[TIPS] Part III - Weaning off the mailinglist

So far, we’ve discussed some terms, and we looked at some aggregators. Today we’re going to take the plunge and create an account and subscribe to a feed. Ready?

I should say here that I always use the Firefox browser. I find that it makes this process (and the entire browsing experience, in my opinion) so much nicer. But, of course this will work with IE, as well.

Now, I COULD take the time to write out all the directions for each reader (aggregator), but why re-invent the microchip? So, I’m going to list a few tutorials that you might use to get a handle on how to set them up and add feeds. Cowardly? Well, yes. What’s your point? :-)

Netvibes:
http://faq.netvibes.com/ - from the source
http://www.masey.com.au/blog/index.php/toolbox/netvibes-tutorial/
http://vodpod.com/search/browse?q=netvibes+tutorial – links to a couple videos
http://hubpages.com/hub/Personalized_Start_Page – also talks about Pageflakes
 
Pageflakes:
http://forums.pageflakes.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=76&sid=79c3b978ff9f1bb8c1ca8d74337ca96a – nice faq’s
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Pageflakes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAq4tanY0ao – a video tutorial

Igoogle
http://www.google.com/search?q=igoogle+tutorial – getting lazy. Here’s a search results page for tutorials

Google Reader
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=google+reader+tutorial&btnG=Search – another search results page

Bloglines
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bloglines+tutorial&btnG=Search

I’m feeling really hurried with this. I had such great plans for writing our detailed instructions. <sigh>

Now, here’s what you need to do. Check out these tutorials and choose an aggregator that you think you might like. Then go there and create an account, if you’ve not already done so. Finally, go to http://tipline.blogspot.com and subscribe to my blog, following the directions you learned about in those tutorials. After Friday this will be the best way for you to get these tips. Then, start looking at my “blogroll” and subscribe to some others. You’ve read about other blogs in my tips, ranging from gearthblog to Dangerously Irrelevant to Assorted Stuff, and Couros’ blog and the TED blog, and.. SO many more.

You CAN do this. Stay with it. You will LIKE what this does for you, once you learn how to subscribe.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about some other places where you can find rss feeds. Plus, I’ll show you a cool website that will let you subscribe to a site, or multiple sites, and have them delivered to your EMAIL in one pdf document each day. It’s a nice alternative for some.

Good luck!