Google+ Traffic Falls As Users Spend Less Time on Site. –This makes me sad.  I have really high hope for G+, but then again I don’t spend a whole lot of time there either.

Slider photo by Ryan Matthew Smith/The Cooking Lab LLC

First off, if you don’t use an RSS reader or are unfamiliar with what they are, start here.  If you are feed savvy, let me tell you what I do, also feel free to share your methods in the comments.  I use a weird combination of Reeder, Reading List, and Instapaper.  A friend told me about Instapaper  a couple of years ago, and I knew that it was tailored for my squirrel-like attention span.  The jist of it is that if you see something you like online, add it to Instapaper so you can come back to it later or at least tell yourself that you’re going to come back to it later.  Likewise, I’ve been hooked on Reeder since I first laid eyes on it as an iOS app, it makes Google Reader usable.   Not that Google Reader is hard to use, but it is more difficult than it needs to be.  Reeder beautifies it and makes it more intuitive.  This is especially true now that the Mac app has come out of beta and will let you manage subscriptions right inside the app.

One of the things that I really like about Reeder is how simple it is to save something for later reading.  Just swipe left in the iOS app or click the Instapaper button in the upper right corner  and you’re all set, provided that you’ve entered your Instapaper credentials.  This was all well and good until Apple added that little pair of glasses to their safari browser.  Now, anytime that I come across anything that I want to re-visit, I can press cmnd+shift+d to store it in my Reading List.  The best part is that it instantly syncs across all my devices.

Like a lot of people, I assumed that Reading List would completely eliminate the need for any of the “read later” apps or bookmarklets.  The more that I use it, the more that I think otherwise.  They both have their place.  I use Instapaper to save things that I find in my RSS feeds, and I use Reading List to save things that I come across on my own or through links from friends, or twitter, or anywhere really that is not in my RSS feeds.  As of yet, Instapaper has very little to worry about, at least from the people that use it the way that I do.  No, their problem is just around the corner.   I suspect that third party app companies, such as Reeder, will soon see the beauty and simplicity of Reading List and start building it into their applications.  This is where apps like  Read It Later, Instapaper, and Readability will start to take a hit from Apple’s native solution for a problem that many people didn’t even realize that they had.

(LIfehacker.com)

Top 10 Secret Features in Mac OS X Lion.

(slide photo courtesy SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent))

Make or Buy? Ice Cream | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn.

photo courtesy of modernistcuisine.com

We'll happily re-affirm our fertility in exchange for this bedroom set.

I’m a big fan of the people over at design-milk.com. I’m not completely sure how I first came across them, but they were one of the first feeds in my google reader.  It was through their site that I chanced upon ubabub.  (design-milk actually found them through another site, Black Eiffel.)  I hope I didn’t leave anyone out.  I believe they’re an Australian company and I couldn’t find any stores here stateside that sell them, let alone any here in little Prairie grove.  It’s a shame because our daughter is about to move to a big-kid bed, and I love love love the designs by ubabub.  Frugality aside, I may try to find a way to get one of the Nifty Timber Jr Beds.  Honestly, I think we might have another baby just to have a use for the Nifty Clear Cot with Sabi.  Keep in mind that I still have to sell the wife on more kiddos, so don’t pull out your checkbooks yet.  (not really, send as much as you’d like)

Simplistic patio heaven

Okay, so maybe it’s not stronger, but it does do an amazing job at blocking the sun. Heck, it even blocks some of the harmful UV rays. For those of you that don’t know, and I have to admit that it wasn’t that long ago that I was among you, it’s called a pergola. Many pergolas out there have a series of slats that cross the top of them to provide different levels of shade throughout the day. Ours, thanks to the fine folks at Easy Gardener, provides nice, cool shade all day long. I say cool, it’s at least cooler than it would normally be in Arkansas during the summer. One of the nicest things about our pergola is the cost. After it was all said and done, I think we have less than $400 invested in this beauty. live pretty frugally, so this was actually a pretty hefty investment. I can honestly say that it was a sound investment, as the family time that we have shared beneath it has been worth every dime. Other than the few days that it has rained, we haven’t missed an opportunity to eat outside since it’s completion.

Both the idea and the decision came from my wife. She had just returned from P. Allen Smith‘s Garden2Blog event in Little Rock where Easy Gardener was a sponsor. We had tossed around the idea of a pergola before, but were unsure of just how to finish the canopy. After speaking to one of their reps, she immediately called me and pointed me to their Sun Shade material. (Full disclosure, they ended up providing us with enough material to cover our pergola and create the roll-up shades.)

Dad was a huge help throughout the entire process

It took us a few trips to the big box home-improvment store to round up all of our supplies, and we had to retain the services of my father to help us out. He’s not a carpenter, but compared to me, he’s a regular (insert famous carpenter here). On of the things that the plans I had acquired didn’t tell us was how to fasten the supports to our existing patio. I didn’t want to dig through it, and I didn’t want to fasten the thing directly to our house either. The only other option was to drill into the patio, use some lag bolts to fasten some 4×4 mounts to the concrete, and then bolt the uprights to the patio. (see below)

Step 1: using a concrete bit , drill a hole into the concrete and affix concrete anchor

After we framed up the support beams, and set them in concrete for a couple of nights, thing progressed pretty quickly. Between the easy instructions, the hard work, and a little internet magic, you see that we were finished in no time at all. Seriously, if we hadn’t had to wait for the concrete to set up, we would have finished in one day. The hardest part was either cutting and fitting the 2×4 braces that fit in-between every 2×6 at exact, square, level intervals, or making straight cuts on the sun-shade material with rusty box-knife that I couldn’t remember to pick up blades for. Personally, I think the finished product turned out pretty well. More importantly, my wife seems to love it, and that makes me truly happy. (If you’re looking for more detailed instructions, they can be found here.)

Step 2: screw fastener to 4x4

Step 3: pergola

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

 

I don’t want to brag or toot my fanboy horn, but I have all three of these things.

Due to Apple’s strict NDA, I can only say: “Nya-Nya-Na-Nya-Nya.”