Monday, December 31, 2007

Reading Blogs

I have to share my latest "discovery" with you. It's called RSS Feed. I know, it's been around for a long time, but MS Explorer 7 has made it much easier to use so I finally decided to test it out last week.


I can't remember which blog I started out with, but I just marked them as Favorites and would go back and check about once a week. That was OK with just 5 or 6 that I wanted to read regularly. Well, now there are almost 40 - and I seem to add one every day or two. It takes a lo-o-o-ng time to check them all, only to find there are only 5 or 6 that have a new post!


I have to thank SharonB for posting about how she keeps up with her blogs - check this out - because that's when I realized I had put this off for way too long. I also checked Microsoft's instructions here. There are numerous Feed readers available and each one takes a little different approach. Here is my favorite method:


In MS Internet Explorer 7.0, I have an icon on my toolbar that looks kind of like this


When I am reading a new blog that I want to keep tabs on I can click that icon and complete the subscription form. Usually pretty easy. When I'm ready to check for new posts, I open the Task Pane - pull down View menu, choose Explorer Bar and click Feeds - or use the shortcut Ctrl-Shift-J. The Task Pane lists all my subscribed feeds and the ones with new information are highlighted. I know that the others have not been updated since my last visit, so I don't have to go there. Keeping up with all the creativity and neat ideas takes just a few minutes a day now! I can even comment without feeling like a Johnny-come-lately (sometimes I'm even the first to comment. Oh wow!).


Well, this is not really what my blog is all about, but I found it quite exciting. Guess it doesn't take much to entertain me! In the meantime, I have been doing some creative work. Here is a sneak peek of the current project. I have lots of fun things planned for 2008, so this space should be getting pretty busy soon. Stay tuned. Oh - and have a Very Happy New Year!

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