9.22.2005

Blogrolls on Bloglines

To start: think about some of the sites that you might visit on a regular basis. There's Leslie's blog, Sheila's Flickr pictures, BBC for news, Dilbert's comic of the day... the list is already getting too long. What if I don't want to look at Sheila's Flickr site unless there's actually something new out there? or if I just want to take a quick look at cnn headlines before deciding if I need to read the article? Well, many of these sites put out "feeds" that can be monitored for new posts - these are fairly well known as "rss feeds" although there are some other names and processes out there doing the same thing.

Bloglines is a site that you can register for (for free) and customize to listen to the feeds you care about. Now, by going to that one URL I can quickly determine where the new content is and check it out without bothering to visit a bunch of places that don't have anything new at the moment - this is VERY convenient for even 5 or 6 blogs and feeds, but now that you have this ability: you can add many more blogs than you ever could have practically monitored before: all because you aren't wasting your time looking for new content that isn't there!

As for blogrolls. A blogroll is basically the list of blogs (and whatever else) you are monitoring. For example, instead of updating my "family and friends" list on the right: I am just importing the "family and friends" portion of my blogroll. So, whenever I add something there in Bloglines (Maighie and the Hungry Roo) are the latest, they were automatically displayed in my list here... that was nice for the Family and Friends, but if you check out the "Nerd" links on my technical blog: there is it VERY helpful!

Ok, quick and easy setup:

  1. Go to bloglines.com and sign up.

  2. To make your life MUCH easier, once you're signed up: immediately go to the bottom left corner of the page and click "Easy Subscribe Bookmarklet". After choosing the browser that you are using, you'll have something added just below the forward and back buttons that says "Sub with Bloglines".

  3. Navigate to jimhalberg.com

  4. Click "Sub with Bloglines"

  5. Now it'll let you add your monitored feeds in different folders (convenient) or all in one big pile if you like too!


Another option (if you're at your PC all day) is to get a little alert thing (Bloglines Notifier) to let you know whenever something new is out there - I will warn you though, it can be pretty distracting if you're monitoring a lot of things: I had to uninstall mine to stop myself from constantly seeing what new was out there!

Happy hunting and let me know if you have trouble!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

another option is to have your friend rob set it up for you.

Leslie Fedorchuk said...

What is the difference betwen bloglines and netnewswire lite - which I already have on my desktop?

Leslie Fedorchuk said...

okay - I think I answered my own question...is it the ability to update portions of it to my blog?

PS. I am suffering (ha) from being too far north, and having to drive 15 miles to a library for wireless access .... so I am on and off again all the time and I think there are certain side effects from this - lack of focus, memory loss, a general sense of anxiety when you are online - as in 'ohmygodd I am going to forget something I was supposed to do......

DO NOT feel bad for me though...it is wonderful here.

jimhalberg said...

I don't really know anything about netnewswire lite but a quick check of their site makes it look like it's probably quite similar.

Actually, the fact that netnewswire lite isn't free could actually mean it provides more?

Have fun up North!

michael said...

Quick? Easy? I got the bloglines bar up on my favorites list, but I don't know how to use it or check it???

Mike

jimhalberg said...

If you mean the "Sub with Bloglines" thing - to test it out, go to jimhalberg.com and press that button. That should take you to a place where you can subscribe to my feed and such (it will "automatically" find the feed).

To make checking it easier, look for the "Download Notifier" link in the bottom left corner ("Extras" section). That will put something in your tray that will alert you when there are new posts.

... weren't you already using something to monitor rss feeds? I thought you got into this before me?