Educate Yourself About the News

There have been a number of high profile news stories in the media recently, but because of the soundbite nature of most modern television news stations, it’s often difficult to educate yourself on much of the deeper information behind these stories.

A great way to do so, however, is to visit the front page of the Wikipedia, the popular growing free encyclopedia on the web. On its front page, Wikipedia always lists a series of links to entries about the latest current events, allowing yourself to watch the news with an educated eye.

Talking Daleks

I found a wonderful source of these seven-inch tall little mechanical terrors in the United States in the form of Who North America.

Available in a number of colors based on various appearences over the last 40 years in the BBC’s Doctor Who television series, the Talking Dalek makes a great gift for any fan.

Fully articulate, with spinning head and movable eye stalk, plunger arm and weapon, the Dalek is sturdy enough for a little exterminating science-fiction play on your desk. The real magic, however, begins once you insert three AAA batteries (not included, of course) and press the cleverly hidding button on the front. A sound chip inside shouts out perfect little reproductions of well-known Dalekisms in a great mechanical voice while the ear bulbs flash just like on the show.

Who North America has some of the best prices for such merchandise here in the States, with the Talking Daleks coming in at $29.95 for most models, well below the average $40-50 most other collector sites are asking.

Marketing of Your Website Through RSS

BL Ochman has an article up at What’s Next Online entitled “A Totally Non-Techie Explanation of What You Need to Know About RSS“, which is a great introduction to using the growing popularity of RSS and syndication feeds to help market your website, even if it’s merely for a few more readers for a small blog or for more traffic on a large ecommerce website.

Although RSS technology is quickly becoming very mature, the popularity of its use by the mainstream public is still growing, leading to a situation not all that dissimilar to the state of the web in the late 1990s. Now is a great time to get up to speed on how to best use syndication feeds to better serve your website.