Sharp Readers and Firey Foxes

I have a new toy. It's name is SharpReader and it simplifies my morning chores by going around all my favorite blogs to see if there are any updates. Since the number of blogs that I watch is increasing all the time, SharpReader saves me an enormous amount of time - I no longer have to load each blog into the browser to look for updates.

That SharpReader can do this is entirely due to something called RSS. Apparently, there are two schools of thought on just what RSS stands for - we can take our pick from "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary". Either way, RSS is a system that lists the pages on a website so that we can find the one we want to read. The owner of the website can set the RSS "feed" (as it's called) to show all pages or just a limited number, either specific or date-related.

There are two disadvantages to the system. Not all websites are RSS-enabled so there might be some blogs that I will not be able to add to SharpReader's list of sites to watch. I am fortunate in that, so far, all my favorite sites are enabled.

The other problem is that not all web browsers understand RSS. And Internet Explorer happens to be one that doesn't. The browser I use, Mozilla Firefox, is RSS-aware and so I don't have the problem. Those who use IE have two possibilities if they want to use RSS. They can either get SharpReader and use it to read the RSS feeds from their favorite sites, then loading IE when an update is notified, or they could get both Firefox and SharpReader, letting both access the RSS feeds so that they can be used appropriately (SharpReader is good for update notification, Firefox for site navigation).

Using Firefox, it is easy to see if a site is RSS-enabled. In the bottom right corner of the browser window a small orange and white icon will appear. Clicking on this icon gives one the option of adding the RSS feed to the browser's bookmarks. Running the pointer over the relevant bookmark thereafter will produce a list of the pages on the site so that one can go directly to the page required, rather than having to scroll or click through others.

So that's my advice for today. Get Firefox and a newsreader (SharpReader happens to be the first I tried - but it works well enough and does everything I want it to)! They're both free, by the way.