Thing #8 I'm a Reader Readin' Fool!

I have known about the little orange icons and RSS boxes on web sites for a few years. I never forced myself to learn the "how to" make one for my stuff...didn't figure I had enough worthy info.

During this early period, I knew it would be useful to subscribe to feeds of some of the things I followed regularly...until I really saw how it worked (or at least used to work)...I was at a conference and the presenter was using the Internet as part of his presentation and all thru his talk, the little pop up came up telling him something was updated...DROVE ME CRAZY! I knew that was not something for me...so I relied on bookmarks/favorites and even things like I Keep Booksmarks so I would always have the things I wanted to check handy.

Then I discovered the readers about a year or so ago. Bingo! That is what I wanted. A way to keep up where I could read on my own timeline...and no bothersome pop-ups...and I didn't have to be a computer genius to figure how to get the code, etc.

I played a bit with Bloglines, but it had a little too much "geekiness" for me...had to understand the behind-the-scenes code stuff a little too much and I didn't care too much for how it "looked." Don't mean to sound negative...I know bunches of bloggers who use it quite successfully and many more who will use it.

My reader of choice is Google Reader. I took to it immediately...it was easy to set up and because it fit with all my other Google stuff, I could sign in with the same information. It is a very necessary tool in my work and my free time reading. I follow way-too-many blogs and web sites to go to each one individually. I have set up folders for different types of information so that I can check on groups of blogs at different times. For example, I have put all the L2P players in a folder so I can see who has written new posts in their blogs with out having to go down the ever-growing list of Players!

I have added my public page of my Google Reader to my sidebar. It is made up of bloggers who blog about children's and YA books and authors. The only weakness of this service is I wish I could make several public pages from the same list of subscriptions in my reader. In other words, to have separate lists of children's books and authors and YA books and authors, I would have to set up separate subscription lists and sign in differently...in essence, become a separate person. Nope, not going to do it...the point of the reader is to have everything in one place accessible from any Internet-connected computer I happen to be around. So, Google, if you are listening (oops, reading) think about this issue. You would make me a really happy camper!

Ok, I'm jumpin' over to #9,
Froggy Wart


P.S. In looking for some artwork for this post, I came across this site that helps you create RSS graphics for free. I won't be using it, but there is someone out there who might want to do it!