I’m really starting to like what XML has done to the internet. I’ve been playing around with aggregators for the last month or so and I have to say I am really impressed with the convenience they offer. Instead of spending a great deal of time and effort pointing my browser to different websites to see if they’ve updated, all I have to do now is point my aggregator to their XML feeds and the updates come to me! It’s basically like having the articles e-mailed to me in a concise manner where I can then scan them and quickly decide whether I wish to read further.

My current aggregator of choice is SharpReader RSS Aggregator, which is built on the .NET Framework. It’s intuitive, unobtrusive, and most importantly, FREE!

It’s such a neat thing I even have KodyMyers.net’s XML feed in there – as if I actually need it to tell me when I update my own website. How pathetic is that?

Props to Brandon for the Gmail invite. I guess I now get to consider myself one of the elite few, though I find the whole thing blown way out of proportion. I can see how 1 GB of e-mail space can be appealing, but the resulting onslaught of sites such as gmail swap and Gmail Machine seem a little over-the-top.

I have to say, though, that I’m already quite fond of Gmail’s simple, quick-loading interface. Once I get a few messages in there, maybe I’ll be able to make use of some of the other features. There’s just so much hype surrounding it that I can’t help but remain skeptical.