Ask and Answer Questions About Using News Feeds [Help Yourself]

 Every day we're on the lookout for ways to make your work easier and your life better, but Lifehacker readers are smart, insightful folks with all kinds of expertise to share, and we want to give everyone regular access to that exceptional hive mind. Help Yourself is a daily thread where readers can ask and answer questions about tech, productivity, life hacks, and whatever else you need help with.

Using news feeds to keep up with your favorite sites or stay on top of news in your field can save a lot of time, but it can also get overwhelming. If you're tracking just a few sites, you may find yourself clicking through and browsing the full sites more often than not, anyway, whereas if you keep adding sites, more of the posts you really want to see might slip through the cracks. We've shown you how to make your feeds more manageable and recommended feed readers for different platforms, and you told us your favorite reader. Are you thinking about getting started with news feeds? Finding better alternatives to RSS? Have some feed-fu you'd like to share? Ask and answer questions about using news feeds in the comments.

Never Argue About Where to Eat Again: Create Your Own Collaborative Yelp with Google Maps [Video]

 My friends and I suck at picking places to eat when we go out. You could always browse Yelp, but that can be overwhelming—plus, you've probably already had tons of recommendations from friends. Google's collaborative maps are the answer: They essentially let you create your own little personalized Yelp that you can access from anywhere.

If you haven't created a custom map in Google Maps before, it's quite simple. Just click the "My Places" button, then click Create Map. Name it, give it a description, and start adding places. To add a new place, just find it on Google Maps (by searching), then click on it and choose "Save to Map". Choose your newly created map from the list, and you'll see it show up as a blue peg.

Click on it in the sidebar to give it a description. I usually like to add a link to the Yelp page and the menu, if it's available online, so we have easy access (you'll have to edit using Rich Text, not the default Plain Text, to do this). You can also add other notes about the place, including your favorite dishes or secret menu items your friends might not know about. You can also invite others to help you out by clicking the Collaborate link in the sidebar.

What's really cool about this is that you can use it on Android and iOS, too (though iOS users will need to use the Google Maps webapp, not the Maps app that came with your phone). Just open up Maps, go to My Places, and view your food map—you'll instantly get a list of everything that's nearby, so when you're out and about, you can just pick a closeby place for dinner, drinks, dessert, or whatever it is you're looking for. The more people you invite to collaborate, the bigger your map will become, and you can get personalized recommendations from your friends—that is, people you actually trust. Check out the video above to see a step-by-step of how its done, and please share your thoughts in the comments below. This is a really versatile system, and there are all sorts of cool things you could do with it.