When I hear people talking about how many feeds they subscribe to, I’m nearly always astounded by the amount. I’ve seen the number vary from 80 to 500. That’s just crazy. I admire any person who is able to give so much time to their feeds because they’re probably the most productive people on the earth.

I certainly don’t have enough time (sadly) to give even eighty blogs the time and attention they deserve. Because I don’t put any blog in my feed reader. I’ll add a blog in there if I really, really enjoy it and I get excited about a new post coming down the line. If not, then that blog probably just isn’t for me.

Right now I’m subscribed to twenty-eight feeds, I’ve done this by employing a couple of methods that allow me to sort through the noise and get not only the most important news – but also the best opinions in the blogosphere.

Subscribe to Aggregators

I don’t use a folder system in NetNewsWire, but if I did – the Apple folder would contain only three blogs. Daring Fireball and Nobody Wants A Stylus (which currently seems to have slowed down a bit unfortunately) are two of the blogs. What you’ll notice about these is that they both sift through all Apple and iPhone news leaving only the most relevant pieces.

To top that they also happen to offer some terrific opinion articles that I know a large amount of the Apple community values. The third blog I subscribe to in this category happens to be The Macalope – because he’s just plain funny and offers a sometimes very different insight into Apple’s habits.

I’ve been able to do this in a lot of areas, and if I didn’t subscribe to so many personal blogs (not that that’s a bad thing) I would probably be subscribed to a lot less feeds as that makes up a large percentage of what I read.

Visit the Big Boys

Who are the big boys? These are blogs that tend to relay interesting a relevant (in my opinion) news. So, you’ve got the classic examples such as Engadget and Autoblog. But the thing is, I don’t subscribe to them, instead I visit them using my web browser.

Why? Simply because I probably only read about ten percent of the posts that are written, thoroughly. Instead, I visit the site in question and skim through all the recent articles until I see a story title that I find interesting.

Blogs like these tend to post several new pieces a day and all that would do – if subscribed – would be clog up my feed reader and in the end stop me from using one all together.

Feeds are precious things. Sadly a good one is very hard to come by. Right now I’m looking for more: interesting, insightful and thought provoking weblogs.

For those interested, they can download a copy of my OPML file here (right click and save as) and if they have any suggestions for a new blog I should try out or want to share their OPML file – please leave a comment pointing it out.

Collis Ta’eed, of Envato, has launched a new blog called, The Netsetter, focusing on internet marketing, online business and design. So far he’s got three posts online – all interesting and informative.

I’ve been looking for a blog like this for a while, if you know of any similar – email me.

When the conversation turns to web hosts, everyone has something to say. Be it positive or negative, it’s one of those (geek) subjects that people love to query each other on. I received an email recently that pretty much asked: “Who is the best web host?“. Not an easy question at all. Because you’ll find, that no matter what company you ask someone on – there will always be some sort of horror story.

Unfortunately, the majority of the comments people get about web hosts are always negative.

Why? Due to a vocal minority; in which people, simply due to human nature find it a lot easier and interesting to complain about things that don’t work instead of praising great things. After all, our newspapers are covered with scandals and bad news.

Furthermore, if someone has a problem, they’re going to post on a few forums asking for help, so just by doing that they’re adding to the negative swell of comments. While, on the other hand, if they’re content – they don’t need to say anything.

Because of this I’ve decided to ignore the majority of bad hosting complaints. Everyone, as I mentioned previously, has some problems with a web host. Instead, I would see how many positive responses you get from people without mentioning names.

So, you’ve got to try and reach out to people and ask them for their hosting experiences.

Testing The Water

Twitter can be a very useful tool when looking for advice with hosting in two ways. Firstly, direct responses to you. If you put it out there that you are looking for a good, reliable, and easy to use hosting service. I can guarantee that you’ll probably get a response. It’s a little harder when you mention specific companies, and by not doing so you’ll find that people will suggest hosts that have been good to them rather than slamming those which have not offered a great service.

The second method I would employ would be to use Twitter’s search functionality. By doing this you can search for both positive and negative points and see if you think that they are going to affect you. For instance; you could search for “Media Temple“. At the time of writing, all you will see is negative responses in the Twitter search as they recently had a major outage.

That said, they’re meant to be one of the best hosts, especially if you want great support.

Beware

I’m not saying everyone would do this, far from it. But when asking for recommendations, you should check if they link to a web host with an affiliate link without telling you. Because if they don’t notify you – they could be lying through their teeth and just want a little bit of cash.

As I stated previously, I am not saying everyone would do this, but it’s certainly something to look out for.

My Way

When I chose my hosting company, I simply decided to ask a friend, as to his experiences and if he would recommend them. I took his advice and since then have been trucking along happily with Siteground (don’t worry, it’s not an affiliate link!). Sure there have been a few issues and their website does look pretty terrible. But they’re reasonably reliable and have very fast customer support.

At the end of the day, hosting is a bit of a risk, and I challenge you to find a hosting provider who has never had an outage at some point in their history.

I’m bored. Really, really bored. Over the last few months I have watched people leave college and start working; sometimes for themselves, and often for others. I’ve also watched people become redundant and, if you’re trying to look at the positive side of things, they now have had the slate wiped clean – an infinite number of opportunities now available to them.

While all that has been happening, I, on the other hand, have been stuck in the classroom, exam hall and my room – doing homework. I don’t know what I really want to do in life – but I know what I don’t want to do. Put up with this seemingly endless bombardment of useless information for another minute.

But I do.

Why? Because at the end of the day I know that the harder I work, the more effort that I put into my education, I am widening my horizons, and when one doesn’t know what they want to do in life. That’s very reassuring to know.

Right now, I’m at the point when I’m looking into Universities and I’m not sure what to do. Every single person I talk to tells me that I must go to University, and I know why they say that – it’s just what’s ‘done’.

However, there is this voice in the back of my head asking me if I can really bare an extra four years of education – useful or not. I see the rational direction in which to go in. But yet, against everything my head is telling me – my instinct, just wants me to get out there and start doing something with my life.

So in the mean time, before I really have to start choosing Universities and what else I want to do; I’d better get back to digging my hole.

Audi’s CEO on the Economic Downturn –

“We heard about it, so we had a board meeting and discussed it thoroughly and have decided not to participate.”

Brilliant.

[Source: The Telegraph Newspaper]

Dan Benjamin on Avatars -

Even if people don’t automatically remember your name or your website, they’ll remember your avatar and make an association. When they see it again later, on another network or site, they’ll be more likely to pay attention, to friend you, and maybe remove a few of those degrees of separation.

Very true. Often when I’m looking for new people to follow on Twitter, I’ll look out for an avatar that stands out from the rest. I’m now in the process of changing all my avatars to the new same picture.

How many companies’ adverts do you actually go looking for to watch again after you first see it on TV? I can think of two. Firstly Microsoft’s, because to get any idea what they were actually talking about you had to watch them several times, and secondly – Apple’s.

Why? Because they actually show you what the product can do in less than thirty seconds. They don’t just give you a reason to buy the product, they give you several good reasons. Especially the iPhone ads.

In the UK we’ve got an ad very similar to this one. What does that ad tell you about Blackberry? Pretty much nothing apart from the fact that they make phones and they’ve got a really crappy marketing department.

While, this ad on the other hand, has a rather different story. Apple’s ads give you instances that might actually happen while you’ve got your iPhone on you. The total opposite direction to RIM, who are to afraid that when you start looking at the low-res pixelated screen and hard to use navigation buttons – you’ve going to be turned off the product.

And they’re right to be scared. Every Blackberry I’ve come across has had a sucky interface.

In the case of Apple’s advertising efforts: they’re talking about getting a cab, working out your share of the dinner bill and one of the coolest apps I’ve seen so far – the leveler! Sure, you might not use them everyday, but they’re the sort of apps that one might find handy every so often and make a great demo.

Apple are trying really hard to sell their product, and that shows through very clearly. RIM however, have a harder job. Everyone has heard of the iPhone, but it’s a different story with Blackberry; so they have to introduce the product and show of its features in the same amount of time. In the case of this ad, they manage to do neither.

RIM wants to be seen as innovative and cool. Why does it matter though? Surely, if it looks cool people will want to buy it? After all, there is no doubt that they used some pretty spiffy stuff to make the ad.

Apple manages to get away with not using lots of fancy effects because everyone knows that the iPhone is cool, that everything Apple makes is cool. If you own an iPhone – you’re cool. The Blackberry on the other hand… lets face it, isn’t very cool. At all. RIM are trying to turn around the Blackberry brand. They’ve worked out that if they’re going to survive in the current financial climate – they need to branch out into the consumer market.

The latest advertising effort by RIM is to show the world that they do more than business, after all; I didn’t see one image of corporate life in that ad. The problem is, they haven’t gone about it in the right way. They should be telling me what I can do, as a teenager everyday, with a Blackberry.

Sorry RIM, but you’ve got quite a bit further in your advertising efforts to go if you want me to trade my iPhone in for a Storm.