(Originally posted on My Space on Friday, October 27, 2006)

You know something is technically advanced if I ask ol' Patrick Keller and he says..."Yeah, I understand what they are but I don't know how to use it". The thing I'm talking about now is RSS feeds. If, like me, you spend a lot of time reading internet blogs and trade sites (for my job...gotta keep up on all the goings on). This will be a sweet little tid bit of news. I have about four to five blogs I read every day. And sometimes I'm too busy to check back so I miss stuff.

Well RSS is a simple concept. It simply collects all the new articles that have been published on a blog and catalogs them in such a way that you can then use an RSS reader to read all the newest posts from all your favorite blogs without all the mucking about browsing between websites. It's basically like Tivo for the internet. You select what you want to read and it brings it to you. No banner adds or useless pages to click through just clean informative text.

So how do you do it. Well here's my steps...

There are many RSS readers out there...some are hardware based (like I guess you can set up your ipod as a podcast RSS reader...but as many of you know I am ANTiPod...that is not what I would suggest...you wanna read websites on a 2.5 inch screen figure it out your damn self.

First, download the new 2.0 version of Firefox (you should do this anyway cause if you aren't using firefox, your missing out.)

Then browse to your favorite blog. If the blog has an RSS feed, you'll notice a little orange box in the address bar that looks like it has like soundwaves coming out of it I guess. Click the orange box. It will then ask you if you want to subscribe. Select Yes.

Now might I suggest you use Google reader. Google has done it again...beware of the day they start selling their software as a bundle cause they will be bigger the Msoft. Imagine if you had to pay for Google Maps and all the other crap you use google for...you'd pay it...oh yes you would...and they've got their fingers in a lot of tasty pies...like productivity software (i.e. word / exel clones) and photo/video editing...all they have to do is put out a GoogleOS and I think a lot of (non-gamers and non-professionals) would buy it.

Ok...that was a tangent. Anyway send the stuff to Google Reader...you'll have to sign up for a google account but it is worth it. Trust me its really cool. I just need to figure out how to add the Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo Newsgroup feeds to this list and I'll be set.

Second tip...well more of an admission that I'm feeling like an old fart. Emma told me about Digg before anyone else...she's got her finger on the pulse of the internet...that's the kind of thing old Patrick would have told me about...but maybe us dinosaurs are just to slow moving to keep up with the younger generation. Emma is right. Digg is cool...but the interface is too confusing for me. I can't always find the information I want. Most of the time the articles I "Digg" I find through links from more traditional blogs. So if your young and savy also check out digg, I'd say it's pretty much going to make all news and magazines obsolete...someday.