From the "technology new to Mary that you probably figured out 10 months
ago" desk comes this news on RSS
aggregators. I just discovered Feed
Demon and I am sold (for a one-time cost of $29.95).
You set it up to go and look for new information on your favorite blogs and
other web sites. Then, when you open the aggregator, voilà: there appears
a list of new postings since the last time you read the site/blog. The techology
works with the very blog you are now reading. It also works with favorites
such as AKMA's random thoughts,
Mary Hess's Tensegrities and
Jenee Woodard's
textweek blog. All sorts
of news sites are in on the act (see the list of National
Public Radio RSS feeds, for example). Dictionary.com will
give you a word for the day. The list goes on and on. The value of this is
that you don't have to click around to all the sites and look for updates.
The aggregator does the looking for you.
I avoided this technology for several months because it looked hard to figure
out. When you click on "syndicate this site" links in blog sidebars, you get
a page of curious code. Did I need to be able to do something with that code
to use an RSS aggregator? The answer is no. Once you have the reader (a.k.a.
aggregator), all you need is the URL of the site you want aggregated. Feed
Demon (and others also, presumably) will go looking for that code on its own.
Two more notes:
- I'm told there are some free aggregators. Follow the links in this list
of them to find the freebies. I got a recommendation for Feed Demon and
decided to try the 30-use free trial. So far, it looks like a great product
to me.
- Mary Hess recommends NetNewsWire for
aggregating if you are a MacOSX user.
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