We recently told you about 5 Great Blogs For Funding Advice , and now we wanted to remind you about a resource that can get you advice straight from the horse's mouth: Larry Cheng's extensive list of 131 top blogs from venture capitalists and firms - a priceless tool for any entrepreneur looking for free advice. The blogs are ranked by their number of Google Reader subscriptions, though Cheng, himself ranked 33rd, says, "there are many great blogs with fewer subscribers as the number of subscribers doesn't necessarily correlate to the quality of content." Nevertheless, resources like this are a great tool for keeping up with what the VC's are talking about, but how can one possibly manage a blogroll so large? Thankfully, there are plenty of solutions for managing RSS feeds so you can stay on top of it all. Sponsor Along with his list, Cheng offers Google Reader bundles of various breakouts of the list. If 100 blogs is too much, you can alternatively subscribe to the top 10, 25 or 50 blogs. Or if you only want to read blogs from your neck of the woods, there are location based bundles for California, Massachusetts, New York, Europe, Canada and Israel. If you just can't get enough VC blogs, there's also an option to get the whole kit and caboodle - over 130 blogs total. Whichever bundle or bundles you choose, Google Reader is an excellent way to filter through your feeds. The best solution for managing a large list is a feature Google recently rolled out: sort by magic. The more you use Google Reader, the more it learns about what kinds of stories you read, and it reflects these trends when it sorts a feed by "magic". Another tool for sorting through a heavy list of blogs is to use OPML files and filter them through PostRank - a process we described in great detail last January. In short, PostRank takes your list and creates a new feed, sifting through the noise and filtering out only the best and most popular posts. The only drawback is it takes time for PostRank to determine which posts are more popular, periodically dumping out a dozen or so posts at a time. If you really want to stay on top of the VC game, applications like Snackr can provide a scrolling marquee of your feeds across your screen while you continue to work on other things. Snackr is built using Adobe AIR, so it's compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Discuss

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How To Keep Track of Over 130 Top VC Bloggers

Opera just released the first pre-alpha version of Opera 10.5. While most users generally only think about Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome as the major players in the current browser wars, there can be no doubt that Opera is working hard to push browser development forward as well. This latest alpha version shows that Opera has worked hard to speed up the browser. Carakan , the new JavaScript engine in Opera 10.5, is up to 7 times faster than Opera's current engine. The new version of Opera also adds a number of new features like an enhanced private browsing mode and a new graphics engine that can be hardware accelerated. Sponsor The new alpha is currently only available for Windows and OSX users - a Linux version will follow soon. Download links can be found at the bottom of this page . New Features New Features: private browsing better integration with native systems notification messages are now non-modal improvements to the search box and the address box new and improved highlighting new inline page search and password manager Besides the focus on speed - an area where Opera used to lead before WebKit based browsers like Safari and Chrome became popular - the company also included a number of other enhancement in this early version of 10.5. Windows 7 and Vista users, for example, will notice that the browser is now closely integrated with the desktop environment and makes use of features like Aero Glass in Vista and Aero Peek and Jump Lists in Windows 7. On the Mac, Opera can now make use of multi-touch gestures like the 3-finger swipe and Growl notifications. Other new features include a new "private tab" and "private window" mode that actually works far better than similar features in other browsers. You just have to right click on the tab bar and select "private tab" to start the private browsing mode in this new tab, for example. Opera also updated the look and feel for the browser's inline page search and password manager. It's All About Speed The focus here for Opera, however, is clearly not so much on bringing new features to the browser (the current Alpha doesn't even support O pera Unite , for example), but on testing the new JavaScript engine. When we spoke to Opera's CEO Jon von Tetzchner about the state of the browser during LeWeb earlier this month, he stressed that the company was very focused on improving the speed of the browser. He did stress, however, that the JavaScript engine was only a small part of this effort and that the company was also looking at other bottlenecks that are slowing the browser down. The fact that that new image rendering engine is already pre-wired for hardware acceleration is a good example for this (though the feature isn't turned on yet). We will bring you more of our interview with von Tetzchner after the holidays. In our own tests, Opera performed remarkably well and this new version clearly shows that it would be unwise to underestimate Opera in the browser wars. We should note, however, that this is still a very early alpha version and that the browser is likely to crash occasionally. Discuss

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Opera Feels The Need for Speed: Releases First Pre-Alpha of Opera 10.5

Dell is increasing its crowdsourcing efforts on IdeaStorm , by giving hardware manufacturers more feedback on products and services. "Storm Sessions" are designed to attract a larger business community to the IdeaStorm site, by providing a more focused, structured approach. Storm Sessions provide a way for Dell to listen to its community, but we are a bit skeptical that the effort will receive significant interest from the business community. Sponsor This may be in part due to the transparency of the process. Will business people feel comfortable giving their feedback in such a public way? Dell launched Ideastorm two and a half years ago, with the intention of giving customers the opportunity to post their own ideas about Dell's products and services. Ideastorm now has 60,000 registered users. The community posts about 300 ideas per month. The free form aspects of the crowdsourcing effort attracts a consumer crowd. Product groups at Dell find Ideastorm useful. The Linux community is especially vocal on IdeaStorm and Dell now offers Ubuntu on Dell machines based on feedback from the Linux community. Storm Sessions seek to better match business users with the community aspects of the IdeaStorm site, through a more structured process. Storm Sessions will live on the Dell site for two to four weeks. Dell is starting with two topics, covering mobile technology and the redesign of the Dell support site. Sessions are presented with a statement, providing context about the issue Dell is exploring. Each session includes a count down. Ideas are submitted through a UI that looks much like a blogging platform. The ideas then get loaded to the IdeaStorm site. Dell product groups receive the information collected from the sessions. It is analyzed and integrated into the product development process. IdeaStorm is impressive, especially considering that just two-people manage it. The amount of feedback Dell receives in return is significant, which shows the power that crowdsourcing can bring to an organization. Storm Sessions will initially focus on the education market, where Dell shows a strong presence. This could serve as the major draw for Storm Sessions. We look forward to watching the progress of Storm Sessions and how other companies bring crowdsourcing into the enterprise. Discuss

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Dell Increases its Crowdsourcing Efforts - Will it Work?

In a world where content is king, Boxee has found a way to give entertainment producers the royal treatment. After a successful App challenge and calculated rollouts of its Mac, Windows and Linux releases, internet television platform Boxee is launching into private beta with a new and improved look. ReadWriteWeb got an early look at the product and found out how the company plans to increase its growing user base. Sponsor Says Boxee's VP of marketing Andrew Kippen, "We're trying to change how people view television. It the past it's been something people have associated with unhealthiness. Instead of force feeding programs to passive audiences, users are exploring and interacting with web and TV content and each other." Kippen hopes that the company's new design will be more conducive to dialogue and exploration. Rather than appearing like the mobile app interface of an iPhone, the new Boxee offers an experience much like that of social dashboard Seesmic. In addition to OAuth integration , users will notice the following changes. New Homepage With Boxee Beta, users are greeted by a dashboard with three columns in the form of a newsfeed, featured content and a program queue. The newsfeed offers starred content and comments from Boxee, Twitter and Facebook friends. The center column is reserved for featured community content. In the future this area will be monetized through a pay-to-promote program. And finally, the program queue lets you to keep track of your Netflix queue and latest Boxee-related TV subscriptions. TV and Video In the past users were asked to differentiate between their local and web files. Boxee Beta mixes local and web content in recognition that users simply want to watch their favorite programs regardless of the formats or location of files. Instead of filtering by types of file or having to open an application, Boxee Beta has a new integrated search feature and allows us to pull up files by genre and price, rather than having to switch between file types. The company also organizes your favorite TV shows by episode and season. Some New Applications Social : While both Justin.tv and Hulu's Watch Now Facebook application allow users to chat alongside their favorite entertainment programs, nothing beats the resolution of your home entertainment system. Clipsync overlays chat on video game programs while Cliqset does the same for regular television. Super Fandom : If you've ever wanted to have yourself a Kurt Russell movie marathon, then the Clicker Boxee application is your answer. ReadWriteWeb recently covered the web version of Clicker as a TV guide for web video and the Boxee application allows users to pull in all the relevant metadata on shows, channels and even actors. Niche Content : Boxee Beta's latest content partners include The Escapist gaming network with episodes like the ever-popular Zero Punctuation video game reviews as well as the Suicide Girls' community programming. By changing Boxee's default settings to allow for adult content, users will discover that a number of additional adult applications exist. Discuss

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Boxee Beta Releases New Social Dashboard

Google just launched the Google Public DNS . Just like OpenDNS , Google Public DNS will allow users to bypass their ISPs Domain Name Servers (DNS). DNS servers are, in many respects, the backbone of the Internet. DNS allows you to type a domain name like www.senate.gov into a browser instead of a machine-readable IP number like http://156.33.195.33/ . Google argues that it wants to give consumers an alternative to their ISPs' DNS services in order to make the Internet "faster, safer and more reliable." Sponsor According to Google product manager Prem Ramaswami, the company's engineers have been working to improve DNS over the last few months. Instead of performing DNS lookups on an ISP's DNS server, Google will use its data-center and caching infrastructure to resolve these domain names. After SPDY (which augments HTTP), this is Google's second major project that touches upon the core infrastructure of the Web. Using Google Public DNS Google Public DNS uses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as its IP addresses. Advanced users will surely have no problem making the necessary changes to enable Google Public DNS. The company has also released a set of step-by-step instructions for Windows, Mac and Linux users that can be found here . A First for Google: Phone Support for a Free Product In addition, Google is also offering phone support, which, to our knowledge, is unprecedented. Given that a mistake in changing your DNS settings could easily make accessing the Internet impossible, this is probably a good solution in this specific case. Privacy According to Google's FAQ, the company will only keep temporary logs and erase all the information it collects through the public DNS service within 24 to 45 hours. The company promises not to keep any information that is linked to IP addresses in its permanent logs. As of now, it doesn't look like Google offers any additional services besides the pure DNS lookup. Unlike OpenDNS, it doesn't block malware sites or present users with a list of alternative addresses (and ads) if it can't resolve an address. Discuss

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Google Wants to Speed Up the Web: Launches Its Own DNS Service

One of the first social networking aggregators to take advantage of LinkedIn's brand-new API is Sobees , whose two client applications both now offer LinkedIn integration in addition to the other supported networks. A challenger to similar services like TweetDeck, Seesmic, and PeopleBrowser, Sobees is a social networking aggregation tool originally launched as a desktop app back in 2008 with a web app version added earlier this year. Like its competitors, Sobees' clients use a columnar interface to display real-time updates from sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. Sponsor Sobees essentially functions as a social networking client for the sites it supports, each site with its own column and separate set of functions and tabs. For example, in the Twitter column, you can switch through tabs to see replies and direct messages and you can use buttons on the side to create groups or view your favorites. Meanwhile, the Facebook column offers Facebook-specific features like the ability to view photo albums and status updates or check out profiles, friend lists, and your inbox. Sobees Adds LinkedIn Similarly, the newly-launched LinkedIn functionality will include features specific to LinkedIn. At launch time, those are as follows: Update your status View connections View profiles Get updates (connections updates, status updates, application updates, jobs posted, groups joined, recommendations and profile changes) Search or search with advanced functionality While the desktop version of the program is Windows-only, the web-based application is built using Microsoft's Silverlight technology which works on any operating system, even Linux . When you go to set up the web version for the first time, you'll be presented with the four supported services and a button reading "connect." At first, clicking the connect button seemed to have no effect but that was because the browser's pop-up blocker was turned on and Sobees launches the authorization screens in a separate window. After navigating past this small obstacle, the rest of the set up process was completed in a matter of minutes. At this point, you're now presented with multiple columns containing the services you authorized during setup. You can also choose to add a real-time search column if desired and you can re-arrange the columns into a number of different layouts using the "change layout" button at the top. FactFinder API Integration Lets You Know if a Link is Worth Clicking Besides simply displaying the most recent updates from the various services, Sobees also offers a unique feature other social networking applications don't have - Factery's FactFinder API integration. ( Read more about Factery's API here ). In short, this API allows the Sobees client to instantly and automatically parse the URLs posted in Twitter links to help you determine whether or not the link is worth clicking. Using the FactFinder toggle button to the left of the column, your Twitter stream is filtered to show only links with Factery data. Once switched on, tweets with links are appended with the source URL and various "facts" snipped from the article being shared. Depending on the amount of info the API pulls, a "more..." link may appear at the bottom of the facts displayed. Click this link to see more facts - aka snippets - from the article in question and then click "less" to once again collapse the window. Anyone who has switched to Twitter as their primary source of news will love this sort of feature as you can get the gist of an article without ever leaving Twitter. If you're interested in trying the updated Sobees clients, you can download the desktop version here or load the web version at sobees.com/web . Discuss

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Social Aggregator Sobees Adds LinkedIn Support

Feedly , the magazine style feed reader we first covered back in August of last year , is now available for the Google Chrome web browser. As with the Firefox implementation of the service, the Chrome version also uses a browser plugin to offer an alternative user interface to Google Reader. This early version of the Feedly for Chrome release offers most of the features found in the original Firefox version of the service, but requires the installation of a dev build of Chrome in order to work. Sponsor Feedly: A Better RSS Reader and More Feedly is much more than just another way to read feeds. Although it originally got its start as an alternative UI to Google Reader, today the service is part RSS reader, part social network aggregator, and part search utility. Since its launch in 2008, Feedly's developer Edwin Khodabakchian has constantly added new features including Twitter and FriendFeed integrations, a river of news view , search tools , Mozilla Ubiquity integration , a Feedly "mini" toolbar , and