Anyways, just a couple of things I wanted to point out that have caught my interest/are on my mind while time keeps flying by…

- Go switch your settings to use OpenDNS. This is to all of my nerd/non-nerd readers out there. If you have a high speed connection at home (DSL, cable, etc), you should be interested in this. It has without a doubt sped up my browsing at home. It’s a really simple tweak that you can do either on your computer or your router at home. PC or Mac. Wired or wireless. It doesn’t matter. It’s not spyware and doesn’t do anything evil and is absolutely free. Lots of people have been using OpenDNS lately and have had dramatic results in the speed of their internet connections.

- I’ve been hooked on the aspecialthing podcast. Interviews with comedians that matter. A great way to blow an hour(+) at a time. Maybe that’s where my time has been going?

- I’ve switched from my archaic webmail client for marusin.com to using Gmail. My email address hasn’t changed, just where the messages are being delivered to. So far, so good.

- I have given up on FeedLounge for the time being. I switched to them after there was a marusin.com record for the most comments ever to a post all in praise of FeedLounge. I have to say, I agree with most of them (when the service is working correctly). The interface is great. The response to support problems is great. Unfortunately, though, it is buggy as hell and it seems there’s a new issue I encounter on a daily basis. Between not being able to subscribe to certain weblogs to bugs with tagging to feeds not being updated enough to me being unable to access my feeds for a couple of days has made me go back to Bloglines. Without a doubt, I want to like FeedLounge but I feel burned and have a bad taste in my mouth right now. I have a year subscription and may revisit in a couple months when I feel better about things. Until then I’m back to my old standby.

- I’m hoping to record a podcast tonight to do a brain dump on my BarCamp Chicago experience. I have gotten a lot of personal emails regarding my post about my BarCamp Chicago experience. Just wanted to clear the air and it would probably much easier to talk through than type out. Hopefully, me writing this here reminds motivates me to record tonight. :)

Oh well.

Being up early, I started getting philosophical on things. It’s something I do when I’m deprived of sleep (or have drank too much wine ~ today, it’s the sleep). What I was thinking about this morning was how the next generation of people are going to have such a different level of knowledge and research capabilities because of the internet. Yeah, yeah I know. “No shit”, right?

The example that made me think about this was the R.E.M. kick that I’ve been on lately. They used to be my absolute favorite band when I was in high school (and into my early college years). Being young, dumb and from a small town, it was a huge breakthrough when someone explained to me what their name meant. Today, if you don’t know something you don’t have to worry about trying to find the answer deep inside of a library or running into someone that may know it offhand. All you need is a search engine and you can have your answer in seconds.

What I’m typing here isn’t anything earthshattering. In a way, I’m pointing out the obvious. I guess it just hit home with me (of course, it could be the hour of the day here and my lack of sleep playing with my head). It’s just that we have the capability of answering pretty much any question that comes across our minds.

We are all researchers now. Ten years ago, I never would have thought of myself in that way.

I know some people are detered by the cost of FeedLounge, but if it’s a useful tool then it’s totally worth it to me. I use my RSS reader more than anything else other than my actual operating system.