NewsGator just released the latest version of their Inbox product – their RSS client for Microsoft Outlook. It’s free. It’s solid. It’s full of RSS chocolately goodness. ReadWriteWeb explains why Inbox 3.0 Brings Better RSS to Outlook*.*

We all know this, but it’s useful to be reminded of it periodically. I’m chairman of the board of the National Center for Women & Information Technology. It’s a remarkable organization that has accomplished a great deal under the leadership of Lucy Sanders. While it would be easy to categorize NCWIT as a “gender equality” organization, it’s not. Instead, NCWIT is focused on helping the US be more competitive in the long term in the field of information technology and computer science. 

I’ve gotten to know Alex Iskold over the past few years (I’m an angel investor in his latest company – AdaptiveBlue). Alex has a huge brain that I always enjoy interacting with. He also has a huge heart, which comes through loud and clear in his retrospective story about his career progression in his post titled The American Dream: 17 Years of Engineering Software. I love stories like this – they make me feel happy and optimistic about the future. Alex – thanks for the fabulous post.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about exits. In it, he suggested that the tech M&A market had shut down just like the tech IPO market had. This didn’t square with my experience. I’ve seen plenty of modest M&A in the last two months (which I categorize as sub-$100m deals.) Two popped up today – AOL acquired Sphere for a reported $25m and someone is rumored (possibly Expedia) to have acquired Farecast for $75m. 

I’ve written about this in the past so I expect this is nothing new for you, my dear reader. The title summarizes everything I am going to say. My buddy Fred Wilson had a comScore chart about Delicious’ growth (or lack of growth) in his hugely popular We Need A New Path To Liquidity post. He used this data to make the point that web companies are languishing under the ownership of their acquirers when they get bought relatively early in their life.

How’s that for a run? Yes – that’s a 1.75m hill starting at mile 3. And it’s steep (>10% grade). Elevation gain: 2,081. Elevation loss: 2,867. Number of people seen during run: 5. Number of animals seen during run: > 5. Mental happiness: priceless.

As April 15th looms again (it seems to come every year), all the same old articles appear about taxes, budgets, deficits, government spending, and the inequities in the universe. This year, Ben Casnocha sent me a link to an article from the LA Times titled Tax and spend with a twist with a note saying “I think you expressed a similar sentiment awhile back.” Indeed I did. I dutifully pay my taxes every year, yet I feel helpless when I think about how the government spends my tax receipts (and all the other tax receipts they get – which appears to be about $1.2 trillion this year according to the LA Times article.) Yeah, I know I can vote (I do) and I can get involved in influencing my little corner of the universe (I try), but I don’t feel like I have any impact on how any of this money gets wasted spent.

Last week was Google App Engine announcement and brouhaha. This week is deeper analysis and understanding of Google App Engine. I spent some time last week trying to understand this better, read a bunch of stuff, and spent some time having a top secret special meeting that I can’t talk about with some of my friends at Microsoft where this was discussed. Following are three interesting things for you this morning (all courtesy of my friend Scott Moody) if you are interested in learning more:

Holy Absurdity Batman, someone actually writes a dedicated 409A site called 409A Dismay. For the latest and greatest 409A silliness, you are one click away from a subscription.