Sometimes finding a great deal online is like trying to win something out of a claw machine. The key is knowing how to beat the claw machines, and there are some techniques that can let you walk away a winner (watch the video at the end of this post).

I’ve been a huge fan of the online Google Reader ever since they launched the much needed redesign almost a year ago. Since then I think they’ve taken feed reading to a whole new level, and have drawn many users away from Bloglines.

Google Reader users will be happy to know that there is now a desktop notifier for Windows so that you’ll know when there are new items to read. It’s not officially made by Google, but it works well nonetheless. Disappointingly this notifier can only show how many unread items there are, and doesn’t show what feeds were updated.

There are all kinds of alternatives popping up for managing RSS feeds in an effecient, and easy-to-use way. One that you probably haven’t tried is called Anothr and it will send feed updates directly to your Google Talk or Skype instant messenger.

Recently, Yahoo launched a new service called Pipes. It’s a pretty powerful tool that is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. I haven’t really taken the time to experience everything that it can do, but from others who have spent the time learning how to use it, the options are endless. 

In January, Google updated their Feed Reader Module for the Google Personalized Homepage so that items could be expanded and contracted.  This makes it easy to reed the items without ever having to leave.  It was a move that showed that Google was listening to their users.

Yahoo!  recently launched a new services called Pipes, and in short, it's an "interactive feed aggregator and manipulator." By using it, you can "create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant" Sounded interesting enough to me, so I thought I'd go check it out. Unfortunately when I went to go give it a try and create a new pipe, I got this message: