Google Reader Adds Search

It’s somewhat strange that it never had one until now, but Google Reader finally added the ability to search your feeds. I’ve gotten the feeling using it as my feed reader for the past year and a half that it’s like a side project at Google, except that it’s also the most popular web-based RSS reader out there. Other features I’d like are support for authenticated feeds and I’d like for it to sort entries by their timestamp, not the time that Google Reader indexed them.

Apple Slashes Prices on 4gB iPhones

Apple slashes prices on 4GB iPhones to $299 while they last

A Comprehensive Review of the '07 Shower Caddies

Man, I actually kind of want to read A Comprehensive Review of the ‘07 Shower Caddies. What advances have been made since I was in college?

Apple Releases 2007-09-05

Apple’s releasing new stuff right now. You can read about it on Engadget and Ars Technica. The thing where they’re going to charge for ringtones is bullshit. Clearly the iPhone’s technology could just let you assign a ringtone from a song in your library. I understand that there’s tons of money in the ringtone business, but it blows. Here’s a good take on that.

Facebook opens up limited profiles

Facebook announced today that very limited versions of profiles will soon become open to search engines and visible to non-members. This is a good thing. It means that Facebook can become, as GigaOM says, the quasi-White Pages of the Web. Naturally, Facebook has put up the proper privacy options so that you can exclude your profile from public searches. All they show to non- members is your name and picture, so there’s not a huge reason to stay hidden, but it’s good to have the option there. I’d actually like to have even more control over what becomes public. The ability to show my profile to search engines along with certain public information (what school I went to, my current city of residence, who my friends are) would allow me to make Facebook my primary profile page online, as opposed to having one on Vox, one on TypePad, one with TypeKey, etc., all with different settings and all of which need to be updated when I move.

One quibble: their little privacy setting box says “everyone” when it means “all Facebook members.” On a page where you’re talking about delineating between the entirety of the Web and just your own members, these things should be explicit.

Movable Type Supports OpenID

The new version of Movable Type has built-in support for OpenID commenting, which is great. I like the approach of presenting people with familiar icons to communicate the idea that the already have OpenIDs, and being able to hide all but the username and fill in the rest, they don’t even need to know that they’re using an OpenID. I’d like to see TypePad and Vox (and Blogger) add in OpenID support like this, too.

History of Labor Day

Cool piece about the History of Labor Day. Labor Day was created by unions to give workers a day off. Apparently the reason we celebrate it in the fall instead of in May is that we wanted to distance ourselves from Europe, where the holiday was a communist creation.

MarsEdit 2

A new version of MarsEdit is out, sporting what seem to be nice new features. I love MarsEdit. It’s one of those programs that makes you mad you can’t use a Mac all the time. Ars Technica has some info about the new release.

Apple's PR for the People

What amazes me whenever Apple takes a stand regarding its model for iTunes (everything costs the same, you own the song/video) is that it always manages to come out with the appearance that it’s doing this all for you, the consumer. Of course, it’s not hard to appear to be the one looking out for the little guy when you’re standing next to record companies and network executives.

To argue that subscriptions are the future of music

To argue that subscriptions are the future of music is to argue that DRM is the future of music, and the evidence points to the contrary. — John Gruber.