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How to Subscribe to RSS Feeds in Mac OS X

dvg — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:42:55 +0000

At one point I was doing my best to try to read over 100 different blogs each day. It was, in addition to unbelievably time-consuming, very frustrating when I’d see that some large percentage hadn’t been updated since the last time I’d checked. Enter RSS.

RSS stands for “real simple syndication”. What does that mean? Basically it is a method that blog publishers use to publish their sites in a way that lets you know when they’ve been updated. When you find a blog you like, instead of returning every day to see if the author has posted something new, you let the site tell you when a new entry has been posted.

There are dozens of ways to subscribe to RSS feeds. You can use Google Reader, you can use Firefox or Outlook, or you can use any number of programs designed specifically to track feeds. Here I’m going to explain how subscribe to RSS feeds in Mac OS X, using Apple’s default Mail.app program.

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© David Vincent Gagne, 2009. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, blogging, blogs, Mac, RSS, syndication, tips, tutorial

Stop Being Broken

dvg — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:38:40 +0000

My buddy Bry has a brilliant new site: Stop Being Broken! (The exclamation point is not part of the site’s name, although I think it should be.) I’m not just saying that because I have repeatedly asked him for favors, eaten food with him, and met his wife. It’s seriously really good. Check it out!

CRAM Magazine

dvg — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:26:13 +0000

Quite nifty! My mini-tutorial — Five Tips for Smarter Playlists — has been published in the second issue of the online pdf magazine CRAM. A few weeks ago I received an email from one of their editors requesting permission to republish the essay. I had actually forgotten all about it. Then this morning someone at CRAM sent me an email announcing that the latest issue has been published. My article begins on page six. How cool is that?

JavaScript Tutorial

dvg — Sun, 20 Jan 2002 21:44:27 +0000

Several people have asked me how to add random text strings to a web page, so I thought I’d write a little tutorial. All you need is a text editor and a web site. If you publish your own blog, I’m sure you’ll be able to do this. If you follow these simple instructions, you should be able to add the same feature to your web site.

I am by no means an expert on the subject, and there may be better ways to do this, but it has worked for me. If you have suggestions or improvements, please let me know.

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© David Vincent Gagne, 2002. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: code, javascript, scripting, tutorial, web design

Blogging

dvg — Mon, 15 Oct 2001 19:25:00 +0000

I receive many messages similar to this one:

so what if I want to set up a blog and play with it for a bit before I publish it to the world? How would you recommend I go about that? Do I need my own domain and hosting service first?

Here’s what I can tell you. In order to have a blog, you need a place to *put* it first. (First you have to register your domain (e.g. myblog.com). That is done through a registrar. My favorite is dotster.com.) Once you have a domain registered, you have to have some web space on which to host your site. You do that with a host. That’s (basically) the computer on which your web site resides.

You don’t have to have your own domain, though. Most ISPs allow you some web space on which you can host a page. I think AOL does and I’m almost sure that Earthlink does, too. In that case you would have space at (for example) http://www.aol.com/yourusername/ and then you could put your blog there.

Blogger is a free service that provides both a blogging system and web space, through Blog*Spot. That’s probably the best place to go if you’re a beginner.

Obviously there’s a lot more to it than that, but hopefully that’s enough to get you started. If you’re interested in having your own blog, please let me know if I can help in any way.