I referenced feed readers a few days ago, and ZenPanda commented that she didn’t know how to use them; I understand, because until I started using Bloglines I didn’t understand feed readers, either, and those little RSS buttons and talk of “syndication” confused me. But now that I do understand, I can’t imagine reading blogs any other way. So although I am far from an expert, here’s what you need to know in order to understand and use a feed reader.

The whole point of blogs - and other websites that are frequently updated, such as news and social sites - is that new content is published regularly. For instance, I publish something on my blog at least once per day (well, try to). Other blogs - such as Instapundit and MetaFilter - publish new material several times every day. And most bloggers read many blogs on a regular basis. So let’s assume that I have a blogroll (a roster of sites that I read daily) that contains 100 different websites. Now, if all of those sites contained a link on my homepage, I would have to click on every single one of those links in order to read the newest content. If you only read a few sites daily, that may not sound like a big deal, but when you’re up into the dozens and dozens of sites, it can take a while to click through each and every link just to find out which sites have published new content. And that is where feed readers enter the picture.

Simply put, a feed reader pulls the freshest content from the sites you choose and presents only the updated content to you. It does this through “syndication” - in other words, the websites “publish” their new entries via an RSS feed, and the feed reader “catches” the new entries and formats them all into a simple, easy-to-read format. To put it another way: your feed reader is like a mailbox - and the mailman only delivers letters to you that contain new material. Let’s use Bloglines as an example. Look at this screenshot:

Notice that the screen is divided into two panes: the left pane contains the titles of the sites that I have subscribed to; you’ll notice MetaFilter, Wizbang, TV Squad, etc. Some of the titles are BOLD - that means that new content has been published on that website. A number in parentheses next to the site name tells me how many new entries have been published since the last time that I visited. For instance,TV Squad has four new entries since my last visit. MetaFilter had three new entries, and when I clicked on the MetaFilter link in the left pane, all three new entries appeared in the right pane (aka the “reading” pane). I can read the entry right there in the feed reader - or, if I want to leave a comment on it, or want to otherwise visit the whole website, I can just click on the blue link in the right pane for any given entry and a new window (or tab) willtaking me directly to that website and that entry.

You’ll also notice a scroll bar on the right side of the left pane; obviously, not all 100+ of my feeds will fit on one screen, so once I have clicked through all of the entries that you see above, then I just scroll down to find any other new entries:

I clicked on Laurence’s blog titled “Is Full Of Crap” in the left pane, and his two new entries appeared in the right pane. I can read them and then click on the next entry in the left pane, or I can click in the right pane on the link titled “Shire Network News” and be taken directly to Laurence’s page so that I can leave a comment or poke around the rest of his site. Once I have read the entries in any given feed, the feed no longer appears BOLD, and I move on to the next fresh entries.

OK, let’s assume now that you’re convinced: you want to sign up for a feed reader. You can choose from a huge number of them, but for my illustration we’ll use Bloglines - most of the principles apply to many of the different readers. So go to Bloglines.com and sign up for an account - it’s very easy. Once you have registered, you will receive an e-mail with a link - click it, and you will be taken to the first page in the process that will present you with some subscription options:

You can select any of the check-boxes to “pre-load” your custom subscriptions; just choose any of the feeds that sound interesting to you, and then click the “Subscribe To My Selections” button (don’t worry, if you select some and don’t like them, you can easily remove them later). Once you do that, you will be taken to your customized Bloglines page with the left and right panes as you saw in my example above. Click a few of the entries in the left page and see the feeds in your right pane - isn’t that cool?!

The next step is to add your own regularly-read websites to your Bloglines account. Take a look at this screenshot — all you have to do is click on the ADD link.

Now you have to do one of two things: first, you can simply type the URL address of a website that you want to subscribe to in the field you see above. For our example, let’s use Allison’s lovely and always-hilarious blog, titled “Allison Lives.” Just type in “http://www.allisonlives.com” in the field click the SUBSCRIBE button. The next screen that appears will give you a few options:

By and large, you can simply click the SUBSCRIBE button at the bottom and not worry about any of the options. We’ll save that for the next lesson. Now go out and find some other blogs that you want to subscribe to, and add them to your Bloglines subscription.

Some of the sites that you try to add may give you several “feed” options, like this one for my GreaterFalls site:

Don’t get flustered - just know that there are different “flavors” of feeds that use terms like Atom and RSS - and as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t really matter which one you select. Just click one of the options presented, and you should be fine. One caution: some sites offer feeds of comments on their sites, which you likely don’t care about; just make sure that the URL address of the feed that you select doesn’t have the word “comments” in it.

Now, whenever you login to Bloglines, you’ll have all of your feeds ready & waiting for you, with only fresh content highlighted. I’ll add instructions for some of the “advanced” options later, but this should get you started for now. If you have any questions or something above just didn’t make sense, let me know and I’ll try to help. Hope you enjoy it!

Look what I found - it’s a Chicken Hat! (more…)

One of the fun things about blogging (and also often annoying) are the never-ending memes (”meemz”). The term “meme” applies to many types of cultural and social phenomena that start small and wind up gaining traction, quickly becoming passed through social circles and “exploding” in popularity. Internet memes are catch-phrases, pictures, quizzes, and such that spread quickly among bloggers, often with each blogger adding their own spin or opinion. Here’s an example of a quiz meme that I found over at Jen’s place; all you have to do follow the directions for each of the examples to come up with some “new” names for yourself:

1. SPY NAME: (middle name + current street):
Andrew Delmar
2. MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/mother + your favorite candy):
Irving Whopper
3. GAMER TAG: (favorite color + favorite animal):
Black Goose
4. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name + birthplace):
Andrew Phoenix
5. PORN STAR NAME: (first pet + street you grew up on):
Dutchie Easthaven
6. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The”, favorite color, car your dad drives):
The Black Grand Marquis
7. ACTION HERO NAME: (name of character in last film you watched, last food you ate):
Bill Croissanwhich

What can I say? I just came from Burger King, and it was either Bill (from Kill Bill) Croissanwhich, or Bill Cini-Mini.

Today marks the beginning of Year Seven of “Better Living Thru Blogging!” Holy cow! Do you see any wrinkles or gray hair on this page? Heh. And yes, it’s a bit schmaltzy, but here’s the link to what I posted on my anniversary three years ago — it’s all (mostly) still true, only even Better now. And you’ll notice that my very first entry back in October 2000 was about the approach of cooler temperatures - some things never change!

Thanks, everyone, for making this such a nifty avocation - hobby - obsession - craft - joy - and so on. Without you, this would not be nearly as enjoyable, and arguably not worth the effort.

I’ve tried many of the blogging “systems” and tools that are out there…started with Blogger back in 2000, then moved on to GreyMatter, then Movable Type, and have now been with WordPress for over three years. GM and MT are great, in their own ways, but GM was a bit harder to tweak than others, and MT took *forever* to rebuild whenever you made changes. Blogger, however, I still use for some small sites that I tinker with; it’s still a great tool for quick blogging. And besides, you never quite get over your first love, right?
In between all of those, I’ve also established accounts at other hosted services in order to test drive the product: LiveJournal, GeoCities, Vox, Yahoo 360, Typepad, and most recently MySpace. The LJ community is much more “internally” focused than the blogging community at large; Vox is still too new to figure out; Yahoo 360 didn’t seem to go anywhere; TypePad is pretty cool; and MySpace - well, quite simply, I’m baffled about the success of MySpace. Almost without exception, the few MySpace sites that I’ve visited are absolutely painful to look at. The design and layout - ouch! But someone who read one of my other sites asked me if I knew how to design a background incorporating her school mascot, so I gave it a shot, and wound up using it on my own MySpace page. Anyway…it’s great that there are so many options for veteran bloggers, medium bloggers, and newbies.
So now it’s your turn: what blogging services and software have YOU used, and which do you prefer? Any strong feelings about any of them, pro or con?

(reposted in honor of Blogtober) It’s been quite a while, so I figured it was time to re-post my Bloggers Hiearchy of Needs, modeled after the famous pyramid. It is far from perfect, and I’mto suggestions about ways to improve it. Any ideas…? (more…)

An acquaintance of mine is trying sell her car, and she got an inquiry via e-mail yesterday. She replied to the potential buyer, and here is the response that she received:

Hello,
Thanks,i am still intrested okay with the price.This is how i will want us to seal the transaction cos i dont want any delay at all.So all i am going to do is to contact my associate in the Uk to issue you a certified cashiers check of $20,000 which will be for both the shipping and your own money $10,900 So all i will want you to do when you recieve the check, is to deduct your own money and send the remaining shipping funds through VIA WESTERN UNION to my international shipping agent ,once he recieves the balance will come over to your location the very next day for pick up, now the money wired to the shipper is his fees for his services, transportation to your location and back to me, also for all charges that may arise along this transaction cos i will want it to be delivered to me safe and sound without problems, i shall send you my shipper address as soon as i contact him,i will also want you to take $10 for runing around. So if this terms are okay by you i will need your contact address and phone number so that i can forward to my associate who will be issueing you the check.I look forward to your reply.
Thanks and GOD Bless.
Mr John williams.

N/B the shipping funds will be wired to my international agent that will come for the pickup he will be the one to arrange the shipping of the from to Car where i am living.now that we have an agreement I will like you to remove the advert you placed on the website so that you will recieve no more offers.the cheque will be sent to you via fedex. I will give you a call as soon as you reply.info required to send cheque:
NAME FULL …..
FULL ADDRESS……..
CITY…………
STATE………
COUNTRY…..
ZIPCODE……..
Phone number Office / cell

OK, this sets alarm bells off — but I can’t explain why. It has all the hallmarks of a scam - foreign buyer, unusual dollar amount ($20K), reference to “my associate,” odd shipping instructions, and such. This is for a 2002 Mustang that my friend wants to sell for $10,900. Have any of you ever seen this specific type of scam before?

Some nifty sites for bloggers; some are tools, some are content, some are tips. Some have been around for quite a while, others are newer; some are home-spun, others are more professional; but they all have some good stuff to offer. If you’re a blogger and haven’t checked them out yet (or lately), Blogtober is a great time to do so!
Blog Herald
Mandarin Design
Blogging Pro
Technorati
A-Z of Blogging
Topix:Blogs
BlogExplosion
How To Blog
Blogger
WordPress Codex
WP Plugins Wiki
WP Plugins
WP Themes
WP Theme Viewer
Stupid WordPress Tricks

And how do we celebrate Blogtober? There are lots of ways!

The important thing is to celebrate being a blogger and take pride in your semi-geeky hobby! All month long, I will be posting some of the things that I have learned about or while blogging, blogs that I particularly enjoy, Deep Thoughts about the meaning of blogging, and so on. So now it’s your turn - take part in Blogtober!

The re-design itch hit me hard recently, so I installed a nifty new Theme over at the Big Sky Blog called Vistered Little. I love the tiny stars and the floating boxes and the click-easy tiled backgrounds! Oh - and Happy October to everyone! October is nearly a perfect month, for many reasons…I’m sure some of you recall at least one or two of those reasons, don’t you…?

When “feed readers” first came into use several years ago, I didn’t really understand them, nor did I think that they were of any value to me. Oh, how wrong I was. Now, after nearly two years of using it, I can’t imagine life without Bloglines - even more so since two weeks ago they incorporated (partnered with?) the way-cool Skweezer folks. I’ve been using Skweezer on my cell phone since December, and have occasionally dreamed that Bloglines and Skweezer would one day team up. So now, the result of that partnership is that when I am catching up on my reading on my cell phone, and I click on a link in my Bloglines feed, I get directed to the “skweezed” page instead of the full page. Ah, geek nirvana! But…several months ago, I did give the Google Reader a spin but was not impressed; compared to the sleek, small, and always-works Bloglines, there didn’t seem to be any advantage, as noted by Techcrunch at the time. But the last few days has seen quite a lot of praise for the New & Improved Google Reader, and after giving it a second chance, I’m much more impressed. It’s accessible from my cell phone, too, which is one of my primary concerns. Do I like Google Reader better than Bloglines? No. Not yet, anyway. But I will be giving it a spin every few days to see how it stands up to repeated use and if it “grows” on me. It would take a lot to move me from Bloglines; does Google have what it takes?

I just love Homer’s expression when he finds his chili-boots.