5DtoRGB is a Mac OS X app developed by Rarevision that is “designed to transcode your footage to a camera master format, either as Apple ProRes QuickTime files or DPX files.” Not a necessity for a lot of DSLR users, but great for any medium to heavy post work and those wanting to get the most flexibility when color grading. Another interesting bit is the ability to add an alpha to ProRes 4444 clips based on the luminance, to make it quick and easy to work with footage in post. Could be very useful for those shooting effects elements, etc.

At this point in time, 5DtoRGB is still in beta and works only as a single shot transcoding method. Meaning only one clip can be processed at a time. I would imagine Rarevision is planning to add batch functionality to their app in the future, but I see this as a very useful tool that people would like to put to immediate use. I developed 5DDtoRGBB to make it simple to open multiple instances of 5DtoRGB and prepare clips for encoding. I haven’t tested encoding times thoroughly, but I would imagine opening a massive number of 5DtoRGB instances and having them all process clips simultaneously will only end in tears.

Included in the download is 5DDtoRGBB, and a Reset 5DDtoRGBB Preferences app which does exactly that. It sends the preference file (which is stored at ~/Library/Preferences/com.andorulabs.5DDtoRGBB.plist). As you may have noticed, I also included a nice unofficial icon for 5DtoRGB as well. Let’s see if Rarevision is interested. . .

Demo:

Available with next update. . .

Download: 5DDtoRGBB (871KB .zip)

Log:
-2010.9.06 – Released!
-Future – If Rarevision doesn’t integrate batch processing into the app I may have another solution. . .

I have contacted Rarevision with the hopes that they will add command line functionality to their app so I can incorporate 5DtoRGB encoding into my RenderQ app and have a single simple solution for all heavy duty processing I do on my workstation. In the meantime, I am working on adding drag and drop functionality to this tool, and the ability to open multiple clips up in their own separate instance of 5DtoRGB, ready to press convert and began encoding when ready. Still not a complete batch processing solution, but a good workaround until. . .

If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, this tool is free but feel free to donate if you find it useful.

[5DtoRGB] | [andoru.labs]

Probably the most valuable couple of megabytes on this site, my storyboard templates have continuously been one of the top sources of traffic. For me, storyboarding is simultaneously the most rewarding and frustrating part of the film making process. It is very rare that a scripted scene survives the storyboarding step unscathed. While you really don’t need anything special to produce a great sequence of storyboard panels (choices range from the lowly diner napkin to the highest end Wacom Cintiq), we live in a world where people offer up all shorts of wonderful options and tools free of charge, and you would be silly not to take a look at them. I never found anything I really liked to draw my panels on so I put together some of my own a little while back.

Recently I updated them just a bit and while I tend to do most of by story boarding on one of these beauties. . .

. . . I also put together some .psd versions for people that like to work digitally from start to finish. Working in Photoshop also gives you the ability to mask off panels and shuffle things around easily.

You can checkout some examples of these templates in use on my current Floating World project page.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1280×800 (26MB)

iPhone Version (8MB)

Download: andoru.LABS 2010 Storyboard Templates (1.54MB .zip)

Log:
[feel free to use and distribute these in accordance to the CC license presented at the bottom of this site]
-2010.8.06 – Updated for 2010 and simplified
-2010.8.06 – Added .PSD templates for digital storyboarding

Like I already mentioned, there are many ways to create a storyboard. Being arguably the most important part of the film-making process I recommend doing it with some class. . .

If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, these templates are free but feel free to donate if you find them useful.

[andoru.labs]

After using Nuke for quite awhile now I have really started to like it’s built in viewer. It has easy controls to view multiple channels, simple region of interest, exposure and gamma controls, and proper keyboard shortcuts (jkl) for playback. I found myself often opening up Nuke just to use the viewer to take a look at renders and recently discovered while digging through the documentation that Nuke can be launched in viewer only mode using the command line. If you have ever visited this site before it is probably well apparent I am a fan of making AppleScript droplets for utilizing command line features of apps, and this was no different.

NukeView is a simple app that allows you to easily open an image sequence in the Nuke viewer without going through all the steps of opening the app, creating read nodes, finding the sequence, etc. You can simply drag and drop any file in the sequence onto NukeView and it will open Nuke in viewer only mode, then begin playback of the sequence.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1172×720 (50.6MB)

iPhone Version (15MB)

As mentioned NukeView expects the “filename.count.ext” naming syntax and that you actually choose or drag and drop one of the image sequence files, not the folder that contains them.

Download: NukeView (1MB .zip)

Log:
-2010.5.17: developed basic functionality
-2010.5.28: redeveloped to allow opening and drag and drop of any file in sequence, NukeView will find how many characters are in the fileCount and open it accordingly.

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, this app is free but feel free to donate like a maniac.

[andoru.labs]

Remember all those render droplet apps I was always going on about? Forget about them. I haven’t told any of them yet, but their services are no longer required. Each app performed it’s job perfectly well, but I am all about teamwork here, and there is no “Q” in team. . .

Which has nothing to do with RenderQ, the latest update to the render droplet apps; which not only combines the functionality of MayaRender, AERender, NukeRender, and all of their Q counterparts, it does them all one better by using a little bit of intelligence. RenderQ is a drag and drop render queue app that will send Maya, After Effects, Nuke, and Shake renders to Terminal and queue them up for easy and efficient local rendering. It is now very easy to set preferences for the version of each app you are using, as well as enabling and disabling additional flags for each filetype. RenderQ will also automatically detect the filetype and submit the job accordingly. I have also added Shake rendering to this version of the app.

Also included is RenderQ maitre d’ to pause and resume renders and will also show which render engine is currently active and the last job submitted to the queue.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1280×800 (92MB)

iPhone Version

Support for more apps could very well be coming in the future. A $0-25 donation is customary. I prefer to keep this sort of thing on the honor system rather than setting up some sort of direct cost. If you use this tool at a facility I suppose a site license will cost you a $0-$1000.

Download: RenderQ_v1 (2.4MB .zip)

Log:
-2010.6.01: RenderQ_v1 released!

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. One thing I didn’t mention in the demo is that there is also a simple app included to reset the RenderQ preferences. It is quite possible there could be a few little bugs or improvements that could be made so don’t be afraid to contact me. Also, this app is free but feel free to donate, as many hours of work were put into it.

[andoru.labs]

With a bit of testing and a tiny bit of additional code I was able to build a basic queueing system into my render droplet apps. Instead of having each version open up a new Terminal window and start a separate simultaneous render, the “Q” versions of the apps will send everything to one Terminal window and render them one after the other. Not only does this make the apps easier to use, it should actually make rendering with all of them much more efficient, especially when you need to render multiple project files, scenes, or scripts. Now you can get them all set to render with the “Q” droplets and go to sleep, go drink some coffee, or better yet, go work on something else.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1440×900 (46MB)

iPhone Version

Download: AEaeCS5 (165KB .zip)

Log:
-2010.5.1: Updated for After Effects CS5
-2010.5.6: added “Q” version

Download: MayaRender (6.7MB .zip)
Includes MayaRender2009-2011.

Log:
-2009-12-1: added 2010 versions plus V-Ray, and 3delight droplets.
-2010-3-10: fixed Maya 2010 versions to work with the changes that were made to the location of the “render” binary.
-2010-3-20: fixed typos in latest Mental Ray versions (2009 & 2010) and removed “mail_cmd” in MayaRender2010 (universal version), top secret feature coming soon. . .
-2010-4-10: Updated for Maya 2011
-2010-5-06: Added “Q” versions

Download: NukeRender (725KB .zip)
Includes NukeRender6.0v5, for instructions on older versions go to NukeRender page.

Log:
-2009-5-01: Updated for Nuke6.0v5
-2010-5-06: Added “Q” versions

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, this app is free but feel free to donate like a maniac.

[andoru.labs]

AEae. . .

. . . and AERender have both been updated for After Effects CS5. I worked night and day to make this happen, changing the 4 to a 5 took a good 2 mins out of my life. Once again more time was spent on the new icons. But I must. . .

Download: AEaeCS5 (165KB .zip)

Log:
-2010.5.1: basic functionality

Download: AERenderCS5 (748KB .zip)

Log:
-2010.5.1: basic functionality

I have tested both with no problems but as usual, if there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, these apps are free but feel free to donate if you have the means.

COMING SOON:

“Q” versions of all the render droplet apps! With a slight adjustment to the scripts, I have found a way to allow a simple but effective queuing system to all the droplets. Will be available soon. . .

And for the record, RotoBrush is cool and all, but the addition of the FreeForm plugin is HUGE for anyone doing Matte Paintings, nearly all of the bicubic cards (3D point manipulation) functionality of Nuke and the camera controls from Maya equal a 3D workspace that is finally enjoyable to use. Bravo CS5, Bravo. And don’t even get me started about photoshop.

[andoru.labs]

Another ridiculous one I decided to make while checking h264 encoded versions of renders in QuickTime Player 7 for compression differences before uploading them to the web. Yes I know that I could open up something like AE or Nuke and easily do difference comparisons between the footage:

But I found the time it takes to do that and all the other things I could get distracted by in AE or Nuke end up taking more time than I really want to spend anyway. And just visually comparing the difference the way the audience will see it makes more sense anyway. So my normal image quality check would require aligning the QuickTime Player windows and cycling between them by using (command ⌘ + ~)

As you would imagine aligning the windows is difficult to ever get perfect. Luckily this was something Applescript could easily handle so I first wrote a simple script that would easily line up all the open QT player windows to the frontmost window. Now I was able to easily cycle between the windows with the same hotkey combo mentioned above. I thought I would try automating this a bit and also found a way to have difference do this for me automatically for me by telling it how many times to cycle and how fast to do it. So now the process is simple. Just open the content you would like to compare in QuickTime Player 7, click the difference app in your dock or Finder toolbar. . .

. . . and difference will line up the content and will ask you how you would like to automatically cycle the images (you can quickly just type 0, return, 0, return if you would like to do it all manually) and then you can just sit back and check it out for yourself, the way your eyes see it on a screen.

Luckily this process seems to be less important as encoding for the web gets better but I always find it a good idea to at visually check to see how something compares to the original before putting it out there for the world to see. With an app this easy to use you no longer have an excuse.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1440×900 (70MB)

iPhone Version

Download: difference (360KB .zip)

Log:
-2010.3.25: basic functionality
-2010.3.27: added automatic cycling

Not 100% sure if QT player was called QuickTime Player 7 in 10.5.8 so anyone using Leopard let me know and I will make sure to include a version that works.

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, this app is free but feel free to donate like a maniac.

[andoru.labs]

Updated both MayaMaya and MayaRender for 2010 & 2011 versions. Maya 2011 is a must have upgrade if you are working on OS X, loads of new features, lots of bug fixes (although I am sure some others will pop up) and just an all around better version of Maya for the Mac. Oh, and 64bit! Who doesn’t want to have multiple iterations of that sexy UI?

Just download from the same location as before using the links above. Both apps are tested and should be working just fine with the new versions, please let me know if you have any issues.

Side Note: You may have seen the little orange plus signs recently added below each post, those are there to let you easily share and link to these posts on other sites, so feel free to do so.

[andoru.labs]

Updated version of the original post to show off what is possible with projector_v2!

Quite possibly the laziest of all the lazy apps. projector is a simple workflow droplet app that allows you to easily create and change project folders and icons to keep your film/animation projects nicely organized at a glance. So you can easily go from this:

To this:

In no time at all.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1440×900 (160MB)

iPhone Version

Download: projector_v2 (8.6MB .zip)

Notes:
-upon first launching projector apps, it may take longer than normal for icon change to take place…

Log:
-2010.3.22: projector_v1.0 released!
-2010.4.09: projector_v2 released! (new workflow including reprojector)
-v.2.2: added Premiere Pro and Shake icons

I have also included a .pdf User Guide so check it out if you have any problems.

The icons included are modified versions of the default OS X 10.6 icons or icons included with the specific apps, and a few 2001: A Space Odyssey icons made by Mischa Mclachlan.

If you have any requests for icons to include in the release let me know in the comments! It will be easy to keep track of that way and stay attached to this post.

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, this app is free but feel free to donate like a maniac.

[andoru.labs] | [mischa.mclachlan]

UPDATED: projector_v2 now available.

Quite possibly the laziest of all the lazy apps. projector is a simple workflow droplet app that allows you to easily change project folder icons to keep your film/animation projects nicely organized at a glance. So you can easily go from this:

To this:

In no time at all.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1280×800 (39MB)

iPhone Version

Download: projector_v1 (3.6MB .zip)

Log:
-2010.3.22: projector_v1.0 released!

I have also included a .pdf User Guide so check it out if you have any problems.

The icons included are modified versions of the default OS X 10.6 icons or icons included with the specific apps, and a few 2001: A Space Odyssey icons made by Mischa Mclachlan.

If you have any requests for icons to include in the release let me know in the comments! It will be easy to keep track of that way and stay attached to this post.

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support.

[andoru.labs] | [mischa.mclachlan]

Like my other 2 render droplets for AE and Maya, this one starts Nuke script renders in Terminal on OS X.

You just need to go through the normal steps of setting up your render in Nuke with the proper Write nodes and instead of pressing the Render button in Nuke you can quit the app, drag your .nk script onto this droplet, and your render will begin in Terminal

It is worth noting that if you have a machine with many cores (4-8 core machine), it is well worth your time to look into how to setup your Nuke renders with Qmaster as demonstrated by Hugo Guerra. This allows for full multi-threaded use of your multi-core machine and as he demos, this can really speed up render times.

Download: NukeRender (725KB .zip)

Note: This version is for Nuke6.0v5. If you would like to keep this up to date for use with the latest, or an older version of Nuke, all you need to do is open up the app in “AppleScript Editor”, an app included on every Mac, and update the Nuke executable path accordingly:

Included in the package is a version called “NukeRenderFlags” that will ask if you would like to use any additional flags for your render.

If you have issues, questions, or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Enjoy.

[andoru.LABS] | [hugo.guerra]

Just like the MayaRender app, but for After Effects. A quick and easy way to launch AE renders without using the resources necessary to load up the After Effects UI and load each preview frame into memory. Plus this gives you the ability to launch multiple renders at once if you so choose.

Essentially just another way to render in the background (inspired by Lloyd Alvarez’s great BG Render script on aescripts.com), but without ever having to open AE. Render speeds should also be slightly quicker this way as well since no resources are used by the app and only the render engine.

Download: AERenderCS5 (748KB .zip)

Download: AERenderCS4 (268KB .zip)
-Based on code originally developed by Dustin & Cody Beltram.

I had a few people contact me about a version of this for CS3 so I went ahead and put one together:

Download: AERenderCS3 (.zip)

Log:
-2010.3.18 – Updated scripts to include “-sound ON” flag to enable AE render completion sound.
-2010.3.20 – Updated CS4 and CS3 AERenderFlags scripts so flags are entered in the proper syntax. (If you downloaded before March 20, 2010 please download the latest version available on the site)
-2010.5.01 – Updated for CS5

Demo:

Here is a quick demo of the AERender & AEae apps (both available in the “labs” section of this site.

QuickTime Version 960×600 (27MB)

iPhone Version

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support.

[andoru.LABS]

Just like my MayaMaya app, but for After Effects. It simply opens up another instance of After Effects so you can have multiple projects open at once.

Unfortunately you cannot copy and paste directly from instance to instance, but there are many other reasons this can prove to be very useful.

Download: AEaeCS5 (165KB .zip)

Download: AEaeCS4 (200KB .zip)

Download: AEaeCS3 (200KB .zip)

Featured on Motionographer.com!

If you have issues, questions, or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support

[andoru.LABS]

Working with multiple iterations of Maya open is a great way to save time, it allows you to copy and paste individual objects/nodes from scene to scene, just like many pro apps out there. No one has done it better than Apple with Logic Pro 9, making running multiple iterations unnecessary as they have added a fantastic method of importing whatever data you like without importing entire projects (although this is still possible with Logic) :

Selective Track-Import

If you want to have this same type of functionality with Maya on OS X, you can’t just fire open another instance of the app like you can on other platforms by just launching the app again, but luckily it is very easy to do. One method is popping open Terminal and telling Maya what to do:

open -n /Applications/Autodesk/maya2009/Maya.app

This is something you want to do quickly though, so a one click solution is a must, and that is the point of MayaMaya:

Download: MayaMaya (799KB .zip)

Log:
-2010-3-3: Released MayaMaya 2009
-2010-4-10: Updated for Maya 2010, 2011

An app to pop in your dock, or Finder toolbar, or wherever is most convenient so you can easily open as many instances as your system can handle.

NOTE: The version available here is for Maya 2009 as it is the version I use, if you would like to use this for 8.5, 2008, 2010 it is a very simple process of opening the app with “Applescript Editor” which you should have in your “Applications” or “Utilities” directories, and changing 2009 to the appropriate version.

One annoyance you can run into is the “Pasted__” prefix that will be added to all pasted files. This can easily be taken care of using a simple .mel script that Alex Villabon does a great job outlining on his site Green Soda.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me or comment, and I will help you sort out any problems.

[andoru.LABS] | [Green Soda]

Looking to get a little bit more friendly with that new Magic Mouse? Look no further.

I have been using BetterTouchTool since I got my hands on the Magic Mouse to be able to middle click in apps like Maya, Nuke, whatever. I actually asked the developer Andreas Hegenberg for very specific middle click functionality (being able to click with one finger in the center of the mouse and to have an adjustment for the exact parts of the mouse that would respond to it) and he came through 100% within 48hrs:

He has recently added many other types of gestures, and a favorite of mine, a single tap right on (or right above) the Apple logo. I have a few tools I have made to make my day to day workflow a little bit more efficient. fn & layout are simple workflow tools that promote laziness to its full extent and the Magic Mouse has managed to make them a little lazier!

960×600 .mov

iPhone

If your mind is blown then comment or email and I will uhh. . . un-blow it for you. Hmm. . .

[BetterTouchTool]

I really don’t enjoy setting renders in Maya, and I definitely don’t enjoy manually setting up command line renders, but it is definitely the way to go when it comes to rendering animation.

The purpose of these little apps is to make that a drag and drop process:

MayaRender – Drag any Maya .ma or .mb onto this droplet to automatically start a command line render in terminal. (Asks to choose Renderer and add any additional Render Flags, universal version will ask which Maya version you would like to use)

Maya SW, MentalRay, and RenderMan, and V-Ray are setup to automatically startup up renders as soon as a file has been dragged onto them, avoiding having to put in any options. (The renderer will automatically use whatever you have setup within your Render Globals in your scene)

Download: MayaRender (6.2MB .zip)
-(Based on code originally developed by Dustin & Cody Beltram.)

Log:
-2009-12-1: added 2010 versions plus V-Ray, and 3delight droplets.
-2010-3-10: fixed Maya 2010 versions to work with the changes that were made to the location of the “render” binary.
-2010-3-20: fixed typos in latest Mental Ray versions (2009 & 2010) and removed “mail_cmd” in MayaRender2010 (universal version), top secret feature coming soon. . .
-2010-4-10: Updated for Maya 2011

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support.

[andoru.LABS]

Maya is great, it can handle all of them CG’s that are so popular now a’days. What isn’t so great is that due to it’s fancy pants nature, it can crash at very inopportune times leaving you with your hopes crushed and tears streaming down your face. . .

Luckily, Maya does store recovery .ma files on every operating system that it is available for, on the Mac they are stored in a hidden folder (/private/var/folders/), and in those hidden folders are folders that a normal human doesn’t really understand.

However, it is very easy to set up a search that will indeed search these hidden folders for .MA files, allowing you to easily find your latest recovery data.

I quickly made a saved search (smart folder) that anyone can use to quickly access this default recovery location:


Maya Recover Smart Search
(1kb .zip file)
[Mac OS X 10.5+ if you are using 10.4 you are kidding yourself)

Just unzip the file, and place it in a easy to find directory (I recommend the default Maya directory in your User/Documents/maya folder, so it is always easy to find). I don't care how cool you are, if you have used a 3D app, it has crashed on you before, and you have shed a tear. If you try this out leave me a comment.

UPDATE: This will-not always work 100%, sometimes it can miss some temp files, because it doesn't always search the entire nested directories, so if you aren't seeing it, another method is to go to a Finder window press Cmd+Shift+G, and type /private/var/folders/ and press return. In that "folders" folder is a bunch of arbitrarily named folders, in one of those there should be a -Tmp- folder that will likely have some .ma recent recovery files.

[andoru.labs]

click images for previews of what is included

All zipped up in a single pack

Download:
andoru_2009_storyboard_pack.zip
[1.19mb .zip file] (includes Illustrator and .PDF files)

For those using the Illustrator (.ai) files please make sure to change the Title at the top and the Name at the bottom to avoid looking foolish. It takes 2 clicks and 5 seconds.

click image for preview

Enjoy! Leave me donations! Feel good about yourself!

Not very Friendly at all:

Do you like having your Finder and Application windows organized in a specific way? Or maybe you spend a lot of time re-positioning your windows to specific locations when they are moved around.

Well this app I developed called “layout” can turn all of that time spent re-organizing your windows into a simple one-click process.

Here is a video explaining exactly how it works and how to set it up to fit your own setup:

Download full 1440×900 video
[98.23.mb Quicktime .mov]

Included in the package is an Instructions file for reference on getting your own configuration working.

Download:

[UPDATE]: layout 1.0 now available, fixes and changes include:
-Will now check to see which Finder windows and Apps are open and run accordingly. Won't open every listed app to re-position it, will only position the currently open Applications.
-Finder is now setup to make your default layout if no windows are detected.

layout 1.0
(63kb .zip file)

layout is a set of 2 apps, one “Get Sizes” to find the position of your application windows, and “layout” to reset them to this default position. The setup is pretty simple, just open all of the apps you would like specifically positioned, maybe Firefox, iTunes, and others. Then, run Get Sizes SETUP to configure the Get Sizes app to fit your specific setup. Run layout SETUP to configure your particular version of layout, then simply drag your version of the “layout” app, to your finder toolbar, or where you would like it.

Feel free to leave a comment (donation) on this post if you have any issues or questions. And let me know what you think. Enjoy, or ignore and move on. I promise it is worth it.

[App originally based off idea and scripts developd by "francodecoyo" of MacThemes, and reworked and completely re-scripted by me]

Google makes many cool things, some of the best are all of there different web applications. The coolest thing about them now is that they are nearly all very accessible offline as well. Meaning you can still read your email without an internet connection, check your RSS feeds, as well as create documents and many other things. This is possible because of Gears, and its implementation is excellent, if you are on the go without a conneciton and create an email, it will be sent as soon as you have a connection again, just like an email App like Mail, or Outlook, or whatever, but with the nice features that Gmail offers. And the same goes for all of their other web apps as well.

So the main problem here is that having all of these apps just opened up in different tabs in Safari or Firefox is pretty annoying and a little difficult to manage, as well as really eating up your computers resources. A great solution to this is to make Stand-Alone WebApps, or SiteSpecificBrowsers (SSB’s) to manage each specific App. That way everything is more logical, to look at your email you open the email app, RSS feeds open up Google Reader, Docs, etc.

So how do you make these SSB’s? The best method I have found is by using an App called Fluid. You basically just type in the url you would like to create an App for and let it work its magic. It is very easy to do and customize on your own, so you can definitely do this on your own. But if you like you are more than welcome to just use the Apps I have already created for Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Docs, all with nice looking icons:

Google Stand-Alone Apps

You will have to adjust your own preferences and things, just the same way you would with an other Application. Also, I would make sure to just use the App for what it is intended for, and let it open up other links in your default web browser, it just makes a lot more sense and is much less confusing that way.

Also something cool to mention, when you are reading things in Google Reader, make sure to Star and Share items (S & Shift+S Respectively) and then you can use your Shared Feed to let others see what you are finding interesting. You can check out my Shared Items on the right column of this site. This is great because you can easily find great new sites this way and discover content you may have never come across. It is basically each persons filter of the web.

Definitely let me know if any of you setup a Shared Feed, as I know there are a few that are already using Google Reader. Feel free to post your feed link in the comments.