Breastfeeding and comforting baby take up a great deal of my time these days, I can't do many other things while breastfeeding except read "my stories"--that is, all those blogs I subscribe to with Google Reader.
If you don't already use an aggregator to read your favorite blogs, may I recommend Google Reader to you. It's free and allows you to organize and monitor your favorite blogs. When you're logged into your account, you can see when new entries have been posted on each of the blogs you subscribe to (So, Mom, you'll automatically know when we update our blogs).
You can subscribe to a blog by clicking on a blog's RSS feed icon in your browser's address bar (usually looks like a little square with three curved 'sound' bars radiating outward - see above). The RSS icon will take you to the blog's RSS feed, where you can chose to put it in your Google Reader.
I'll confess that I read far too many blogs! I've been using Google Reader for at least a year and that has helped to make it somewhat more manageable. I can categorize my subscriptions which helps me prioritize my blog-reading time. For example, I read my "friends and family" category every day, but I often let my "design and decor" category stack up for a couple of days and then browse through it very quickly since I'm mostly interested in the pictures. I'm continually subscribing to new and interesting blogs that I find and so I've tried to make it a practice to periodically go through my reader and unsubscribe to blogs that I'm no longer finding as inspiring or useful.
Lately I've been using the "next" button feature that Heather Bailey's blog introduced me to. When you hit the next button you can read each blog on it's original site which means you get some of the details, pictures, add-ons etc. that sometimes don't make it on to Google Reader. My Very Favorite Part of the "next" button is when you've read all of your subscribed blogs you reach The End of the Internet. Really! Go ahead and click on it! Then do what it says.
Have a good day!
3 comments:
But, but... I wasn't done reading blogs yet! :-)
I can spend way too much time doing just that.
I'm in full agreement with you on the greatness of Google Reader. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to blogs. Since we began the adoption process, I've managed to accumulate a ridiculous number of adoption blogs that I follow. Rather than load them all to see if there are any new posts, I can just go to one spot and I've got them all. Beautiful!
the end of the internet, har har har...
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