Yes, I'm a dork... I openly admit it. So now you all know.
But maybe I'm not the only "clueless" person out there when it comes to blogging. Maybe.
I love to look at blogs and spend way too much time doing so. I saved a gazillion (well okay, maybe just around 100, though it could be more) blogs to my favourites, and some I had even signed up to get emailed whenever they posted something new. Faithfully every morning, I grab my cup of coffee and spend way too much time perusing my fave blogs, one-by-one, downloading each one and carefully checking to see if they posted something new that day, until 2-3 hours later I ran out of time and had to shut it down until the next day. Do you do this too? Am I (not) the only one?
Okay, for those of you who might be a blogging "dork" like me, and it takes a little while to figure things out... there's a better way! And I will share with you what I discovered. Yes, this is not new to probably a lot of you, but there may be another person out there in the blogosphere that might cross my blog, and read this post. This is for you. :)
Use Google Reader. It took me seriously 30 minutes to look through and read all of the new posts this morning - all 61 of them. I'm amazed, in shock. In love with Google Reader. :)
How do you get started with Google Reader? I guess this information is good only for those with a blog, but what you do is go to your Dashboard. Under the title of Reading List, there are 3 tabs, choose the one titled Blogs I'm Following. Below it you will see an ADD button. When you click on it, it will let you add the URLs for your favourite blogs. You are basically signing up to be a Follower of that blog. But the great thing is that once you are done, all you have to do is click on the tab in the lower right corner that is titled View in Google Reader. It opens another window and shows all the new posts from all your favourite blogs. No more looking at each one individually just to see if they had maybe posted something and finding that maybe they didn't.
Once you are done reading the new posts, you can click on Refresh and it clears all the new posts that you've already looked at/read. If there's any you want to keep, make sure you click on the Keep Unread for that specific post before you click on Refresh so it doesn't disappear.
Yes, there may be an even better way to do this. But I am so happy with my little discovery in my own little world, that I'm keeping it. For now at least, until something better comes my way. ;)
19 comments:
I also think this is the best way to read.I think I am now at 236, it was at 300 and I had to bring it down.
I am also a dork about reading. Now if I could figure a way to comment quicker on all of them!!!
Bahaha, you are not the only dork I only just discovered this a few days ago too. I followed LOTS of blogs but didn't realize what that meant - until I just saw them below on my dashboard! Too funny that we both just discovered it, I too am happy with how much time it saves!
You are not a dork, I have just figured this out too. Isn't it just wonderful how this all works out now.
Thanks for posting. This is how we all learn.
This is exactly what I do which is why I don't often comment. I just don't have the time to click on the blog and go back to Google Reader. I couldn't live without it! I'm definitely a blogger dork.
I recently found Google Reader too... actually, a friend of mine told me about it. I thought I was probably the only one who hadn't figured that out yet! LOL!
I just read YOUR post in Google Reader! I just stumbled on this myself a couple of weeks ago...I love it too! I do the same thing, read everyone's new posts over my morning coffee, much more uplifting than the paper. On my days off I tend to get stuck in blogland for the whole morning...It's like an alternate universe where all my friends are talented and crafty:)
From one dork to another - Brilliant!!!!!
Your not the only dork!! I'm as well... i'm the one person that just learned about this from you!! Thanks!! Now to try it out. I'm sure it'll save me alot of time now since i spend at least an hour every morning going through everyones blog. Thanks again.
Awesome thanks. I am a big dork too...because I never knew what that was for. Thanks for the info.
Not a dork at all! I just want to encourage all of our CTMH bloggers to add a subscribe link to their blogs. It makes it super easy to add a blog to your reader. No fuss, no muss. You click the link and it asks if you would like to add it to Google Reader. Then you are done!
here's a couple of tips you might find useful:
in your google reader you can choose to show only new items or all items. Sounds like you are set to just new items. If you switch to all, your previously read items won't "disappear".
For those posts I want to "remember" (like tutorials and such), I "star" the post and then just go through my starred items when I need to refer back to the post. This one is REALLY useful!
if you hit the 300 followed blogs limit you can actually "unfollow" them via your blogger dashboard but they will still show up in your reader...and then you can add more! I had to do this a while back.
Isn't Google the best! I also use my iGoogle page... you can "add a feed" and it shows content and photos - all linked on one screen! Thanks for sharing!
Vicki,
Thank you so much for sharing your discovery! I know it will help me.
Guess you could say I'm a dork in training...been using google reader for a couple of months & love it. Thanks for the tip. Enjoy looking at your blog.
Hmmmm, haven't tried Google Reader.
I just go to the "Dashboard" for my blogs and can read all of the updates on blogs I follow there!
Okay, so bring on the dorkiness, I'm going to see if Google Reader will make this easier!
Okay, so this is Nancydork again.....on blogger dashboard you can't see the post in full size. In Google Reader you can..... aaaaaahhh... woooooo...pretend it is that little green guy from Toy Story II saying that....way better!
OMG, I don't know what I'd do without Google Reader!! So glad you have discovered it...now I wish you could comment via GR, that would be perfect!
My name is Kathleen and I'm a blog addict. I use Feedblitz for all my updates and get it thru my email. On those sites that do not have an email sign up, I just go to Feedblitz and put in that site for changes and all the updates are delivered by email. Feedburner does not seem to full details like Feedblitz. I'm not a huge Google fan and use startpage.com as my search engine because my searches are not saved in some database so the government can analyze what I'm searching. Also, yesterday Google decided that they would give the government open access to people's gmail. We have such little expectation of privacy anymore that I want to keep what little I have. Anyway, I start my day with a cup of coffee and email. But I am sure to visit sites to comment when I can. Thanks for a great blog!
You aren't a dork! I used to read them through the dashboard every day. I read your post and now am a Google Reader fan! Thank you!!! What a time-saver!
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