#whatleydude

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It’s been a bit quiet around here lately -

1. I got busy.  It happens. Between work (more on that shortly), organising and speaking at events, and generally a whole bunch of other stuff; life has been a bit hectic. As I said, it happens.

2. No more blogging projects (for the time being at least). Well, Five things on Friday came to an end, which meant no more enforced blogging, which in turn took my brain out of the habit of writing [here]. Trimming is still on-going, but what with the whole Google Reader thing, I’m loathe to dive into them at the moment.

3. Podcasting. The Voicemail is where you can find my mobile rantings, in audio format obviously. My co-host is back from his travels now and we’re about to get back into the swing of things. A good time to subscribe, I’d say.

4. Other blogging. I mentioned getting busy; we relaunched the Ogilvy Soho Square blog (oh yeah, I don’t work in PR anymore, I should write something about that) which, at the time of posting, is 100% my own domain, just while I get it off the ground and cajole a few members of the team into taking part. There are a few posts up already, some silly, some not. If you’re into social media and the latest thinking (of mine) around it, then I suggest you add Soho Square to your reading list too. Follow us on Twitter for when we publish…

Oh, and on a personal note, I’m messing about on Tumblr these days too.

5. What of My Happy Place?  All of the above means that blogging here is coming last on the list (again, for the time being), but I’ve got a couple of things coming down the pipeline – including my first ever GUEST POST from the one and only Bizhan Govindji.

Amazing, I know. Here’s a question for you, what’s the most exciting thing you’re working on right now?

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Planning on updating this post as new GReader options start to appear and I get to play with each of them according.

This is not a drill. (last updated 9:05, March 14th).

AGAIN: Google is closing down Google Reader on July 1st.

Take a moment to process that… then read on.

Marketing Land, where I first read the news (before The Verge got it up, before Techcrunch nailed it too), is building up a list of replacements (all of which I am yet to try). So far they have:

Netvibes

Feedly

Flipboard

Other notables are

Newsblur

Hivemined

The Old Reader

Edit 1: LifeHacker has a good transfer guide too. 

Edit 2: Feedly is swiftly becoming the new Reader of choice. Here’s why:

‘Google announced today that they will be shutting down Google Reader. This is something we have been expecting for some time: We have been working on a project called Normandy which is a feedly clone of the Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandy back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless.’

Thanks to GigaOm and JMac (comments) for the tip.

Outside of those, go follow Russell Beattie. He’s been working on a Google Reader replacement for a while – aka Magnet.io – and if we all go give him our support, it might just make it out before Google hit the shutdown button.

‘Google Reader’ is trending above ‘Pope’ – DO YOU HEAR THAT GOOGLE?!

— James Whatley (@Whatleydude) March 14, 2013

I’m just sad. So sad. Google Reader is where I get my news. It’s where I find my random. It’s what drove my Five things on Friday last year, and it’s what drives my weekend link blasts over Twitter.

It sounds dramatic but, I genuinely am distraught. Anyone who knows my blogging habits knows that I am a news hound. I search for the new, the unknown, the esoteric.. and I share it. Google Reader has been my weapon of choice for as long as I can remember and now, quite literally, its days are numbered.

No good can come of this.

 — – – 

Right now, I don’t know which service to switch to. To be perfectly honest a lot of it will depend on whether a) the next platform can take the weird-ass download file Google gave me, and b) if Reeder App will support it too.

Google Reader was great. Then it was good. Soon it will be gone. 

For now, we mourn. 

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OK, I’ll go first –

Carphone Warehouse asked me to put together my top five iPad apps.

So, here they are. Ready?

1. Chrome I’m so late to the Chrome-across-multiple-devices party it’s ridiculous. I’ve used Chrome on the desktop for yonks, then I added it to my phone (at the moment: the Motorola RAZR i), and then I finally added it to my iPad. Sign-in sync is nothing short of a revelation.

Alright some of you are going to be reading this going ‘OH COME ON WHATLEY! HOW HAVE YOU NOT BEEN USING THIS?!’ – well, I haven’t. Deal with it.

But seriously, it’s ace. I’m on my MacBook Pro at work; I open up some tabs to read later and when I get on the tube on the way home? Boom, there’s my stuff waiting for me on my iPad. Brilliant.

2. Paper by Fifty-Three I’ve been using Paper since March last year when I spotted an awesome write-up over on Read Write Web. Since downloading it I’ve used it for a TON of things. From sketching superheroes (and super villains) to inventing mind robots that know when you want a cup of tea.

Paper is magnificent. It’s not cheap (if you want all the bells and whistles) but it’s 100% worth the investment.

3. Spotify When you absolutely positively gotta have music when you’re cooking in the kitchen: accept no substitute. My iPad is my portable stereo system when I’m around the house and Spotify, when linked with a fairly awesome bluetooth speaker, follows me around the home everywhere. Winner.

4. Reeder Geez, where do I start? Outside of browsing the web, I’d say this is probably my number one used app on my iPad. Pulling in the feeds from my Google Reader, Reeder is where I consume my web.

The best things about Reeder for iPad are as follows

It’s my Google Reader, dammit!

It downloads content to read offline (essential for commuting)

Awesome sharing options (but no Tumblr – weird)

Everyone I know swears by it

I feel like it’s my friend – yes, that’s weird; and no, I don’t care.

5. Amazon Kindle I use this app almost every day. Like Chrome, it’s mostly used on the commute to and from work; it’s the perfect accompaniment. And again like Chrome, I love the sync feature. I’ve got Kindle on all of my devices; I close the app on one device and when I open it on the next, it’s on the same page! It’s such a simple and easy thing but it makes ALL the difference.

And that’s that, in short: browsing, creating, listening, reading, and reading.

What’s on your iPad?

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Things of note for the week ending November 2nd, 2012

1. New poster for The Wolverine This dropped earlier this week and it is gorgeous. Bold, stark and perfectly reminiscent of the 1982 mini-series that the film is based upon. It’s a little less controversial than the first teaser poster (apparently the locals weren’t happy with the apparent destruction of their flag) and alright we’re going to have wait until July to see if James Mangold‘s version will be anywhere near as good as I hoped Aronofsky’s version would be but still, it bodes well.

If you want to know more about The Wolverine, I’d suggest you go and watch this video (featuring my friend Ryan, and posted by my friend Rob – the guys I mentioned I last week), which features an interview with both the film’s lead and director.

2. Taste the rain

I have a love/hate affair with autumn at the moment, but this piece of art speaks to me on so many levels. I just, I just can’t stop looking at it. It’s crying out for breath. There’s so much going on. I adore it.

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3. Halloween!

Any excuse for dress up, right?

Two parties, one costume.

Epic times.

4. Muse are hilarious This is old, but I don’t care. I liked it. Apparently, Muse don’t like to mime.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brilliant.

5. Rob’s THINGS This week I (re)discovered the blog of Rob Hinchcliffe. He does a similar thing to my Five Things but his is called ‘Inspiring and Interesting Things This Week‘ or ‘I.I.T.T.W.‘ (catchy, I know). If you’re after a source of interestingness (hey, that might a reason you’re reading this post right now), then I recommend you go have a look.

Seriously, without it I wouldn’t have discovered the by far away best thing I’ve read all week which was this fantastic three page long interview with the master magician Teller (one half of Penn & Teller).

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Bonuses this week; apparently psychopaths are more attractive than the rest of us (this explains a LOT); all the 2screen reports you’ll ever need (big love to The Guardian for that one); and this piece from Warren Ellis is a damn good read too. 

  Whatley out.

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EDIT: Apologies to those of you that subscribe by email and received an unfinished article in your inboxes early this morning. God knows how I managed to hit the publish button by mistake, but I did. And hey, if you don’t subscribe by email, why don’t you give it a go? You’ll never miss a post and it’s easy too – you just have to pop your email address in one of the boxes on the right and you’re away!

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Here endeth the lesson -

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…is a great film. Seriously.

If you’ve not seen it yet, seek it out. It’s a bit dark, in an Ill Manors kind of way but definitely worth it.

When you watch it though, realise that it could also be interpreted as a companion piece to the Dark Knight trilogy – aka – ‘Where would Alfred end up if he was never hired by the Wayne family?’

True story.