An Internet Purse

I’m not in the business of pushing products, but I’m making an exception. Understand that I am not getting anything from this product. I just think it’s a really useful and FREE internet service. It almost shut down, and I had a conniption fit. Not that my conniption had anything to do with saving it.
It’s kind of like a purse. Or accordion file folder.
And let me say, I’m picky about my purse. I loathe digging around in a bottomless pit passing itself off as a purse. I have to know where stuff is when I start fishing around for something without being able to look inside, like when I’m driving.
Ooooops. It’s not like texting!
Digging around and fishing for Web sites and blogs: You know the drill. You’ve got find the internet URL address, maybe in your Favorites or history; then you have to either register or sign in; then you can get e-mail from them or sign up for an RSS feed; then you’ve got 153 e-mails to sort through, which leaves no time for checking out your favorite sites and blogs.
Help in the Bottomless Pit
There’s help. It’s Bloglines, at http://www.bloglines.com/. You can stash all the stuff you want to skim or to read from the Web in one place, like in a purse with lots of compartments or in an accordion file folder, including most of your RSS feeds, Web addresses, and blogs.
You don’t download anything. You just go there and register. Then you set up your site by “subscribing” to your chosen Web sites, blogs, and RSS feeds; then they magically show up in the left file-folder column.
No fishing around for Web addresses. They’re located in one place. Alphabetically.
It looks like this:

Blogs
I’m way into made up words, so a New York Times blog called Shott’s Vocab,  is a favorite. I went to my Bloglines account and simply clicked on Shott’s Vocab, rather than do it the GSFCSC way:
Go to the New York Times site, click on Today’s Paper, sign in, go over to their left column, find “Blogs” and click on it, scroll down through the blogs, and FINALLY, click on Shott’s Vocab. A process I call GSFCSC! Which I just made up. Aaaarrrrghhh.
Today’s (11-18-10) word is one I want to use: sofalising. Really funny. So I went up to the Blogline tabs at the top of the left column and clicked on “Clippings,” where I put that sofalising piece from Shott’s. Aaaaahhhhh!
Sites
Some of my favorite blogs and sites, like SpaceWeather.com and Refdesk.com, don’t have RSS feeds and cannot be added to my Bloglines list. I got on their e-mail subscription lists, which lets me decide whether to go to the actual site to see something of interest. But more and more internet and Web sites have RSS feeds and can be added to your Bloglines list. The Pew Research Center, for example, often has interesting news and information and has an RSS feed, which means I can add it to my Bloglines list. I did, in fact, add it.
Try it out. If you like it, how about adding http://www.spittingrits.blogspot.com. Thanks.

Technorati Tags: Bloglines.com,RSS feeds,Shott's Vocab