Today is RSS Awareness Day, and we’ve decided to join in on helping people keep their email inboxes nice and tidy while benefiting from having all their favorite blog posts in one neat place.
If you are an experienced ‘net user, this post isn’t for you. Consider it a day off. Sorry. We’ll be back tomorrow with more complex thoughts to boggle your mind.
The fine people at Daily Blog Tips have put together a special site to help teach newcomers to RSS what they need to know to get started on the path to happier technological living. Visit RSSDay.org here.
Our own conversion away from our beloved inbox only happened recently. Read about how James discovered the beauty of reading feeds and how he managed to convince Harry that it was a good thing. (Not always an easy feat.)
The reason it took both of us so long to get into feed reading was very simple: There were no For Dummies instructions available. Everyone was blogging about how feeds made your life better, but no one was blogging about where to go, how to set it up, and how to work it.
It was pretty simple:
- Go to www.Google.com/Reader.
- Sign up for an account.
- Click the “Add Subscription” link.
- Stick in your favorite blog’s URL.
- Hit Enter.
Doh.
You can have as many feed subscriptions as you want. You can put them in little folders and organize them. You can mark individual posts to retrieve them later. You can delete feeds when you realize a blog really is crappy and has nothing to offer.
And all you need to do when you need to see all the posts from your favorite blogs in one place? Go to www.google.com/reader again. They’re sweet enough to remember who you are.
And your email inbox? Well, now you can actually use it for real email again.
Cheers!
