Managing Your Information Intake: Using a Feed Reader

Most of you probably read Keener Living, and other blogs, via a Feed Reader. For those who do not, this article shows you how to do it, and even provides a starter file you can import into a reader to get started.

A few neat things about feed readers:

• You don’t have to use any extra software. Google Reader, for example, works directly within your existing browser, whether you use Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, Opera, or whatever.
• It puts a lot of information in front of you in an easy-to-scan/skim format. You don’t have to view 50 different pages of 50 different blogs to find out what they are saying: you can see the headlines of each at a glance, and decide which you want to read (and which you don’t). This can be a huge time-saver.
• If you come across a new blog and want to add it to your “feeds,” you can do so easily. Almost all blogs let you subscribe to their feeds via a couple of mouse clicks. This is done through the use of RSS feeds (see this Wikipedia entry for a description of RSS). I presently have 202 feeds in my feed reader.

Here is a snapshot of the right pane of my feed reader, showing the headlines of several of the blogs I am following:

The above snapshot shows the List View mode of my reader. There is also an Expanded View, which is what I normally use … it shows the full articles and I use just use short-cut keys (j and k) to move through the articles. Here is a snapshot of this view, showing a couple of articles:

I personally use Google Reader, so my walkthrough will focus on it. If you already have a Google account for any of their products, such as Google Mail, then you already have a Google Reader account, too. You use the same sign-in for it as you do for Gmail. If not, you can set up an account very easily by just pointing your browser to http://www.google.com/reader and following the simple instructions.

Once you open up Google Reader, you will need to add some feeds to it. I make that easy for you by giving you a starter set of about 20 links. Just download the following to your computer: Sample Google Reader Feeds. Note: to keep it from loading into your browser, hold down the Control Key while you click the link (for Windows machines) … for Mac machines, hold down the Option Key while you click the link.

Then, from the top right hand side of Google Reader, click on the Settings link, and select the Import/Export option from that, as shown below:

Then just select your file using the Browse and Upload buttons, and you’re done. You now have the feeds from about 20 sites in your reader.

Adding subscriptions is easy. If you already know you want to add TechCrunch, for example, just click the Manage Subscriptions link in the left pane of the reader, type TechCrunch into the search box, and select a TechCrunch feed. You are then subscribed to TechCrunch.

Additionally, if you are visiting a site that you want to follow, look the site over to see if it has a subscribe button or link … almost all blogs do. Once you see such a link, you can click it and your browser will generally give you the option of which reader you want to use for subscription. I always choose Google Reader, because I can see no point in having multiple readers. In fact, you can choose Google Reader as your default, allowing you to bypass the “which reader” stuff.

Well, that’s it. Pretty straightforward stuff. Doing this can be a good time-saver for you, unless you load up your reader with so many feeds that it takes all of your time to read them. Finding the set of feeds that is right for you takes some time. I am still adding feeds from time to time, and still deleting some, too.

Any questions? For those who are already avid feed users, please chime in with anything I forgot to mention.