Monday, 1 February 2010

Week 3: RSS Feeds

Thing 5: sign up for Google Reader and subscribe to updates from this blog
Thing 6: find more feeds to subscribe to


As previously mentioned, I am quite an avid blog reader - and one of the things which becomes noticable as you regularly read more and more sites is the need of a way in which to organise this reading. RSS feeds make this a lot simpler, as updates are sent straight to you (via an RSS reader) on publication, as opposed to the reader needing to visit the site.

I had previously used NewsFire, and found it to be a very capable program. However, as I travel quite frequently and don't always use the same computer, the inability to maintain an accurate display of read/unread posts got to be quite frustrating. On the recommendation of a friend, I switched to Google Reader - primarily because I could also access it from my mobile.

I think it will soon be necessary to prune my subscriptions on my home account - I just checked, and I have 113! The ease of use which Google Reader provides can certainly make things get out of hand. However, to try and make things a little easier, I have my subscription arranged in folders which are (rather loosely) based on the subjects they cover - for example, L&IS, food, fashion, literary criticism, etc.. I find Google Reader's ability to "star" posts which I have particularly liked to be especially useful - though these too soon add up, making the tag feature equally helpful!

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