Actually, I need a lot of help, in a lot of areas.
But Rome wasn't built in a day!
Anyway, here is my problem.
Keeping track of blogs I read.
I started using Bloglines about 6 months ago. I started it because I realized that bookmarking blogs and then checking them several times a day was very time consuming, especially when almost half of my blogging buddies don't post every single day, or even once a week, or month. When I realized Bloglines would tell me when someone had posted, which saved time for reading MORE blogs, I signed up and have been fairly happy.
My only complaint (until today) with Bloglines is that I subscribed to myself (to be sure it would appear in the list) and it often takes HOURS before it shows up in my line.
Today I found out that Lisa of Destination Photography has been posting all week, but her posts haven't been showing up in my Blogline. I thought maybe somehow I had been unsubscribed. So when I went to re-subscribe, it told me I already had a subscription. Then I realized that Lisa's wasn't the only blog that had been dropped...there were a couple of others as well!
So here is my question? How do you organize the blogs you read? Do you check their site every time you get a chance? Do you subscribe through other feeds? What the heck is all the stuff about "feeds" anyway? Is Bloglines considered a "feed"? Do you use more than one feed? Does all this talk about feeding make you hungry?
Help a sister out would ya?
I would hate it if I missed even one single post that you wrote!
Happy Friday!
13 comments:
Oh, oh, oh! I hope a lot of people respond with brilliant advice here - I need help in this area too!
I use google reader.. I think its similar to bloglines. Its tied to my gmail account so I just click on reader when I login to gmail and it takes me to all of the blogs I read.
Sometimes the RSS readers (google reader, blogline, etc.) are delayed. It takes a little while to show my pots inside of google reader as well. Then some not showing up at all is usually something on the posters side (blogger, typepad, etc).
A feed is one blog, and its the name used to describe the URL you use to subscribe to the read. Most people on bloggers is something like wittyblogname.blogspot.com.
Did that help any?
I use internet explorer 7 and there's that orange button at the upper right side of the screen.
When I find a blog I like I click on it and subscribe to the feed. Then on the left hand side of the screen there's a star. Click it and it shows favorites, feeds or history.
Under feeds it will list all the blogs you subscribed to and you can right click on a blog and set up how often you want it to automatically check for updates.
Hope my non-techy explanation helps...
~mattie
We were talking about this at the Backyard Bloggy Bash yesterday, and I'm pretty clueless about the whole thing, so I'll be anxious to see what other people (techy people) chime in to say.
I do have one friend who switched to google reader this week because of issues with bloglines, and I also have a friend who subsribes to my blog via pageflakes. Maybe you could check those out.
Okay, an RSS feed is basically content (like your blog posts) formatted and organized in a specific way on a webpage (in XML) to the RSS standard. The benefit of this is that users can subscribe to your feed, and it will send out a notification every time the page is updated.
The reader (bloglines, google reader, etc) aggregates all of that information in one spot for you, offering you different degrees of flexibility in organizing and reading the information, and getting updates.
I used to be on bloglines, but I got frustrated with exactly what you're talking about. I also had friends using Google Reader who told me of additional functionality that GR has. I made the switch, and like it a lot better. You can save all of your feeds from Bloglines in a file (look under the option to export) and upload them into GR so you don't have to reinput them one by one. I like using the categories to sort the blogs I track, so I can go right to the ones I want to see easily.
If you stick with bloglines, you might notice when you subscribe to certain blogs that there is more than one feed URL. Look carefully at the dates attached to each one - sometimes you'll see one feed is not as updated as the others. That can make a difference, too.
Hope something in all of that helps.
I use Bloglines and I read them if they update. I have not had any problems like you'd mentioned. Am I lucky or just not noticing, don't know....
:)
I'm glad you mentioned this, because I've noticed the same thing this week. A few of the blogs that I like to read have not been "updating" through bloglines and I have no idea why. I just thought everyone was busy and not posting regularly. But, when I went directly to that site, I discovered it wasn't the case.
Based on the comments above, I may consider switching to Google Reader. I love using bloglines, but if it doesn't update regularly, it's really not serving its purpose.
I subscribed to a couple of blogs when I started and it sends me an email everyday that they have posted. But usually I have already checked their blog and read the post before I get the email.
So when I like a blog and want to read it regularly I just add it to my favorites list on Internet Explorer and click on it once a day. Usually I don't get to read them till the evening and most everyone has already posted so they are new to me. Works ok, but I have a super long list of favorite bloggers now. I have deleted some that don't post regularly.
Thank you so much for all the great advice! I think I am going to switch to Google reader and see what happens!
Kellie feel free to email me if you have any questions w/ google reader or any other blog techie stuff.. I do IT work (part-time) and so does my husband so I know the nitty gritty details if you want them ;-) or I can keep my techie talk to myself :-P(usually what I do)
I use a free service...Google Reader...and it works instantly! I thought I was the only one that subscribed to my own blog! :-)
Good Luck!
I found your blog through the Nester and was just looking around and saw this post. :) I use Sage. It was created for Firefox, and I don't know if you have Firefox installed, but you can install it for free. I love Sage because it has a little button that is up by the URL space that you can click and it will bring up the list of blogs you link to on the left side of your screen. There is a refresh icon and it will bold the title of every blog that has a new post. I am saved having to click through each one to see if there is anything new! It is a great organizer for sorting blogs into categories and such too and being able to quickly see each of them at a glance. I'm a fan! :) Hope that helps!
I do use Bloglines. I tried Google Reader and didn't like it. Seemed to drop blogs. I know a lot of people like it though. I also subscribe to myself to see when the posts come down and how they appear. I haven't noticed I'm missing anything, but I don't check closely either. If it's not there, I don't read it. :-(
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