Tag: OPML

bookmark_borderCatching up

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Having been off ill for a couple of weeks, almost completely off-line for that time, I’m still catching up with work and my blog reading. The beauty of monitoring RSS feeds is that all I need to do is check through my unread items list in Google Reader and, finally, it’s approaching zero.

Over on the right you can download a file which contains links to all the RSS feeds I monitor (it’s an OPML file and most RSS feed reading applications will be able to import it). That said I am always on the lookout for more good quality blogs in the area of technical communications, design, information development and anything else that may be of interest. If you have any favourites you think I, and everyone else, would enjoy, please let me know by leaving a comment.

There is another reason for this, namely that I’m about to start writing a monthly summary of what is going on in the technical communications blogosphere. And that’s the last time I’ll be using that horrible word.

bookmark_borderSyndicate

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RSS, Atom, feed readers, news readers, syndication, XML, and a few other terms aside, what’s it all about?

Prompted by Lyle finally adding an Atom feed, and this post by the venerable Mr.Sippey, I’ve been delving into this whole thing again.

And once again the ‘simplest’ way for me would be to export my blogrolls to OPML and then import those OPML files into a feed reader (FeedDemon, SharpReader or FeedReader for example). But no, you can’t as the blogroll OPML files aren’t ‘standard’ and appear to hold no information. Arse.

Anyway I’m going to continue with this I think, as I’m getting hacked off missing posts and news stories because I am searching them out, let them come to me!

Ohh and with that in mind, I’ve been checking out FeedBurner which looks to make the whole thing a lot simpler for everyone.

Time for a little more research methinks, but for now you can subscribe to my (Feedburner) feed.

bookmark_borderLastest greatest?

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I can’t keep up.

Orkut, Kinja, Bloglines, GMail, the list goes on, and doesn’t seem to be slowing any. I’ve signed up to all of the aforementioned services (except Gmail as it ain’t open yet) but I’m beginning to question why.

I’ve rarely looked back at Orkut after the initial 2-3 week novelty period wore off. Kinja looks interesting but has been launched too soon in my opinion (might be the ‘stayer’ of the bunch though) although that hasn’t stopped me signing up there. Bloglines I came across a while ago and only revisited over the last month as the number of referrers from it are steadily rising.

Orkut aside, the big problem I have with Kinja and Bloglines isn’t the services themselves. It’s the moving from one service to another that is the problem, particularly if you try and go from Blogrolling.com to anything else… ohh sure you can ‘backup’ your blogroll but the OPML file doesn’t seem to be formatted properly. Well, FeedDemon doesn’t like it, Kinja sort of liked it, and Bloglines ignored it completely.

How the hell are we supposed to keep up with all this?

UPDATE: Blog-Bleary article.

Of course it’s a good sign that these things are moving on a pace once more. The dotcom ‘blip’ appears to have passed and slow, steady recovery the name of the game for the survivors. Add to this the momentum being gained by that whole RSS thang, and it’s no wonder there are many good applications out there trying to grab our attention.

Which one will win? I don’t know, but I think I’ll just wait until the field has narrowed down a bit before I saunter in.