Since the advent of my fabulous site, and more accurately, my installation of Word Press, I’ve become an addict. Not to nose candy or some form of ritualistic monkey tap-dance, but to syndicated news feeds, usually in the form of RSS. For those of you who haven’t stumbled across this time-saving technology, I’ll fill you in. Really cool websites (like this one) often have a little link somewhere on the site (often in a sidebar or footer) saying something like “Feed” or “RSS” or “XML” or “XML feed” or “Syndication” or “Antelope are attacking me. Please help!” Okay, maybe not that last one. These links have magical powers. Copying the addresses of these links will allow you to put them into strange, mythical creatures I like to call “Super News-getting Space Goblins,” but many others like to refer to them as news readers. I’m hoping my name for them will gain in popularity. Once these special links are mated with those brilliant programs, magic happens. And I’m not talking magic in some lame, “David Blaine stuck in a box for weeks on end” sort of way. I’m talking magic in a “David Blaine’s head mysteriously explodes on live television as retribution for wasting our precious time with his stupid box stunt” way, which, depending on how you tolerate David Blaine, can be good or bad great. What happens is glow-in-dark elves (I call them “glelves”) take that address, go to the site, and look up all the new and interesting info. They then return to your computer, and explain this new info to the Super News-getting Space Goblin, oh sorry… “news reader,” via the language of interpretive dance. The “news reader” then turns around and lets you know what is new on the sites to which you have “subscribed.” Also, it tells you that your hair looks funny in that new style you’ve been trying. Well, it might.
News readers can seriously speed up your daily “must read” website visits. Each day, I usually start out by going to Mac Rumors dot com, to find out what most insane Apple freaks like myself have convinced others into believing will soon emerge from Cupertino. After that, I’m usually off to one of three or four straightforward Mac news sites. Then, I hit up some regular news sites (like the BBC), make some random posts at differing message boards I frequent, and check to see if any of the really cool design sites I love have updated. Now, using RSS, I just open up my news reader (I’m using NetNewsWire right now… but I’m open to suggestions for a cool Mac news reader), and boom… dancing elves all the latest stuff from MacRumors, my mac news sites, the BBC, and all the really cool design sites (like, say, Zeldman.com or Authentic Boredom) show up in one nice place, in easy to handle text form. This is a great idea for those of you who find yourself wasting way too much time going to see if a site was updated every day (such as mine, but you can still do that if you wish), those of you who want some news updates in an easy to digest form, or even those of you with those infuriatingly slow dial-up modems who have to wait something like a month just to load a single page.
If you’re a visual person, like me, here is a little image to help you along… just so you know what’s going on.
Reading back over this, maybe I am addicted to nose candy.
