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In case you haven’t heard, Google opened a new office in New York. The place has a great view (see the pic on the left) and the space is very Googley. Yes yes, I really use that word. I went up there for the opening and managed to end up in one of the articles done about it. It was fun to send my mom the article as she is still giggly about where I work. When she saw the picture the first thing she says is “Wow it looks like you guys have toys at work….do you have toys?!” Cute.
Speaking of New York, I may move there pretty soon. I’ve been looking for apartments online and I’m already exhausted. Searching for apartments in New York is like searching for apartments on Mars. It’s truly unlike anything I’ve ever done before and I don’t recommend it to anybody. Thankfully, I’ve been using the updated Google Reader to kind of help with this a little. Currently I’m subscribed to feeds from Craigslist and Google Base (how come more apartment search sites don’t have feeds?!) that are customized to the exact kind of apartment I’m looking for. See, I’m not one for going out somewhere to do my laundry. Call me spoiled but something about being able to toss a load in whenever I so desire works for me.
anyhow, I never used Google Reader before because I didn’t like the interface. The most I did with it was had it power the RSS feeds on my blogs sidebar (Dugg and I Wish…). However with the new interface, it’s actually usable! For the apartment hunt, I have a tag called apartment hunt (shock!). I’ve applied that tag to both the Craigslist and Base feeds and now I can keep an eye on apartments that fit into my criteria. By the way, if you know of more apartment hunting sites that have feeds, I’d appreciate if you left a comment with the link.
Back to Reader, while its got a nice new look and some cool features, there are still things that are missing. For example, it’s not possible to search feeds. For example, if I wanted to find all the items with the word “Brooklyn” in the apartment hunt tag, I’d have to go back to the feed source and modify my search there. Not helpful at all. Also, unless I’m totally missing something, (someone correct me if I am) its not possible to create new tags without first applying them to individual items. The lack of auto-refreshing is annoying. I hate having to click refresh to see new items. However, aside from those 3 things, the new Reader is fab. Congrats to the folks who worked on it. 
Okay so this post has gotten much longer than I planned for it to be so I’ll save the rest of what I wanted to say for another day. Have a good weekend folks!
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Justin Haugh
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Darla Mack
