Up until it shut down about a month ago, I was an avid user of Google Reader. For those of you who don’t know, Google Reader was a news and blog article aggregator. In other words, if you visited 3 – 4 blogs everyday and 3 – 4 news websites everyday, then you could have added those websites to Google Reader and the web-based aggregator would have pulled all of those headlines for you to read in one place. This way, you didn’t have to jump around to 10 more websites everyday to read the most up-to-date content from your favorite websites. Pretty cool, right?

Well, Google shutdown Google Reader at the beginning of July and a flood of companies have tried to come up with a good replacement for the news aggregation service – which had millions of users. I’ve tried several of the alternatives and the one that is most like Google Reader (though better in some ways) is a website called Feedly. If you’re interested in reading the content from your favorite websites in a custom-built setting (custom-built by you, that is), then you have to give Feedly a shot. And if you already have a news aggregator or would like to follow my blog on Feedly, then you can do so by following our feed (http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/) or clicking here if your Feedly account is already set up.

Anyway, as of this writing I follow 74 different news websites and blogs through Feedly (that number grows every week or so). And, as you might imagine, following so many websites creates an incredible amount of news articles and blog posts that I sift through not just on a daily basis, but sometimes three or four times each day. In that sifting, I sometimes come across articles or columns that I think would be fun to share with you all. So I’m writing this post as the beginning of what I hope will be a weekly or bi-weekly (or maybe even monthly) update. The purpose of these updates will be to share with you some of the interesting and noteworthy news articles and blog posts that I come across.

A few years ago, sharing links in this matter used to be “the thing.” There was an informal group called the “Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers” that I was a member of; we shared some top-tier links from group members’ blogs with our readers each week. While I don’t know if this is series will reach that type of interest level, I do hope that some of you will enjoy reading these links and sharing them with your friends. And if you come across any interesting links, then please share them with us in the comments section below. Thanks!

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #1, Edition #1
What The Holy Father Said, His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan
A big story this week on the religious front was Pope Frances giving an impromptu, 80-minute press conference on his plane as he left Brazil and returned to the Vatican after World Youth Day. The biggest item to come out of that press conference was the Pope saying who was he to judge the heart of a gay person who believes in God. In this blog entry, New York’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan explains how the Pope did not say anything new or change Church doctrine – this has always been the Roman Catholic position.

Main Street Redesign Issue Requires Separate Meeting, Asbury Park Sun
There is some discussion in Asbury Park about taking Main Street from a four lane road (two lanes in either direction) to a two lane road (one in either direction) with one of those turning lanes in the middle. This would allow for bike lanes to be put on both sides of the street.

An Unusual Feat in Congress: Student Loan Bill Breezes On, The New York Times
This article talks about how both Republicans and Democrats came together to quickly pass a bill that changes student loan interest rates. Both sides put their own spin on why the bill passed by wide majorities in both houses of Congress, which is to be expected.

Living Our Values In Our Daily Life, Fraternity Pledge
The Executive Director of my national fraternity (Sigma Pi Fraternity) wrote about what makes our fraternity unique and what it means to live those unique values on a daily basis.

5 Reasons Why I Unbranded My 30 Month Old Blog, CalebWojcik.com
This blog used to be known as PocketChanged.com, but the writer behind the blog recently changed the name of it to CalebWojcik.com (his name). In this blog entry, Caleb lists out the reasons why he made the change. Makes me think – should JerseySmarts.com change to my name instead? Probably not since the JerseySmarts.com name is versatile enough to cover a variety of topics. Although, I do own my name at its own .com… Hmmm…

That’s it for this week. Get your weekend started right by checking out these links, starting a new Feedly account, and/or adding the blogs above (and JerseySmarts.com, too) to your Feedly account. Enjoy!