Ref Tech Rob

I was about to throw a fit at the news of Google Reader's impending demise, but then I saw this announcement from Feedly:  http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/ ...which is good news. I do think that Google is being short-sighted in this decision, though. I know that there has been declining use of Reader, and that many people depend on social sharing instead, but I really believe that most of the social discovery process is driven by a select few "super-sharers" who get their information from services like Google Reader. It's like getting rid of farms because most people get their food at grocery stores.  My commitment to the Google/Android ecosystem has been, in part, because of the investment I have in Google Reader as the backbone of my research/continuing education/professional development process. I'm not as committed to that now.

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The holidays have somewhat interrupted my weekly tool overview, so I've decided to focus this week on a tool I was hoping  to get over the holidays, plus one I have been promoting to my wife as she looks to replace her laptop soon. The irony is that both tools are unavailable, and have been for some time. I'm speaking of Google's Samsung Chromebook, and the Nexus 10. My wife uses her laptop mainly for internet searching and word processing, and she's looking for a way to automatically back up everything she writes, so she can access it from multiple locations. She uses many Google products, so there's no desire to move to Apple's eco-system. The Chromebook would be perfect for her, but the Samsung model got better reviews than the cheaper Acer model. It has been sold out for a while, though, with no indication that it will be available soon. It can't really be "For Everyone" if it's not available, right? She is still thinking about her ...