I've recently been nudged into the world of XML syndication through RSS, and have subscribed to several blogs using Liferea.

Liferea is still under active development, and so I make a point of checking the development blog as often as I can for new bugfixes and upcoming features. Today, the Sourceforge feed for Liferea was reporting on a new feature of Gmail.

Gmail provides Atom feeds of your inbox with messages, that you can download over an encrypted connection to an RSS newsreader, like Liferea this means you can check your email, the daily news, and your buddy's blog through one unified interface, without having to worry about prying eyes on unswitched networks reading your email.

To use this feature, your newsreader must support SSL encryption, or you need to have some external fetching command that does support secure http.

If you use Gmail, you can get to your Atom feed with this URL: https://gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom.

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Not even NPR can avoid reporting on the event that made Microsoft $100,000,000.00 in 24 hours. Halo 2 was released at 12:01 this morning and around the country geeks and gamers lined up loyally for the gem from Microsoft and Bungie.

The gameplay is similar to the first, with a few notable improvements. With the exception of some new particle effects, more detailed bump mapping, bloom effects, and some neat new distorting water effects, the game remains true in appearance to its predecessor. The physics are more realistic on the whole, and the environments take more advantage of this new physics.

With greater emphasis on the single-player storyline, the complaints that plagued the first release have disappeared. Maps in Halo 2 are more logical and far less monotonous. Halo was the app that made the Xbox a success, perhaps Halo 2 can ensure its survival in a bourgeoning handheld market.

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