Thursday, February 17, 2011

an RSS whaaaa...????

I love visiting blogs.  I could spend an entire day, easily, just bouncing from one blog to the next, reading all about people's adventures in decorating, what beautiful new DIY projects they're doing, and what meals they have planned for this week.  And my my list of 'favorite' blogs is forever growing.  In the past months I have not allowed myself to actually look at all the crafty link parties, simply because I could be sucked into blogland for days at a time, literally!  But I really do get a lot of great ideas and information from all the other great bloggers out there, that have been very helpful and inspiring to me.  So, my dilemma...how do I keep up with all my blogs, without wasting incredible amounts of time?

Well, let me tell you how I've decided to be disciplined while still indulging.  It's this great little thing called an RSS reader.  Now, for some of you, I know this is totally old news.  And to be honest, I've known about them for quite a while too, but resisted using one.  Remember seeing this little sign around Blogtown? Well, this is the symbol for an RSS feeder.  Basically, an RSS (or 'feed') reader is a single page that pulls all the blogs I read into one convenient place, where, with one click, I can see which of my blog friends has a new post up, and read their latest.  Along one side of the page is a list of all the blogs that I 'follow' or am 'subscribed' to.  I can read down the list, easily jumping from the Nesting Place to Miss Mustard Seed to Funky Junk without ever leaving that page.  And, it saves me a LOT of time, from going back and forth to every.single.blog. only to quite possibly find that maybe half of them don't have new posts that day.  Now, the only drawback (and why I resisted for so long) is that you don't get to see all the 'pretties' of the actual blog page.  You don't see backgrounds, or sidebar links or advertisements.  And when I'm leisurely browsing, all those things add to my enjoyment of blogland.  However, on a day when I should really be tackling scrubbing and laundry and paperwork and church stuff, I just really can't allow myself that kind of time.  But, I can check my feeder a couple times through the day and catch the latest posts from all my favorite bloggers!!  If I do want to visit the actual blog, I can just click the link in my feeder and voila!  I'm there!  Then I can save the leisurely visits for days or evenings that are more chill and I have time to 'play'.  Now, the only way this doesn't work is if a blog isn't set up to send their content to a reader...but most of the 'major' ones do.  Beyond those, I know which of my friends that don't send their feed, and then I still just click-visit those few.  (If you do have a blog, setting it up to send to a feeder will help people that want to read your stuff, but might forget to visit you regularly...especially good if you don't post on a very regular basis.)

All of this is super-easy to set up, but I don't want to overwhelm you...especially if you don't give a hoot about this stuff!  So here's the deal...if you'd like another post, explaining how to go about all this, I'll be happy to do one...just let me know!  Either leave me a comment and/or click the "Tell me more" button below.  If I get at least 5 votes for that, I'll do another post.  If I don't, then I'd be happy to tell you via a personal email; so if you don't see a follow up post in about the next week or so, come back and comment or email me that you'd like instructions and I'll be happy to help you out individually!  How's that?

So go ahead and let the blog-love flow...but don't let it eat up your time!  Be intentional (remember my new go-to word!!) with your day...soak up the blogginess AND get that laundry done!! :)  Use that feeder!!!

1 comment:

Laura said...

I just really like your blog title.... "whaaat!?"