Uses for RSS readers

I like my google reader account - I have subscribed to many feeds and organised them into folders relating to their subject (am I cataloguing again???). I have one for marketing, one for libraries, one for scrapbooking, one for authors, one for teens - you get the picures. I have added some to my bloglines account - if you click on the picture of the book in the previous post, it will take you there.

I find using RSS so much simpler than having to regularly check any sites I have put in my 'favourites' - all I have to do is log into the one site and and new additions are there waiting for me to read!

For libraries - what a great way to be able to alert patrons if there are new books in the collection, or new journals added to a database. A different method of desktop delivery. Library Elf is also RSS enabled - bonus!

Public RSS feeds

Well I finally figured out how to make my bloglines public. Talk about roundabout directions!!! Click on the book to go there!!!

Week 4 - Bloglines vs Google Reader

I thought I would sign up for Google Reader too, to make the most of my acocunt. Bloglines is much faster to detect a feed than GR and has some fancier features.

I then found this post on Kathryn Greenhill's blog (go Kath!) - she says it so much better than me!

Week 4 - RSS feeds

I love the idea of RSS feeds!!! It was OK to add sites I liked to my 'favourites' but that meant I had to keep remembering to check if there were any updates, and sometimes the updates wouldn't be obvious from the homepage of the site. It also meant that I couldn't check for updates from other computers, unless I remembered the URLs, as favourites are only specific to the machine you are working on (unless there is some other way to share them, short of networking 2 or more PCs).

I did dabble with RSS over 12 months ago, using SharpReader - this is a client that I downloaded to my laptop that I would put the RSS feeds into and it would regularly check for updates. At the time, not many sites were RSS enabled, so the content of SharpReader was a bit limited. I also would forget to open it, so it was starting to get a bit pointless.

I love the idea of a web based reader, because I can access my account anywhere to check for new feeds. Great way to keep up with what is happening.

I have subscribed to 20 different feeds!! I think I'll add some of my favourite blogs to my blogroll. I organised them in different folders so I can read what subject I feel like at the time. It could be library stuff, scrapbooking stuff, Web 2.0 stuff.... I think I'll have a play with Google Reader too. That way I can use the same google account!

I just discovered something really nifty - if i do a spell check, I can double click on the 'unknown' word (or the typo, if that is what it is :-) ) and it will give me a selection to choose from. Cool.