Google realized that one of the reasons Google Talk has such a small number of users is that you need to have a Gmail account to use it. And that wasn’t too necessary. Of course, you had your Gmail contacts, mail notification, your chats were searchable in Gmail and the voicemail you received looked better, but the basic client doesn’t need a Gmail address.
Google Blog reports that now anyone can try Google Talk, if they have a Google Account. So if you’re in this situation, you just have to sign up for GTalk, choose a nickname, and get the client (1.5 MB, Windows 2000/XP). You’ll notice that the interface still talks about Gmail and features like mail notification are visible, but don’t work.
Google claims “there are millions of people around the world to chat with”.
Update: Google also released Google Talk 1.0.0.98, fixing some bugs, and introducing others. Offline contacts and those who use Gmail Chat have non-working options like “Call” and “Send files”.

Subscribing to RSS feeds
But first, to subscribe to a website or blogs RSS feed simply
means that you are telling that website or blog, Yes please. Send me your
story headlines.It’s like subscribing to a magazine or newsletter. Instead of
getting a magazine or email, you will just get a list of headlines sent to your
RSS reader. If the headline looks interesting to you, all you have to do is
click on the headline and you’ll be sent to the whole story.

In order to subscribe to a website or blogs RSS, all you have to
do is click on an RSS symbol like one of those shown in the diagram above, or a
text link of the words Subscribe to our RSS feed on the website or blog.
Typically, you can find these RSS symbols or text links in your browser window,
on the sides of the website page, or on the bottom of the page. The publishers
of the websites and blogs really want people to subscribe to their RSS, so they
will make it very easy for you to find the subscription links.

RSS Readers
Now, because nothing is ever standard on the web like dealing with
different operating systems, Mac vs. PC, and different flavored browsers like
Internet Explorer, AOL, Safari, and Firefox, the way to get an RSS reader will be
dependent on what browser you like to use, and how accessible you’d like your
RSS list(s) to be.

Just like there are flavors of web browsers, you may see and hear
of different flavors of RSS XML feeders like RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, and Atom. Again,
the flavors are only important if you want to get techie. If you stick to
looking for an RSS symbol like I have shown you in the diagram, you will be
just fine.

If you’d like your RSS list to be accessible from any computer or
mobile device you may have like a PDA, laptop, or cell phone, some popular RSS
readers include (and almost all are FREE):
MyYahoo
MyMSN
MyAOL
MyGoogle
Bloglines
FeedDemon (this one costs money)
NewsGator (there is a cost for mobile accessibility)
NetVibes
PageFlakes
Shrook (For Mac users. Free trial and then there’s a cost.)

As you can see, there are a plethora of choices for you. All are
good RSS readers, so your choice will simply come down to the style that
appeals most to you.

RSS as Live Bookmarks
Browsers like Safari and Firefox allow you to subscribe to RSS
feeds through the browser, and it’s called live bookmarking. Currently, you
can only do live bookmarking in Internet Explorer if you have IE7 which is
still in Beta. Oprah translation: Non-geeks cannot do live bookmarking in
Internet Explorer because it’s not done yet. The limitation with using RSS in
live bookmark form is that you only have access to your RSS list from the
computer you created the bookmarks on. If you want the flexibility of complete
accessibility, then I recommend going the RSS Reader route.

Here’s an example of an RSS live bookmark feed for the celebrity
gossip site TMZ.com using the Firefox browser on a PC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s an example of RSS live bookmark feed for the Yahoo Entertainment Celebrity page using the Mac Safari browser.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there you have it. Are you now Ready for Some Stories? Enjoy!

Windows only: Open source program myFairTunes6 is designed to remove
the digital rights management (DRM) from your iTunes Music
Store-purchased songs.

At the moment, myFairTunes is a pretty young app with room for
improvement, but it does allow you to losslessly strip your tunes of
Apple’s DRM, and it’s maturing very quickly. Like previously-mentioned FairUse4WM
(a PlaysForSure/Windows Media DRM counterpart), use myFairTunes6 at
your own risk. Personally, when DRM limits me beyond a certain point,
I’m all for stripping – unfortunately the Man might not agree with me. — Adam Pash