Here is today’s Daily Run Down.

• Wholesale prices boosted by tobacco and trucks
  (Reuters)
• California town to vote on outside review of homeless man’s death
• Brain-eating amoebas blamed in 3 deaths
• New book claims Coco Chanel was Nazi spy
  (AP)
• Last Stop on the Rural Tour: Alpha, Illinois
• Death by Browser Toolbar Overload [Humorous Image]
• Anonymous hacks BART police website; publishes officers’ info
• Obama in Ill. town: Another year or two for housing turnaround
• New Uses Proposed for Old Drugs
• Microsoft wishes Linux a happy 20th birthday
• Gangsta FAIL
• Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft
• Amazon tops most visited retail sites globally in June
• Your Most Awkward Friends May Save Your Life
  (LiveScience.com)
• Bid to Rename Homo Sapiens Is Called Unwise
• Joplin student: ‘Life changed forever’
• Chip Name FAIL
• About this blog and your comments
• Consumer Fanboys Confuse Brand Identity With Their Own
• Physics of Coffee Stains Explained
• Plain Ol’ Wins
• Improved dating process upsets timeline of Moon formation
• Photos: Astronauts in NYC! Final Shuttle Crew’s Big Apple Tour
• Poorly Dressed: Something To Put On Your Looting List
• Planking FAIL
• Why Yes, I Can Make Fishing Lazier
• City to pay $30 million, hire 111 black firefighters
• Android Soars, But iPhone Users Still Seem To Like Video Better
• Restaurant Owner Ordered To Pay BMI $30,450 For ‘Illegally Playing’ Four Unlicensed Songs
• How To Steal ATM PINs With a Thermal Camera
• Bachmann tribute to Elvis marks wrong anniversary
  (Reuters)
• Tornado-stricken Joplin goes back to school
  (AP)
• Star Wars Blu-ray pre-release app ready for iPhone
• Yosemite’s deadly year has some wondering
• Apple adding DisplayPort to iOS devices?
• Teen dies in shooting but doctors deliver son: ‘The baby is fighting for his life’
• Rho Ophiuchi
• Righthaven CEO Explains Losses: ‘We’ve Blazed Some Trails; There Are Differences Of Opinion’
• Fiskars Cuts+More
• Hang on, we didn’t know how molecules conduct electricity?
• Probably Bad News: Silly Dog, That’s The Wrong License
• Brain Changes in Stutterers Involve More Than Speech
  (LiveScience.com)
• GameFly going digital on September 8
• Mozilla Wasn’t Joking About Rapid Releases, Pushes Out Firefox 6
• Restore and Update a Mechanical Computer Keyboard
• Scotland Yard Four cleared – on phone-hacking
• Thanks, Dr. Nick!
• Tiered pricing comes to the Internet backbone
• Geese found dead–possibly poisoned–at 2 Chicago parks
• Nintendo to release streamlined Wii in the UK, at reduced, holiday season price
• Third generation Smart Fortwo ditches Tesla powertrain, gains two wheeled cousin
• California Apple Store Could Let the Sun Shine In
• SKoreans sue Apple over iPhone user information
  (AP)
• 2 Wisconsin Democrats keep Senate seats
• NYC to trial mobile payment parking system, Lovely Rita looks for a new gig
• Twitter Facts And Figures (infografik)
• “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” – Plato
• Oddly Specifc: Excuse Us As We Reshape History
• Aug. 17, 1807: ‘Fulton’s Folly’ Steams up the Hudson
• WikiHouse promises printable homes, work for the world’s idle CNC routers
• Intel to finally issue firmware fix for faulty 320 series SSDs
• Pot Calling Kettle Black? Mail Rumbled Over Unauthorised Photo Use
• Japanese student presumed dead at Niagara
• Motorola’s new Droid HD makes cameo alongside Droid Bionic
• The Myth That Software Startups Need Or Want Patents
• Rule #39: Repair Man is a Four Letter Word
• ComEd promises brighter tomorrow after feeling the heat
• EA acquires freemium developer Bight Games
• Australian ‘collar bomb’ victim relieved at arrest
  (AP)
• Three out of four Illinois grads not ready for college, ACT scores show
• Octogenarian mobster faces sentencing today
• My 11" MacBook Air
• Unshelved on Wednesday, August 17, 2011
• Tech Media Obsessed With Deals & Rumors – Bring Back Ideas
• Officials find remains thought to be those of missing Missouri girl, 3
• The Village People's 'Y.M.C.A.' Could Redefine U.S. Copyright Law
• Judge Rejects Groups’ Effort to Remove Bike Lane
• Nano-structured glass creates new type of computer memory
• Google doodles Fermat
• August 17, 2011
• Arrow
• Scout prepared for daring subway rescue
• Mayor Emanuel and Gov. Quinn at odds on casino bill
• ‘Flash mob’ robs 7-11 in seconds
• California scientist: Early tsunami warning system could be possible
• Crowd gathers to mourn death of stranded whale
  (AP)
• George Filip, 83, owned Aurora music store
• Age of Empires Online Launch Impressions
• World of Battleships announced
• OuchPad: Best Buy Sitting on a Pile of Unsold HP Tablets
• Man shot dead after Pa. Facebook hit allegations
  (AP)
• Lollapalooza band gets equipment back, says thanks with doughnuts
• 60 days for priest who stole from collection plate to gamble
• Eighteen charged with dealing drugs at Aurora taverns
• Your proposal is acceptable – however, could your fee also…

Look for more stories tomorrow. If an important story has been missed please leave it in the comments.

Tags: $30450, 'Y.M.C.A., 1807, 2011, 20th, 7-11, about, acceptable, acquires, adding, after, allegations, alongside, Alpha, Amazon, amoebas, Android, anniversary, announced, anonymous, another, Apple, arrest, Arrow, Astronauts, Aug., August, Aurora, Australian, awkward, baby, Bachmann, back, backbone, band, BART, battle, Battleships, best, better, Bight, Bike, bill, Bionic, birthday, black, blamed, Blazed, blog, Blu-ray, bomb, book, boosted, Brain, Brain-eating, brand, brighter, bring, browser, California, called, calling, cameo, camera, casino, Chanel, changed, changes, charged, Chicago, chip, city, claims, cleared, Coco, Coffee, collar, collection, college, ComEd, comes, comments, computer, conduct, Confuse, Consumer, copyright, could, cousin, creates, Crews, crowd, Cuts+More, Daring, dating, days, dead, dead--possibly, deadly, Dealing, deals, Dear, death, deaths, deliver, democrats, developer, devices, didn't, dies, differences, digital, DisplayPort, ditches, doctors, doodles, doughnuts, dressed, Droid, drugs, early, effort, eighteen, electricity, Elvis, Emanuel, Empires, equipment, everyone, Excuse, explained, explains, Facebook, faces, facts, fail, Fanboys, faulty, Feeling, feet, fee also..., Fermat, fighting, figures, Filip, final, finally, find, Firefighters, Firefox, Firmware, fishing, Fiskars, Flash, Folly, forever, formation, Fortwo, found, four, freemium, Friends, from, Fultons, gains, gamble, gamefly, games, Gangsta, gathers, Geese, generation, George, gets, Girl, glass, globally, goes, going, Google, Gov., grads, Groups’, Hacks, Hang, Happy, Harder, heat, hire, history, holiday, homeless, homes, Homo, Housing, however, hudson, ideas, identity, Idle, Ill., illegally, Illinois, image, Impressions, Improved, Info, infografik, information, infringement, Intel, internet, Involve, iPhone, issue, JApanese, Joking, Joplin, Judge, June, keep, Kettle, keyboard, kind, know, Lane, last, launch, Lazier, letter, License, life, like, Linux, list, LiveScience.com, Lollapalooza, looks, Looting, losses, Lovely, macbook, mail, make, makes, man's, Many, marks, Mayor, mechanical, media, meet, memory, Microsoft, million, missing, Missouri, mobile, mobster, molecules, Moon, more, most, Motorolas, mourn, Mozilla, MPAA, music, myth, name, Nano-structured, Nazi, need, News, Niagara, Nick, Nintendo, Obama, Obsessed, Octogenarian, Oddly, odds, officers, officials, Ol’, Online, Ophiuchi, Opinion, ordered, OuchPad, outside, over, overload, owned, owner, Parking, parks, Patents, payment, people, phone-hacking, photo, photos, physics, pile, pins, Plain, planking, plate, Plato, playing, poisoned--at, Police, Poorly, Possible, powertrain, pre-release, prepared, presumed, price, Prices, pricing, Priest, printable, probably, process, Promises, proposal, proposed, publishes, pushes, Quinn, quot, rapid, ready, redefine, Reduced, rejects, release, releases, relieved, remains, remove, rename, repair, repeat, Rescue, Reshape, restaurant, restore, retail, Reuters, Review, Righthaven, Rita, robs, routers, rule, Rumbled, rumors, Rural, Sapiens, save, says, school, scientist, scores, Scotland, Scout, Season, seats, seconds, seem, senate, sentencing, September, series, shine, shooting, shot, show, Shuttle, silly, Sites, sitting, SKoreans, Smart, soars, software, some, Something, Songs, Specifc, Speech, SSDs, Stains, star, startups, Steal, steams, still, stole, Stomp, stop, Store, stranded, streamlined, student, Stutterers, Subway, system, tablets, taverns, Tech, teen, Tesla, than, thanks, that, That’s, theft, their, There, thermal, third, this, those, Thought, three, tiered, timeline, times, tobacco, today, tomorrow, toolbar, tops, Tornado-stricken, tour, Town, trails, trial, tribute, trucks, tsunami, turnaround, twitter, type, U.S., Unauthorised, unlicensed, Unshelved, Unsold, Unwise, update, upsets, user, users, Uses, victim, Video, village, visited, vote, want, warning, Wars, Wasn’t, website, Wednesday, Weve, whale, wheeled, Wholesale, WikiHouse, wins, wisconsin, Wishes, with, wondering, Word, work, world, world's, wrong, Yard, year, Yosemites, your, [Humorous

I don’t think google reader gets enough credit for some of the little additions that it puts into the software. I use Google reader exclusively as my RSS aggregation utility of choice. Not only because it’s simple to use, but mostly because then I do not have to worry about syncing between multiple clients, and thus re-reading what I’ve already read through once.

But the thing that most don’t realize is that it can give statistics on all sorts of things. Anything from which feeds you do not read, to which ones you read the most. To even how many other subscribers are subscribing the same feeds you are reading. For instance, see the image below.

Most Obscure in my RSS Feeds

The ability to see how many others are subscribed to the same feeds is quite unique. Granted, don’t take the numbers as the total number of subscribers, it’s just the same number of subscribers to that exact feed. Sadly, I’m the only subscriber to my own feed Oh well, not the end of the world. I guess I should post more often, I might get more readers.

The other cool thing within Google Reader is the overall Trend Data. You can see how much information you’ve received, read, shared, and starred over the last 30 days. Too bad they don’t keep the historical data as well. But that’s a whole lot of data to really keep, so it’s understandable as to why they cannot keep this information. See the image below for my stats from 04/07/09 to 05/07/09.

30 Day Google Trends Data

I suggest people use google reader for their RSS reader, because you don’t have to sync, it works on mobile phones as well as on desktop clients, and you can just browse and find what type of content you wish to read. Give it a try.

Tags: Data, Google Reader, overload, Trends