Judging from the site stats lately there seems to be a lot of new faces around. Because of that I'd like to re-post a story that ran last spring about one of the easier ways to keep tabs on all the latests posts at Bridger.us/MINI:
Recently I've gotten a couple emails from people asking if there was an easier way to keep tabs of recently posted stories and new comments. There is in fact an easy way to do this – News aggregators and it uses something called an RSS feed. Here's a great story
describing how it works from the Online Journalism
Review:
Instead of the hunt and peck of Web surfing, you can download or buy a small program that turns your computer into a voracious media hub, letting you snag headlines and news updates as if you were commanding the
anchor desk at CNN.The programs, which are just now moving out of the techie world into the mainstream, come in a variety of shapes and flavors: NewzCrawler (PC), AmphetaDesk (cross-platform),
Radio Userland (PC or Mac), NetNewsWire (Mac), and
others. Look beneath the hood and they're all powered by XML, a souped-up
form of HTML. The programs check each site to see if they contain RSS (Rich
Site Summary) tags, a set of HTML-like instructions for sharing
news.Here's how it works. You fire up one of the news readers (also called news
aggregators), subscribe to certain sites from a directory of thousands of
choices — say, BBC Online, ESPN, Salon, the Chippewa (Wis.) Herald and
Bangkok News — and bingo, you're in business. Whenever you sign on, a
directory pane lets you see the most recent updates for each channel you've
subscribed to. Within each channel you'll typically see a half dozen
headlines and perhaps a summary, the entire item, and occasionally an
accompanying photo. Want to dive in further? Click on a link and you're
transported directly to the source's Web site. Some programs run through a
Web browser, others through a standalone program. Most are free.(Online Journalism
Review)
I personally use the free Mac OSX version of NetNewsWire on my Apple
Powerbook. While RSS may not be for everyone if you visit many sites like mine that support RSS feeds it can be a nice time saver. Of course it should only be used if you want to quickly check for new posts – you won't be able to see the daily header picture, newly added links, or comments on a story with this method.
Just look for the RSS logo on the bottom right (or top left) of this site and copy the url. When you go into your aggregator create a new site and paste in the URL. It's even simpler if you have a Mac as you just drag the link & drop it in the link section of your RSS aggregator. Either way you'll be fast on your way to RSS feed bliss.
<p>After reading this I installed amphetaDesk, which is great. </p>
<p>But I cannot get it to add <a href="http://www.bridger.us/mini/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.bridger.us/mini/</a> or <a href="http://www.bridger.us/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.bridger.us/</a>
as a news source. Suggestions?</p>
<ul>
<li>James</li>
</ul>
<p>James – I'll take a look at it and see if I can find the issue. I know they both work on all the apps that I've tested (amphetaDesk not being one of those however).</p>
<p>I had a hard time getting amphetaDesk working on my PC. I have been using <a href="http://www.feedreader.com"> Feedreader </a> and it seems fine.</p>
<p>I'd stay away from amphetadesk or any other server-based RSS app. When I last used them, they couldn't tell you what you had already read, which means you waste a lot of time.</p>
<p>I've heard good things about NewsGator. It's like a plugin for MS Outlook.</p>
<p>Gabe, the RSS link for this site and your personal blog are broken.</p>
<p>By the way, I use Radio Userland for my news aggregator and weblog software and love it.</p>
<p>Everything is working fine for me on NetNewsWire.</p>
<p>James, try changing the link source to <a href="http://www.bridger.us/mini/rss.xml" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.bridger.us/mini/rss.xml</a></p>
<p>This is what I get:
AmphetaDesk could not determine the format of <a href="http://www.bridger.us/mini/rss.xml" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.bridger.us/mini/rss.xml</a>.</p>
<p>The feed for this site totally <a href="http://feedvalidator.org/check?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bridger.us%2Fmini%2Frss.xml">breaks</a> the <a href="http://feedvalidator.org/">Feed Validator</a>. I'll check it out.</p>
<p>I was able to fix all but one of the issues. I think the validator is wrong about that last one. If anyone is still having problems, just <a href="mailto:matt@matthewgifford.com">e-mail me</a>.</p>
<p>Thanks, Matt…I got a huge download of all the feeds I've been missing a little after 3:00am this morning.</p>
<p>Yeah thanks Matt!</p>
<p><strong>Thanks</strong> for this post. I've been slow searching the web trying to figure this stuff out on my own. This makes it a whole lot easier to understand.</p>