So, Friday the 7th, I saw a blurb go by on my screen that Google had introduced its RSS aggregator at the Web 2.0 meeting. I quickly tried it, only to find that everyone in the world was trying it too, and the performance was really bad, particularly for importing subscriptions (OPML files). However, over the weekend, things improved considerably, and I began to experiment with it. First, one thing that I really do like is that since it’s based on Google’s servers, I can read my subscriptions from multiple computers and it’s all synchronized. I’ve tried various stand-alone aggregators, the Sage Firefox extension, but having the ability to keep things in synch across multiple machines is great. Having said that, it’s taken me a while to get used to the way the Google reader works, and how to navigate. The more I use it, the more I like it…try it, your mileage may vary :-).

So, I’m catching up with various RSS feeds, trying to stay on top of things. There is so much information out there, it’s easy to miss important or interesting stuff. For example, I hadn’t realized that Level3 and Cogent had decoupled their peering arrangement this week. I read in a separate article in the Wall St. Journal that the impacts on average users are noticable…for example, Time Warner gets its IP service from Level3, and this meant that there was roughly 15-17% of the internet that was inaccessible to RoadRunner subscribers. Not good :-(. I found this really good article about the nascent hype about Web 2.0, in this article from the Register, Bubble 2.0. Incidently, this also mentions the Level3/Cogent issue.

As we move toward very high speed flows in optical networks, particularly in agile, dynamically switched networks, the ability to ensure the security and integrity of these networks is crucial. It’s much better to get security right “up front” than to try to engineer it in after the fact…

See this press release from Nortel…

This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time.

Check out the National Geographic Water Hole Cam in Botswana.

A great use of technology. Just think of the educational opportunities here, esp. in the K12 arena.

Note: as of 10/4/05, the site appears to be swamped (no pun intended!) — hopefully usage will stabilize, and we’ll be able to access again soon…