How come some people | They don't like nothing at all?

Its happened again. A popular, maybe even potentially useful service (in this case Google Reader) has ensured i won't be using it by providing me with an absolutely butt-ugly page interface and no way to change it *sigh*. Not that i'm Teh Expert when it comes to page design, and no snickering behind your hands, now. i'm using the only template i've gotten to WORK on this blog - found others i liked better, but Blogger didn't, and i don't know enuf CSS or whatever templates are in to tweak til it does. i still don't grasp why programs like Dreamweaver think you need to apply font coding separately to each and every paragraph, for instance, instead of once to the entire page which still seems to work just fine. And is why your old granny is writing this entry in TextEdit, not the Blogger editor - well, one reason.

The other being where i started, and that's the plague of horrendous boiler-plate social media sites who think nothing could be more appealing than some sort of greyish-blue header on a blank white page - when in fact the word they want is 'appalling', not appealing. Yech blech poison doglips. One of many reasons i'd drop Facebook like a Bush administration policy decision if all the same people were active on myspace. i hated myspz too, until they got smart enuf to offer custom templates for their user interface pages, not just public profiles. Now you can judge someone's net savvy by whether they've a customized profile, much as you can by whether their Twitter icon looks like this: o_O Facebook's rubberstamp generic profile deprives you of that information.

Yahoo is another site that has allowed color customization for years. Think its a coincidence i've been a loyal yahoo user for years? Their my.yahoo.com page has all sorts of great templates available (tho you have to be logged in and choose one to see it). Yahoo is my start page of choice precisely *because* its in warm, inviting colors, i can pretty much drag things where i want them on the page and (within limits, which are dwindling) decide what the elements on my page will be.

Google Reader, on the other hand, is barren and ugly. i didn't bookmark it. i won't be using it or going back to it. If it has anything to offer me i can't find other places - like, say, right in the sidebar of this blog - their institutionalized interface made certain i wouldn't stick around long enough to find it. Hell, i paid such scant heed i can't even link to it; i have no idea what the URL is and can't be bothered to find out.

Ditto FriendFeed, which at least has the right idea - consolidate all my social media sites into one reader - but fails to implement it in a workable way. Their biggest offense isn't the uglyblues, because not only is their idea good enough to make that almost worth putting up with, but a prototype version exists that isn't ~ideal~ but isn't cookiecutter either. No, the problem with FriendFeed is it only feeds me *other people on FriendFeed* - if i can't see ALL my Twitter streams, Facebook updates, LJ friends list etc., then there's just no point. i'm going to wind up going to the original sites for the complete feed, so why bother with yours for a glimpse of it?

Lest you think i am nothing but a cranky old woodnymph, however, let me tell you about the site that made GoogleReader even more of an eyesore by comparison tonight: Filttr. OK the name is clunky, but whatever. Its WARM and INVITING and FUNCTIONAL too! It went immediately into my bookmarks, and just may replace Twitter itself as the place i keep up with tweets. Twitter probably earned a high place in my estimation by allowing me to customize it from the get-go (currently tinkering with a background there, but any place that allows me to make my own i <3). Filttr, tho, autorefreshes and threads topics - even if i can't have 'my' background, its usefulness combined with a better colorscheme means its a tool i'll be coming back to. (Should you care, i haven't had the chance to try TweetDeck or similar programs - AdobeAir doesn't want to install on my poor old gumdrop, without which they won't work. i've got Chirp as a widget if i need browser-free updates or updating - but i seldom do).

Oh look. A blog, i has it. Perhaps now i can shift my butt and get a shower too. Coz Sid - i don't feel so good today..