It’s not secret that I love Google and all of it’s by-products. (Except Picasa. I’m still too much of a flickr whore to use Picasa.) Well today? There were all sorts of new things waiting for me in my Google Reader. I can now “LIKE” things I read. It is evidently not the same as “SHARING” – which puts them on my sidebar you see to the right – but people in Google Reader who read that same article will see a note that tells them someone likes it and they can see who…and I guess I’ll be on that list? I’m not exactly sure yet. But that doesn’t stop me from clicking that “LIKE” smiley face on things! I’m crazy with the liking! It requires less commitment than sharing but it still shows my favor! Bring on the liking!

The other thing I found was that when I clicked on “Your Stuff”, there was a box asking me for my thoughts!

Now, evidently this has always been there and I’m just an idiot for not noticing, but I don’t know if I ever click on “Your Stuff” because, well, it’s my stuff so I know what’s there. But after finding the “LIKE” thing (that is new, right?) I guess I was just going click crazy to see if there was anything else new.

So, of course I had to type in it and guess what! It showed up on my sidebar! It’s like Twitter + Google Reader going on there. I mean, I don’t want my thoughts pushing back the articles I shared on my sidebar like they’ve done now…but still! So cool! I’m surprised I haven’t seen more people use that function yet. Of course, I have no idea what I’ll use it for (if anything) but I’m bound through adoration to proclaim my love for everything about Google Reader.

My point? I LOVE the new LIKE feature on Google Reader. And I LIKE the old Shared Thoughts feature.

What do you think? Are you going to “LIKE” this if it shows up in your Google Reader? I will because I can not resist something so awfully meta.

What you are seeing is my Google Reader window as it looked a few minutes ago. Now, the feeds you see in this image indicate the feeds that have updated since I last logged in to my Reader. Once I’ve read the feed, it disappears from the list. (Something you can change, of course.) What the red arrow is pointing at is one of my favorite features of the feed reader. My Friends Shared Items. Anyone who is one of my Google Contacts and who uses Reader to mark feeds, if they click “share” at the bottom of an entry, I’ll see it in that section. I’ve discussed before how much I love this feature and how some people share some of the coolest things. But the new thing that I’ve been meaning to talk about? Follow the red arrow below.

That arrow points to the new feature. See, now you can leave a comment on an item inside the feed reader for your other feed reader buddies. If you want to keep up with the comments on shared items, you click that little link “Switch to Comments View”.

Here you’ll see myself, Pink (my Google Reader Twin) and Sarah discussing the “New Moon” trailer (Of course. What else would we be discussing?) Anyway – my point of all of this is: USE GOOGLE READER. And more importantly? SHARE ITEMS. I want to see what you like! And maybe comment on it! Especially if it involves Taylor Lautner. I always have something to say about him.

I’ve had several people contact me in the last week or two about my blog causing virus alarms all over the place on their computer. I’ve talked to my host and they didn’t really offer any helpful insight (I should switched a long time ago.) and I was starting to get really frustrated. I finally asked the last few people who mentioned it to send me information about what their computer was telling them. Finally? I got a lead.

Turns out some malicious code had been inserted into one of my recent Wordpress entries. How they did that – I have no idea. I have changed all passwords and upgraded the the latest copy of Wordpress to keep it from happening again. But, I thought I’d share with you how I found the code.

One of the articles someone sent me mentioned the term “iframe” as a way to identify this type of malicious code. I loaded up my blog and then did a “Ctrl+U” to view the source of the page. Then I did a “Ctrl+f” to search the page for the phrase “iframe”. I found the line of code you see in the below picture.

Oddly enough, it was inside an entry I had written recently. When I went back to my Wordpress dashboard and went to edit that entry, I found that line of code inside of the entry. I have no idea how it got there but I removed it immediately. I am hoping this solved the problem (I did a database search for similar results and found nothing else) but more importantly – I wanted to help others who may have been as lost as I was to hear their website was triggering virus alerts.

So…if you get an email from someone saying your website turned on their virus alerts or gave them some sort of “Malicious Code!” warnings – do a search for the term “iframe” and hope you don’t find anything.

Stupid hacking bastards. Why can’t they leave a boring Mommy Blogger like me alone? Bah.

This article may take a little bit of a harsh approach to all things Twitter – but I do agree with this specific sentiment:

But I’m giving it up. I know I’ll get roasted for being anti-tech. But, what I really am is pro meaningful communication. And somewhere along the Internet highway we fell under the spell that more communication is better communication. Sometimes more communication is just noise.

I still use Twitter pretty minimally. Lately I’ve used to to update several people at one time, and I do find it a good way to pass time if I’m bored (and maybe stuck on the shuttle ride from hell) and forgot my book. I also follow a bunch of people on Twitter who I like to keep up with (Jimmy Fallon twittered on the Today Show today! Hee!) in that celebrestalker kinda way. (What? I admit it!) But I do feel like sometimes I forget that 140 characters is not enough to nurture a relationship or friendship. Sometimes it’s just enough to offend people.

I think I may take this as motivation to write a few letters this week. Dig out the gobs and gobs of awesome stationary, buy some stamps, and communicate the old-fashioned way. Just for the hell of it.

In case you’re reading in the feedreader, I wanted you to see what my new site design looks like. (I would never force you to come over from the feed reader to view it, I find comfort in my own feed reader as well and hate when I feel forced to leave it’s security.) (What? Too serious when referencing the relationship with my feed reader?)

Do you like it? I used another tagline derived from Dr. Horrible, I just couldn’t help myself. (I think someone else who might be giving her entries titles from Dr. Horrible would commiserate.) I got the DVD for Christmas and am still quite obsessed with it. I decided I wanted something a little more cheery around here so I went for birds. And then immediately regretted that I chose these birds as soon as I realized how close to the Twitter site my design now looked. sigh. I just can’t win, can I?

I made a few changes on the sidebar, adding a section that will show the political movements I’m keeping up with. There’s one there today that’s even great for the conservatives in the audience. Please remember, while I tend to err on the Liberal/Progressive side of politics — I still sometimes may offer something on the sidebar that the conservatives would like as well. I’m not going to direct you to any of my Reproductive Rights efforts, but justice for military men who might have been knowingly poisoned? That’s a non-partisan issue if I’ve ever heard of one.

I also took out my husband’s and son’s flickr updates from the bottom of the page. Since they updated flickr like…never? Seemed kinda silly. I did, however, add buttons for most of the projects I’ve been involved with recently or things I’m proud of joining.

On top of the new design, I finally upgraded to Wordpress 2.7. And let me tell you? I’M SO HAPPY WITH IT. So far, anyway. My category box for my composing page? Is back on the side (instead of below where I always forgot about it) so I’m hoping I won’t have as many entries accidentally filed in the default category anymore. Not something any of you probably notice or care about, but for someone slightly OCD like me? I’m thrilled.

I like the interface better all together. Everything just seems prettier. Silly, I know, but the prettier my interface? The more fun it is to blog.

So – that’s it for the Geeky McDorkerson updates for the day. Let me know what you think! Unless you hate it all, then please don’t say anything. THANKS!

Also, I was told that the birds below – separating the entries – look kinda like bras. Do you agree? Should I re-order them to look less…bra-like?