If you are like me and read a lot of different blogs, I hope you are aware of the possibility to subscribe to a blog.
RSS Icon
This is done with the help of RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication.
You have probably seen different variations of the orange symbol to the right on different blogs and newspaper sites around the web, and this is actually what indicates that it’s possible to subscribe to the content of a page.
The advantage of subscribing is that you don’t have to surf around to all the different blogs that you’re reading, just to see if they have updated. This is probably no problem when you only read a couple of blogs, but as your list of favorites grow, it can get very time consuming.
Instead you subscribe, and new posts automatically appear in your feed reader as soon as a blog you’re subscribing to has published something new. Perfect!
Google Reader
Me myself are a big fan of Google applications, and therefore I’m using Google Reader, which is a great web based service for reading blogs. The advantage of a web based application instead of a program installed on your computer is that you can read your favorite blogs wherever you are in the world, all you need is an Internet connection.
How to subsribe
To subscribe to a blog with Google Reader, you first have to register for a free account. Then you visit your favorite blog, find and click on the orange RSS icon, and end up on the feed page, where excerpts of the last written blog posts appear. To see what it looks like, visit the feed of jensfilipsson.com.
Copy Subscription Link
On the feed page, you copy the link in the adress field of your web browser. Then you log in to your Google reader account, choose Add a subscription and paste the feed address you copied. From now on, all you have to do to read the latest from your favorite blogs is to sign in to your Google Reader account.
Add feed to Google Reader
The Google Reader Next Button
The disadvantage of reading blogs in a feed reader is that the content sometimes look a bit boring, you’re used to reading your favorite blogs on the actual blog, and used to the (hopefully) nice design of it. Well, Google have come up with a great solution for this as well!
When logged in to your Google Reader account, go to settings and then click the goodies tab. There you find the possibility to drag a bookmark to your browser bookmark bar.
Google Reader Next Button
Now you don’t even have to log in to your Google Reader account anymore, all you have to do is press the next bookmarklet in your browser, and if any blog in your Google Reader has been updated, you will be taken to the actual blog and the actual blog post automatically. A perfect way to read your favorite blogs!
Subscribe to my blog
Now that you know how to subscribe to a blog, feel free to add my own feed to your reader! The address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/JensFilipsson.
hii! I want to know how that checkbox works for follow-up comments.