This post is principally for Robin. I hope he finds it helpful.
So, how to never miss anything ever? Be omniscient. Alternatively, use RSS feeds. I’m not going to discuss anything technical about RSS feeds, but they normally look like this:
Sometimes they appear in the URL bar of your browser too. RSS is extremely prevalent, so you have probably already seen these icons about. At WaterBlogged!, you can find our RSS feed at the very bottom of the page. In our case we have two of these things, one for comments and one for entries.
Congratulations, you can now identify RSS feeds. Last step: there are many ways to “subscribe” to an RSS feed. Many browsers have built in “readers” that are quite convenient and there are a number of standalone readers as well. I’m only going to talk about one reader, it’s free and accessible anywhere, it’s called Google Reader. After you get a Google account, and login to the Google Reader page I just linked to, click the “add subscription” link.
Now just copy and paste the WB comments RSS feed link in, http://www.waterblogged.net/comments/feed:
Click “add.” Done. It should look something like this, check it out:
Do the same thing for the entries link, http://waterblogged.net/feed/ and you’ll be a fully subscribed citizen of WaterBlogged!. I’m not sure which is the best part, being able to subscribe to Hailey and Joie’s 20 other blogs or being able to keep scrolling down to older and older posts and comments. That means if you’re too busy for WB for a month, you can just keep scrolling through until you’re completely up to date.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:34 AM
I will get alot of use out of this, Stephen. Thank you.
May 16th, 2008 at 7:53 PM
Stupendous! I look forward to using this biznaz.
Also, I got a gravar… did it work, I ask? Let’s find out.
May 16th, 2008 at 7:54 PM
Nope… How about now?
May 16th, 2008 at 7:56 PM
There we go. (Don’t you like how I just keep leaving comments on your post that are unrelated to its contents?) So… can I not be logged in to use my gravatar picture thingie? When I was logged in, it didn’t work, and when I logged out and entered my e-mail, it did. Sorry, I’m dumb about these sorts of things.
In other news, when I went to sign up for a gravatar, it was all, “OMFG THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS HAS ALREADY BEEN USED YOU STUPE.” And then I was able to sign in using my own e-mail and password, even though I have no memory of ever having signed up for an account. What is this, Internet?! Why are you trying to confuse me?!
May 16th, 2008 at 10:18 PM
If you want Gravatar to work properly, your WB profile email address needs to be the same as the Gravatar one. Just click the profile button on the top right of any of the WB WordPress pages (where you write posts). There you can edit your WB email address to match the Gravatar one.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:19 PM
BTW, I’ll switch the entries to use Gravatar icons soon.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:37 AM
Done and done.
And now, because apparently I can’t stop commenting, another question: is there (or will there be) some way to read password protected stuff through the reader?
May 17th, 2008 at 2:21 AM
OH MY GOSH, Joie. I can’t you actually… I didn’t think… No. It’s a major shortcoming and something I failed to mention in my pitch. So, while Reader has informed me that you also commented on Hailey’s entry, I have to click it and view the actual page in a new tab. I’m sorry. BTW, you can also pick up twitter RSS feeds.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:57 PM
So if I just collect everything at this Magic Google Hub, why would I ever need to come to WB!? Except maybe to comment or write a post…but why would I want to do that?
May 17th, 2008 at 10:37 PM
“I CAN ALREADY TELL IM GONNA LIKE THIS”