RSS how-to revisited

Seen that thing before? Wondered what it meant? Well you're gon' find out.

Ok, I must start by saying I've blogged about this before. The reasons I'm revisiting it are two-fold: One, I'm convinced that there are far more people reading blogs at this point in history than there were when I originally posted about it. Two, Lynsey's recently posted about it and apparently had some issues. So for you technologically savvy readers, please pardon the repetition. It's for the good of the whole. Here we go.

Problem: You waste too much time clicking every single link on the Hendrick's blog (and give them an undue amount of pageloads) to see which blogs have been updated that day.

Solution: RSS feeds. Blogs are set up to where you can check them without actually going to them. You'll save heaps of time.

It's important to know that there are tons of different RSS feeds out there, some of them have more bells and whistles than others, and this post is only going to address two different ways to go about doing things.

Option 1: How do I set up an RSS feed? Click that and it'll take you to the post I put up about a year ago, and it shows you one way to install and use one type of feed. It requires that you browse the web in firefox, which you should be doing already. I happen to know that over 60% of my readers are still using Internet Explorer... come on people. At any rate, if you use firefox or are willing to start using it, this is a very easy and low-profile feed you can use.

Option 2: I don't have firefox, and I don't want it, you say? Well let's agree to disagree and then talk about Google Reader. To use Google Reader you have to have an account with Google. Again, this is something that you should already have as an Internet user in the year 2007. If you don't have one, it's super easy to set up (you can do it from the link given above). If you don't want to set one up, go back to option 1. Ok, if you have a Google account, go ahead and click here to see a video explaining Google Reader to you. I could do it myself, but it's already been done, so no need. It's super easy.

So there's a little recap on RSS feeds. If you don't like either of those options, there is still (tons of) hope! Just google "rss how-to" or something of that nature to see other possibilities. If you have any questions or are having issues making either of my two options work, let me know. I like helping people. I'll leave you with a suggestion of how to spend your newfound free time: bake me some cookies (I like them crispy).