“Using up my bookmarks / Clogging my mind
Read this, dont read that / Cant you read my blog?”
(Apologies to the Five Man Electrical Band.)
Heres a brief non-travel, non-running related post about a quick way to keep track of your favorite blogs.
If youre reading Planes, Trains & Automobiles then chances are good that you read other blogs hosted in many locations, not just the Enterprise-Record’s Norcal Blogs. Now if your method of checking for new posts has been the same as mine then I have a suggestion for a faster way: Google Reader.
Until I found Google Reader my modus operandi was to bookmark each blog and then periodically check them one by one for updates. Pretty tedious, wouldnt you say?
Now all I need to do is log in to my Google Reader account to see if any of the blogs have been updated.
It’s really simple:
Step 1 Set up a Google account if you dont already have one for Google Groups, Google Maps, G-mail, etc.
Step 2 Go to Google Reader, sign in and specify the URLs for the blogs you are tracking. (This is called adding a subscription”.)
Step 3 When you want to see if any of the blogs have been updated you just sign in to Google Reader.
Take a look at two screenshots of my Google Reader homepage:
To the left is the portion of the homepage that lists the blogs to which I have subscriptions.
The blog names in bold font contain new posts.
The number in parentheses indicates the number of new posts.
For example, the blog Rafi on the Rails contains one new post.
This larger chunk of the Google Reader homepage shows not only the list of blogs but also the first few lines of each blog with a new post.
From here I can read the entire post within Google Reader or I can go directly to the source should I wish to see the blog in its original format, or to read or add comments.
Thats all there is to it. Get started at www.google.com/reader !
Would you like to get an e-mail reminder when I add a new post to “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”?
Whether or not you use Google Reader I’m happy to include you in a blast e-mail to notify readers when I add a new post to “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”. Comment back to me with your e-mail address. (I won’t publish the comment with your e-mail address for all the world to see.)
Google reader is, ahem, not the only blog reader out there. Why, just using good ole’ Internet Explorer you can consolidate blog feeds of interest and get to them directly from whatever browser window you are in! No need to go to a specific destination, like Google Reader. You also don’t need any separate sign ins.
Here’s how:
1. Go to the blog of interest. Note you need to get to the home page of the blog itself, not its listing on another site (like Technorati, etc.)
2. On the home page of your blog, there should be 1 of 2 ways to subscribe, either:
2a. A yellow box at the top of the page will include a clickable option labeled “Subscribe to this feed” or
2b. A little orange and yellow RSS/Feed icon is displayed near the top right of your broswer window (same place as the icon to set your home page, to print, the Tools menu, etc).
Note that if the orange & yellow RSS/Feed icon is grayed out (inactive) and there’s no yellow box at the top of the page, you are either not on the blog’s home page or you are already subscribed to the blog.
3. How to subscribe depends on which option you see in Step 2. Depending on that, take the corresponding step below:
3a. Just click the “Subscribe to this feed link”
3b. Click the down arrow next to the orange & white RSS/Feed icon, then click on the appropriate option. It may be labeled the name of the blog or with the tool name like RSS 2.0.
Voila! (It’s easier to do than to explain. 😉
Now you are subscribed to the blog’s RSS feed, and to see latest posts you can simply take these steps (from any Internet Explorer page you’re viewing!):
1. Click the Favorites icon (left side of the Favorites toolbar)
2. Click the Feeds tab in the Favorites menu
3. Select (click on) any of the blogs listed (all of which you’ve added following the steps above) to go directly to that blog.
For more information about RSS Feeds and using them in Internet Explorer, open Internet Explorer help and search for the term RSS.
Thanks, Sue!
Anything that makes it easier to keep tabs on the blogs you like is good even if it comes from the folks in Redmond, Washington!
(Written on my PC with Windows…)