, criticisms, browser-incompatibilities, etc. Thanks!

That’s mainly because I have a pile of stuff to write about, and I don’t know where to start!

So I’m leaving it up to you guys. What do you want to read here? Photoshop tutorials? Photographic Effects? Text Effects? 3D Studio MAX Tutorials? Illustrator? Linux? Or more articles like “9 More Rules to Designing a Logo?”

Also, I’m thinking of splitting this blog into two separate blogs- one for Linux, and another for design-related stuff. I don’t really post linux stuff all that much, but I wonder if I should give it its own space. On one hand, I think knowing Linux is vital to any serious web designer (and that’s why it fits here), on the other hand, I don’t want to alienate any non-web designers that visit here.

What do you think? Please, let me know!

Many of the most famous logos have no inherent meaning. Think of the Nike “swoosh.” The meaning is created by a consistent branding and marketing message tied to the abstract image. So don’t stress to much about the design – consider the long-term support for your brand and the logo itself as just one piece of the initiative.

You can check the whole thing out on his blog, or read the whole article here.

Argh Technology.

Issue

When you start Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Update Manager returns the error “The Adobe Updater could not be started, please reinstall application and components.”

Solutions

Do one of the following solutions:

Important: Solutions 1-3 work for hard disks formatted with the NT File System (NTFS). If your hard disk is formatted with the FAT32 file system, use solution 4.

To determine if your disk is formatted using NTFS, do the following:

1. Choose Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools (Windows XP) or Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tool (Windows 2000).

2. Double-click Computer Management.

3. Click Disk Management under Storage. The upper right pane lists each hard disk and the file system with which it’s formatted.

Solution 1: Edit the file permissions and then run the common files installer (Windows XP Professional, 2000).

Edit the file permissions for the All Users folder and the Windows\Installer folder by running the CALCS commands. Then, run the common files installer to complete the Adobe Updater utility installation.

To edit file permissions:

1. Choose Start > Run.

2. Type cmd in the Open box, and click OK.

3. Type the following CACLS commands for your operating system exactly as they appear, pressing Enter at the end of each command line:

Important: Enter spaces before and after /T , /E , /C , and /G in each line.

Windows XP Professional:

cacls c:\windows\installer /T /E /C /G administrators:F

cacls “c:\documents and settings\all users” /T /E /C /G administrators:F

exit

Windows 2000:

cacls c:\WINNT\installer /T /E /C /G administrators:F

cacls “c:\documents and settings\all users” /T /E /C /G administrators:F

exit

Note: If you use Photoshop on a localized Windows operating system (for example, German Windows XP) the CACLS commands must be localized. Use the translated terms for “documents and settings” and “administrator.” “All users” is not translated on localized operating systems.

For example, the CACLS command on German Windows XP should be:

cacls “c:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\all users” /T /E /C /G Administratoren:F

To run the common files installer:

1. Insert the Photoshop installation media. (If you purchased Photoshop as part of Adobe Creative Suite, insert the Installer 1 CD.)

2. Select a language and click OK.

3. Click Accept to accept the license agreement.

4. Select Explore CD Contents.

5. Navigate to, and then double-click, the Adobe Common File Installer.msi file in the following location:

– Adobe Creative Suite Installer 1 CD: Adobe Creative Suite 2.0/Adobe Bridge Services folder

– Photoshop CD: Adobe Photoshop CS2/Commonfilesinstaller folder

6. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. If the Program Maintenance dialog box appears, click Repair.

Solution 2: Assign administrator access to the All Users folder, and then run the common files installer. (Windows XP Pro and Home Edition, 2000)

Assign full administrator access to the Documents and Settings\All Users folder by running the CACLS command. Then, run the common files installer (see solution 1).

To assign administrator access:

1. Log in as an administrator. If you don’t have administrator rights, contact your system administrator for assistance.

2. Choose Start > Run.

3. Type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.

4. Type the following commands exactly as they appear including quotation marks, pressing Enter at the end of each command line:

Important: Enter spaces between /T , /E , /C , and /G in the third line.

c:

cd “\Documents and Settings”

cacls “All Users” /T /E /C /G administrators:F

exit

Note: If you use Photoshop on a localized Windows operating system (for example, German Windows XP) the commands must be localized. Use the translated terms for “documents and settings” and “administrator.” “All users” is not translated on localized operating systems.

For example, the command on German Windows XP should be:

c:

cd “\Dokumente und Einstellungen”

cacls “All Users” /T /E /C /G Administratoren:F

Solution 3: Change the security permissions to allow full access to the Shared Documents folder, and then run the common files installer (Windows XP Professional and 2000).

Complete one of the following procedures to change the security permissions. Then, run the common files installer (see solution 1).

Windows XP:

1. Choose Start > Run.

2. Type %allusersprofile% in the Open box, and click OK.

3. Right-click the Shared Documents folder, and choose Properties.

4. Click the Security tab.

5. Select Everyone in Group Or User Names, and then select Allow next to Full Control in the Permissions. (For more information on changing permissions, see Windows Help.)

6. Click Advanced, and select Replace Permission Entries On All Child Objects With Entries Shown Here That Apply To Child Objects.

7. Click OK, click Yes, and then click OK to close the Shared Documents Properties dialog box.

Windows 2000:

1. Choose Start > Run.

2. Type %allusersprofile% in the Open box, and click OK.

3. Right-click the Documents folder, and choose Properties.

4. Click the Security tab.

5. Select Everyone in the Names pane, and then select Allow next to Full Control in the Permissions. (For more information on changing permissions, see Windows Help.)

6. Click Advanced.

7. Select Reset Permissions On All Child Objects and enable Propagation Of Inheritable Permissions.

8. Click Apply, click Yes, click OK, and then click OK again to close the Documents Properties dialog box.

Solution 4: Change the sharing permissions to the Documents folder, and then run the common files installer. (Windows 2000 only)

Complete the following procedure to change permissions on a FAT32-formatted disk. Then, run the common files installer (see solution 1).

1. Choose Start > Run.

2. Type %allusersprofile% in the Open box, and click OK.

3. Right-click the Documents folder, and choose Properties.

4. Click the Sharing tab, and click Share This Folder.

5. Click Permissions.

6. Select Everyone in the Names pane, and then select Allow next to Full Control in the Permissions. (For more information on changing permissions, see Windows Help.)

7. Click Apply, click OK, and then click OK to close the Documents Properties dialog box.

Background information

Full administrator access allows the installer to create the files that Photoshop needs.

Your file permissions may prevent the Adobe Common Files installer from correctly installing the Adobe Updater utility when you run Adobe application installers. If this occurs, Photoshop returns an error when you try to start it.

The CACLS command lets you modify file permissions on NTFS-formatted hard disks to correctly install the Adobe Updater utility.

On FAT32-formatted disks, you must change the security or sharing permissions on the Shared Documents folder to correctly install the Adobe Updater utility.

You can convert FAT32-formatted folders to NTFS formatting by using the convert command line command. For more information, see the Windows XP Help and Support Center or the Microsoft website at www.microsoft.com .

You cannot make the All Users Shared Document folder private in Windows XP Home Edition on either a FAT32 or an NTFS-formatted hard disk.

The problem doesn’t stem from subdomains, it stems from the spambots he initially deployed to leave messages on messagebaords and blog comments to create links to his site (making his sites seem that much more popular to the google-bots). Google has already admitted that Link Popularity is no longer a reliable way to gauge a site’s value, due to spam tactics like this, and will be valuing it less in future updates to the engine.

There must be a better way of determining a spamsite than by just looking for the existence of a subdomain. Many sites (including this one, but also biggies like wikipedia, slashdot, pretty much every major site on the web) use and rely upon subdomains to categorize content. So these site owners are faced with a challenge: change organization methods to maintain inclusion, or drop from the search engines (could you imagine wikipedia on page 50?).

Google-bot, listen to me! Bring this message back to your creators! For the love of sanity, don’t punish subdomains just for being subdomains! You’ve got some really smart people there, some of the smartest in the world…you can find another solution!