Hey, folks. Friendly neighborhood tech guy Trevor here. AIV said there’d be no post today, but we’ve been meaning to drop a little one in to cover this subject for awhile now and I figure I might as well try to fill the hole while he’s out for the day.
If the 9b readership holds to the same numbers as the general population, most of you probably don’t know what a “feed” is, as in “an RSS feed” or “an Atom feed”. Well, one of my favorite blogs, Unclutterer, put up a great post this week covering the basics on such things and you might want to give it a read.
I keep up with ninebullets.net by following the two main feeds:
The comments feed is especially useful because no matter which post someone comments on, the comment shows up in the feed. This means I don’t have to go look at a post all the time to see if it’s gathering comments. I also don’t have to visit the WordPress admin panel to see where the comments have appeared. The information comes to me, and I check them out whenever I feel like it.
If you’re new to reading feeds, or you’re otherwise looking for a good reader, I highly recommend Google Reader. It’s not perfect (I’m dying to write my own) but it’s as good as it gets right now.
If there’s sufficient interest, we may add email subscription as well.
Who out there is already using the feeds to keep up with 9b? What are you using to read the feed?
Trevor Bramble
Programmer. Swell guy.
i read nine bullets with google reader…
Hey Trevor, whats up. I too am using Google Reader. Does that make me uncool in the blogosphere? Hope you and the Aubs are well!
@leanne Hey! Unfortunately I cannot answer your question because I do not pay attention to what happens in “The Blogosphere” or several other buzzword arenas. ;^)
thanks guys, I tried to find the RSS feed for hours. eventually used @autopsy4′s twitter RSS feed instead. this should be better.
Yikes, that’s bad design! I’ll definitely add a link to the sidebar for other users who might not see this post.
Most modern browsers have some indicator when there’s a feed specified in the page’s html, which is the case here. So you should’ve seen something like this:
http://tinyurl.com/d6vrkh
Clicking on the feed icon gives you the opportunity to view (and add to your reader) the referenced feed.
I use the imperfect Google reader as everything else seems too complicated or invasive.
brotherman Google Reader/Posts only good work
I am so fucking far behind.
I still manually visit each site I follow on a daily basis.
AIV = teh loozer.
I’ve been through a few readers, google is the best when going cross platform(mobile,etc). It can be used offline with gears on the computer, or byline on the iphone. Manually check? 300 new posts in my music folder alone. Yikes!
I’m using the Firefox add-on, Brief. MUCH better than Google reader, and you can import your feeds…
@John B. – Cheers!
@Cricket – I don’t know what you mean by invasive, but one of my major complaints about using GReader is that it’s giving Google that much more information on my personal habits and interests. (Almost all of my usability gripes have been addressed in the past two years.)
@Groove Cookie – Glad to see something better than Sage has appeared, but it does suffer for being tied to the browser. Like Rob said, you can use GReader while mobile (and I do).
@Autopsy IV – No wonder you’re behind on 9b submissions!
okay. new item!
- DBF Blurbs
- Membership drive
- Podcast
- look into Google Reader
- finish fence
Shouldn’t at least one of those be knocked off the list already? =^)
I bet I get to the item on my list about writing my on feed reader before you get to the one about GReader.
really, it all should be done.
the wife is gone all weekend so I should get a lot accomplished.
I forgot a list item:
- Figure out this Facebook thing.
oh yeah. and:
- pitch this thing i was thinking about to Trevor.
Pitch away! Though of course we already have a project in need of love (missing from your list).
the two would be coupled.
If you’re using a Mac, the best way to read RSS feeds is NetNewsWire. Enjoy