If you haven’t noticed the new Google reader’s design, you should give it another go-around.  I was not impressed with the old format and didn’t use it at all.  The new version (still in beta of course) is MUCH easier to use, has a much cleaner interface, and as usual for Google, loads fast.  If you’ve got a Gmail account, you’ve got reader.  If not, hollar at me (leave a comment here), I’ll send you an invite.

10 things you didn’t know about Google…and probably don’t care about.  Link.

Finally, Google calendar adds Verizon Wireless to their notifications… now it’s a calendar I can use all the time.

John Dvorak has written a great article over at MarketWatch.com regarding eight ways that Microsoft is “dead in the water.”  It’s a small, yet  to the point article with great insight.  In summary, Microsoft has become to big and has forgotten their roots:

I see a company that has settled in and has become big, profitable, and unexciting, lacking real focus or spirit.

Here’s the link to the rest of the article.

It seems that Microsoft wants to buy a rather large piece of Yahoo.  I don’t know what this will mean for Yahoo’s future (besides the monetary value) but I’m glad that I moved all my email and searching to Google.

Google is working on redoing their search results.  I was thinking something like Ask.com’s binocular’s but the way Google is doing it seems better (of course).  Here are some preview screenshots.

I finally got the Google calendar button in my Gmail today.  The new caldendar is very easy to use, has a clean interface, and sends out reminders for events, which I find to be the best part.

Looks like I switched to Gmail at the right time.  Yahoo is discontinuing their “plus” services, which means if you subscribed to their plus email service, you are now going to loose 1gb of data storage.  I suspect that Yahoo will be changing their service at some point to match Google’s but this is still a blow.  Read more here.

This would be a sweet place to work.  Free haircuts, swimming pools, even your pets are allowed.  Check out Time’s photoessay on the “Googleplex.”

I spent a few hours this weekend moving my email from Yahoo’s system over to Gmail.  Using this piece of software from Mark Lyon, I finally got everything moved.  As well, if you’re like me, you have a couple of websites and several email addresses.  Setting up Gmail for this is rather simple but I found this tutorial in case someone needed help.