Google Talk

The Google empire continues to spread. There are articles in today's Guardian and NYT about Google Talk, the newly launched VoIP/IM beta. It's limited to Gmail account holders, so I've added a few people to my list to try it out (if you want to add me, it's tmvogel@gmail.com). It looks like you can configure GAIM, Trillian Pro and other third party IM managers to accept the Google Talk information (but not sadly, not the free Trillian). Is it worth upgrading to Trillian Pro? I went ahead and upgraded to Trillian Pro and configured it for Google Talk using the Jabber plugin.

I'm curious to see how it compares to Skype, which has been a joy to use while working on the CMS article with 2 of my friends and former colleagues at Georgia State. It's worked well in my office, outside the library on my laptop, even at home using the dialup.

Webfeeds: Cambridge Journals Online

Cambridge Journals Online, as promised, is now offering feeds (RSS/Atom) for their journals. The feed links are on each journal homepage, as well as listed together on a single page. I didn't see anything on the site that give an explanation of how to use the feeds--or the difference between the RSS and Atom options--but I'm hoping this is in progress. The feed links are not embedded in the RSS and Atom buttons. Instead, they take you to the explanatory page. The two pages are virtually identical, going so far as to include RSS and Atom are just two different formats that do basically the same thing on each, with the feed link at the bottom of the page (RSS 2.0 or Atom 0.3).

This is a vast improvement of that other multidisciplinary publisher (OUP) that still doesn't have all their feeds listed on a single page.

Webfeeds: Cambridge Journals Online

They don't have them available yet, but RSS/Atom feeds are listed as one of the new features available when the CJO site goes live on August 8.