Recently I changed my email and RSS subscriptions from Thunderbird to GMail and Google Reader. I’ve been really happy with how most of this works, except for the default from address which isn’t a show-stopper but it is annoying. So I’m pretty happy with the inclusion of Gtalk in GMail. I tested it a bit this afternoon and now all I need is some of my friends to use XMPP.

The other cool feature of Google Reader is it’s built-in podcast player. Basically if there is an enclosure on a post, it will present you with a player bar and you can listen to the mp3 right there in the webpage. This was a really welcome surprise when James recorded a couple of guitar tunes.