End-of-Year Linkage.
It’s time to make some major additions to Mr. Blogroll. The two Montanans, David of “Better Living Through Blogging†and “karbonkountymoos,†as well as Teresa of “Technicalities,” are long-time reads and are long overdue. The others are more recent discoveries, but I find myself repeatedly using my bookmarks to read them, so up they go.
Here are the new additions:
Better Living Through Blogging
Peoria Pundit
I am certainly not the first to observe that there are too many good blogs and too little time. I would like to read every single blog on Mr. Blogroll every day, but that would leave little time for writing, and after all, writing is at least half the fun.
I am thinking that one way to make the process more efficient is to add one of those features that tells me when a site has been updated. Any suggestions? I would prefer suggestions that even a cyber-doofus I can implement.
Jim,
What you’re looking for is an RSS reader. You’ve got a link at the bottom of your blogroll that says “Syndicate this site” – if you look at the content of the index.rdf file, you can see it’s the content of each of your last 10 posts.
Getting an RSS reader is pretty simple. There are two kinds – web-based and PC-based.
On the web side, I highly recommend NewsGator Online’s free service (newsgator.com) – it allows you to subscribe to as many blogs you want, and then displays them on a webpage for you to peruse. See also MyYahoo! – they do pretty much the same thing, however, I believe they discard old posts.
On the PC side, I use NewsGator’s Outlook plugin – it integrates with Outlook, and because I’ve got that open 24/7, all your posts (and everyone else’s) show up as emails to sort through. A trial version is available (link as above).
IntraVnews (intravnews.com) also has an RSS reader that plugs into Outlook.
Pluck (pluck.com) is an Internet Explorer plug in that does the same thing – it’s free. Blue6 has a free plug in for IE as well, blogbot Lite (blogbot.com) and an $18 Outlook plugin (blogbot.com).
If you use Firefox, you can use their “Live Bookmarks” feature – it creates virtual bookmarks based on the last 10 posts at a site you subscribe to. Simply click on the “RSS” button you see on the bottom of the browser. See (rokus.net) for screen shots.
NonDisclaimer: I don’t work for any of these companies, but rokus.net is my blog.
Steve
Comment by SDCarroll — December 29, 2004 @ 8:16 pm
I’m growing quite partial to BlogLines.
Comment by Craig — December 29, 2004 @ 11:47 pm
I agree with Craig. BlogLines is the way to go.
Comment by Randy — December 30, 2004 @ 1:04 am
1. Thank you, Jim — it’s an honor to be blogrolled by you!
2. Ditto on BlogLines — it’s free, simple, and fun.
Comment by david — December 30, 2004 @ 4:33 am
Thank you, Jim. I’m delighted.
😉
Comment by Christina — December 30, 2004 @ 8:22 am
Thank you Jim! First for blogrolling me – WooHoo how exciting! Second for asking about the RSS stuff. I keep meaning to look into it and never quite get there. Now that you’ve dug out the info for me, I’ll have to get my act together and pick one of them. 🙂
Comment by Teresa — December 30, 2004 @ 11:29 am
Thanks, Jim. I’m honored.
Comment by Dash — December 30, 2004 @ 11:32 am
Personally I use IntraVNiews in my Outlook client and I really like the personalization options in it. It brings the feeds in and sorts them in a folder structure of your choosing.
I also use FeedReader for my non-outlook-open times (i.e., when not at work). I like that one very much as well. YMMV
Comment by MisterBixby — December 30, 2004 @ 12:02 pm
Well thank you, Jim – I come here to laugh so hard that I cry – thank YOU!
Comment by moos — December 31, 2004 @ 1:37 pm
Thanks for the linkage
Like Jim at Parkway Rest Stop, I don’t have enough hours in the day to read all my blogrolled sites. It’s a hit and miss thing. But, I do take time to thank people for their linkage to me. And…
Trackback by The Peoria Pundit — April 3, 2005 @ 9:19 am