Years ago, when I posted a tutorial for My Favorite Knot,
I thought it was a comically common thing to tutorialize. But, as that
knot has made my sewing much more pleasant, I figured, "Why not. It's
bound to help someone." To my surprise, that knot tutorial has sparked
the most passionate feedback. Most of you probably already knew how to
tie a tidy knot, but for those who didn't – ah, what a lifesaver!
Today, my March of the Tools tool is similarly basic. And though quite well-known amongst bloggers, it shouldn't go without lauding: Aggregators. There are bound to be a few dozen of you who don't know what you're missing out on. This post is for you.
If
you find yourself tediously entering and re-entering the URLs of your
favorite blogs throughout the day, just hoping that someone has posted
a new entry, read on. You need an aggregator. I currently use Bloglines.
Bloglines
is a free, online service that allows you to organize and monitor your
favorite blogs. When you are logged into your account, you
are able to see when new entries have been posted on each of the blogs
you 'subscribe' to. Subscribing to blogs is free and many blogs have a
"Subscribe in Bloglines" or "Subscribe to this Feed" button in their
sidebar to make the process even easier. 
(I
just fixed my Bloglines button – it wasn't working right for months —
yikes.) Otherwise, you can click on a blog's RSS feed icon in your
browser's address bar (usually looks like a little square with three
curved 'sound' bars radiating outward – example to the right). The RSS
icon will take you to the blog's RSS feed, where there are usually some
subscription options, including Bloglines. Here is what my RSS feed page looks like.
There are many similar services to Bloglines, such as Google Reader, My Yahoo, NewsFire, and many others. I've only ever used Bloglines, so I'm not too familiar with the alternatives. All such blog-subscribing services are called aggregators
(or feed-readers, rss readers, news readers, etc.). Using an
aggregator is an absolute life-saver if you're following a long list of
blogs on a regular basis. An aggregator enables you to compose a
virtual daily 'personal newspaper' of all of your favorite blog
'articles' (aka rss feeds or posts) which you can read one after the
other right there under your account — or you can click on a link to
each post if you prefer to read new posts in their original setting
within a blog (my preference).
A lot of info? Let me just say it
is totally worth looking into. The time you spend learning your way
around Bloglines or another aggregator will easily pay off in spades.
One hour learning how to use an aggregator could easily gain you three
hours more free time in the next week or two alone.
I knew about Bloglines long before I set up my own account. The day I finally did I was completely kicking myself for not doing it sooner. A seriously good tool.
(I'm
sure I'm preaching to the choir here. If you already use an
aggregator, help me convince everyone else how great they are! If you
recommend a different aggregator than Bloglines, tell us about it.)
