Would you like to know when Sam has posted a new blog entry to his blog without having to go to his blog every day and
look?
Sam's blog automatically makes a web feed available which can be read by other programs.
Internet Explorer Version 7 (IE7), which was released in October 2006, has support for web feeds (also called RSS feeds).
RSS is a Web content syndication format. Its name is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication.
IE7 is distrubuted through the Windows Update service.
To subscribe to Sam's Blog using IE7:
- Click on the XML button at the bottom of his blog.
- Click on "Subscribe to this feed".
- In the pop up box click on "Subscribe".
- Click on "View My Feeds".
Now when ever you want to know if there are any unread entries in any of the web feeds to which you have subscribed, click
on "Favorites Center" in IE7 and click on the "Feeds Tab". Whether you have subscribed to 1 feed, 10 feeds, or 100 feeds,
any unread entries will be displayed here.
If you are not using IE7, you may also subscribe to a web feed using a reader (or blog reader). There are a number
of readers available (I suspect that AOL provides one for their users). If you don't have a reader that you are
already using you might try the Google Reader (www.google.com/reader).
To find Sam's RSS feed click on "XML" at the bottom of his blog. The page that opens has the following address:
http://www.gospelgrowers.org/blog_rss.xml This is the address you would subscribe to in your reader.
To view new entries to Sam's blog, check your reader. Once you have read an entry it will no longer show in the
reader (similar in concept to deleting an e-mail note after you have read it).
Of course, if you only subscribe to one blog, and you have no reason to see the reader otherwise, then going to the reader
every day is no better than checking the blog every day.
However the page you start with when you access the web (I have a personalized Google home page as my startup page) probably
has the option to add a reader to the startup page. I have added the Google Reader to my personalized Google startup
page.
Now every time I open a browser window it starts with my personalized Google page. One of the things on my personalized
page is the Google Reader. Thus every time I open a browser window I can easily tell if Sam has updated his blog.