Use a Site Reader to read my blog

If you like catching up with my blog but hate the fact that my posts are so random (the clue is in the name) then you could try using a site reader.

For those of you who don't know what a site reader is:
What is a site reader? I hear you ask, or at least I imagine I do. A site reader (or news feeder, news reader, rss aggregator) is a one-stop shop for updates to all of the websites you read regularly. So, for example, instead of getting on the web and firstly checking out the BBC news site, followed by some entertainment news on MSN, followed by more specific industry websites (for me it would be something like silicon.com), you log onto one website, or open an application on your computer, and all the recent updates to all the sites you are interested in are there in one place. It's also useful for keeping an eye on things such as cheap flights as who really wants to go to an online travel agent every day?

I prefer an online site reader because I can use it anywhere but an offline one which you download and install onto your PC will allow you to log on to the internet, download your feeds, then read them offline. It's personal preference really and I've added a few links to readers at the end of this post.

Most websites these days have a link to some kind of feed, either RSS or Atom. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary and provides a summary of the site updates in a format readable by the readers. Atom is a newer technology and readers are being updated to read this too.

So, to read this site in a news reader the first thing you need to do is choose a reader. I use Newsgator but Google have just released one that is still in its infancy and will probably improve over time.

Once you've chosen your reader you need to figure out how to add feeds. With Newsgator it's pretty simple. You click on the Add Feeds link and then you can either browse or search feeds or, you can click on URL & Import to either add a specific URL or import an OPML file. (OPML means Outline Processor Markup Language and it allows you to add lists of feeds to your reader, and import/export lists between readers. You don't really need to know about all that right now so I'll shut up and stop confusing you.) In this case you're going to add the URL specified in the next paragraph. When you click on Newsgator online all my recent posts should be listed under the My Feeds section. You can add as many feeds as you like and organise them into folders but I'll let you figure that bit out for yourself.

For those of you who already use a site reader and just want to know what my feed URL is:
The feed URL is http://feeds.feedburner.com/RandomThoughtsOfAGeordieDown-under.
This link is also in the left-hand panel of this blog under Site Feed.

Further information
For more information on site readers and RSS see:
http://www.codeproject.com/soap/rssandblogs.asp
http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/aboutrss
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/43990.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator

For a comprehensive list of site readers see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_news_aggregators
If this page is a bit overwhelming for you then just scroll down to Free Online News Aggregators.