Dopp Juice Archive

Yesterday, in What’s RSS? (And why should I care?), I promised to give you a list of the most popular news aggregators for reading blogs. If you haven’t yet read the memo, these programs allow you to read multiple blogs at once. You need one. They’re the only way you’ll be able to keep up with the massive amounts of useful information swimming in Blogland once you dive in. Convinced? Ready? Here we go…Read ‘Em OnlineFree website-based news aggregators

• Bloglines – This one’s probably the most well-known. Sign up for a free account, add your favorite blogs to your list, and visit daily to read them. Perfect if you travel between computers. (Subscribe to this blog with Bloglines)
• My Yahoo – If Yahoo’s your thing, let it do this job for you. As they put it, My Yahoo “allows you to collect all your favorite parts of Yahoo! and the Web in one place.” Pretty useful if you’re already using Yahoo for searches and email. (Add this blog to My Yahoo)
• My AOL – At the time of this writing, My AOL is a beta service (meaning: still in development, but open for public use). It looks like it will be useful for AOL and non-AOL users alike, and it works a whole lot like My Yahoo. I can’t tell how it will integrate with the regular AOL interface yet, but we’ll see what happens. If AOL’s your email source, try this one first. (Start by adding my feed.)

Read ‘Em With Your EmailFree mail client news aggregators

• Mozilla Thunderbird (Sarah’s Favorite) – Brought to you by the people who make Firefox, this email program kicks Outlook’s butt any day. Why? Because it’s built by a community of volunteer programmers who make products they’d want to use (unlike big corporate Microsoft, who makes products that brings in cash). To add a blog to Thunderbird, visit a blog’s RSS feed page and copy that URL. Then create an “RSS News & Blogs” folder in Thunderbird, add a new subscription, and paste in that URL. (Start with mine.)
• intraVnews (for Outlook) – If you’re still a slave to Bill Gates, I’ll save convincing you to leave him for another day. The bad news is, Outlook can’t read RSS feeds on its own. The good news is, lots of people make a solution. Try intraVnews — one of the most popular. It’s free for personal use. (And then add this feed.)

Just Read ‘EmStand-alone news aggregators

• NetNewsWire (Mac) – This is one of the most popular stand-alone aggregators for Macs. It’s not free ($25), but it’s multi-functional and useful. If you’re a serious blog reader and your home is a Mac, it may be worth the investment.
• FeedDemon (PC) – This one’s known for being especially easy to use and configure. It’ll cost you $30, but it will make your obsessive blog reading more pleasant.
• SharpReader (PC) – A little less user-friendly. A little more free. Highly recommended for people who aren’t afraid of a little tech talk and want the most out of their blog reading.

So there you have it folks. My favorite handful of news aggregators. There are a thousand others out there, so keep searching if none of these strike your fancy. Now you can read this blog (and all 17 million others) every single day without even visiting a blog web page. Update:

• Firefox – Read ’em in your web browser! (How could I forget this one?) Firefox (the coolest web browser ever) has an amazing and under-appreciated feature. Whenever you’re on a page with an RSS feed (like this one), check the bottom right-hand corner of your browser window for a funny little orange icon. If you click it, it will add the feed (including the most recent headlines) to your bookmarks or personal toolbar. Try it!

If you’re not part of the obsessive blog fanatic culture, words like “RSS,” “Atom,” and “XML” may go right over your head. The first time I clicked an RSS link, I saw a strange text page with lots of code tags, and thought to myself, “Something must be broken.” I politely averted my eyes the way you do after witnessing someone else’s embarrassment — like a wardrobe malfunction during the Superbowl.Of course, nothing was broken. I was just looking at it the wrong way. That page wasn’t meant for Firefox or Internet Explorer. It was meant for an RSS Reader, otherwise known as a News Aggregator. And it was meant to make my life easier. So what’s it all about?RSS and Atom are syndication formats based on the super-organized language of XML. Put simply, they allow you to read many blogs at once, all from the comfort of a single webpage or software program. This is a life-altering concept. You can read as many blogs as you want from one place. No more checking all your favorite websites by clicking through your bookmarks. No more squinting through someone’s bright yellow design just to get to the content. You pick your “feeds” and they come to you. Like reading the morning paper, you can sit back and browse from one spot. The time you once spent reading one blog now becomes the time you spend on ten blogs. Tomorrow, I’ll get into the most popular news aggregators and talk about their differences. If you don’t already use one of these puppies, I’ll try to convince you to start. At least to keep up with my blog. The other blogs out there… well, they don’t really matter as much as this one.

I’ve noticed that whenever I need work, whenever I’m silently or outwardly asking myself or the world around me to bring me projects, they come. My mother used to always say, “Knock and the door will open unto you. Ask and you shall receive.” (I think this is biblical.)I believe it. Just by consciously thinking that you need something, you’ll be more aware of the opportunities around you, and you’ll eventually find it. Somewhere. Somehow.