I have discovered RSS feeds. Not like people don’t know what they are, or that I’ve been the first to discover them, but instead that I’ve found a way that I can utilize them for my own productivity/entertainment/procrastination.
I used to have huge issues with bookmarks. I am one of those people who, when stumbling across something interesting whilest surfing the webs of internet, will bookmark the said item of interest with little to no categorizing. I end up with a mess of random bookmarks mixed with my frequently visited sites.
In addition to this problem, I use multiple computers in a day, and like to have all of those ‘frequently visited’ sites at hand. I have a lot of them afterall, and honestly can’t seem to even remember them. (which, I feel is a bit odd, because I don’t seem to recall the interesting things that I find interesting…)
I am a Firefox user, so I decided to fix my problem with an extension called Foxmarks which creates a small host file that is uploaded to the internet’s magical vastness, and then by way of a username and password, it accesses and downloads from that file to keep your bookmarks synchronized cross-desk, and cross-workstation provided you use the Firefox web browser.
This has been adequate for maintaining the issue of cross-workstation procrastination, and the tendency to make ‘interesting site’ piles, however, in the screenshot above you will notice that my bookmark toolbar is filled, and that the double arrow >> on the right implies an infinity of ‘bullshit marks’.
I had heard of Google Reader and RSS before, RSS is how podcasts get to my iTunes, or how blog entries are posted in sequence. I had always thought RSS was a very difficult Web 2.0 tool that I couldn’t control or understand, but essentially, it is a certain format that almost every ‘post’ has attached to it. “Really Simple Syndication” is the format, and it allows your complex post to be essentially broadcast in a lightweight form, and then re-interpreted and rebuilt so it can be read at another location.
Think of it abstractly as radiowaves for the internet. A radio is a way to read compressed information that travels through the air, just as an RSS feed would travel from a website. Instead of reading information from the site, the RSS takes the post in a raw form, and spits it out as a subscribable feed.
Google Reader is basically a way to read that lightweight information and categorize it in a very simple, and organized manner. It’s a bit difficult to understand until you actually try it.
The beauty of Reader is that, like mostly all other Google products, it’s simple, easy and accessible. You’ll require a Google account, so use your Gmail login if you already have one.
Look in your ‘favourites’ bookmark folder and start typing in websites under ‘Add Subscription’. If you don’t have any that work, (you shouldn’t have any that don’t work, but just in case you do..) try these:
www.boingboing.net
www.lifehacker.com
www.foundmagazine.com
www.blueandbrownbooks.com
If you aren’t sure about a certain URL, just try to add it as a subscription. Google will search the site and find the feed for you, if there is one. Every post that is made in any one of those feeds will now show up in a categorized format, the new ones that come in will pop up just as email comes to your inbox. This is a way to keep track of your favourite sites and all of their posts.
Now, my bookmarks are exclusively used for stumbled upon bullshit.
This is but one more example of how Google will be taking over the world one day. All hail the Goog.
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