Easily follow this blog

If you find yourself to be a regular reader here, first of all HORAY! that means I’m actually doing something right in these parts and maybe even saying some interesting things.  I thank you for the readership.  It also means that you probably want the easiest way to follow this blog if you’re coming here a couple times a week.  Enter the RSS feed.

RSS is an internet acronym for “Really Simple Syndication,” which sounds deceptive and not so simple.  But it is!  Essentially, it turns a standard bookmark into a bookmark that updates whenever the page (or blog in this case) is updated.  If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer (if neither, you might be screwed) it’s quite easy to set up.  I’ll walk you through it on Firefox.

Head to the main page of the site you want to follow.  If it’s my blog for example, follow to http://brandoconnor.wordpress.com/.  If your browser supports RSS you should see a little orange RSS logo appear on the edge of the address bar.  You can see it in the screeny to the right.

Clicking on the RSS logo will bring you to the fancy pants RSS feed page.  Basically this shows you exactly what would be delivered to your reader (or browser) if you were to subscribe at this point.  Again, just click the ‘Subscribe Now’ button and a dialog box should pop up.

Make sure the Create in: option has ‘Bookmarks Toolbar’ in the field.  Click add and a fancy new bookmark should show up on the top of your bookmarks toolbar.  Look again at the second screen shot and you see that my website has now been added as a bookmark and my mouse is hovering over it.  Clicking the bookmark now yields the desired result.  All new content will show up here as it comes out.  You don’t have to keep coming back to the site, only check the little bookmark and you’ll see what’s new.Again, similar features might be in other browsers but you should be using firefox anyway.